Influence of cognitive styles on technical drawing students’ achievements in senior secondary school in Federal Capital Territory [FCT] Abuja

Abstract

There are different cognitive strategies for processing information which in turn influence students’ academic achievement. This paper reports an investigation of cognitive styles and achievement scores of secondary school students. In the study, the standardised Group Embedded Figures Test was used to determine the influence of student’s cognitive styles on Technical Drawing students’ achievement in Senior Secondary Schools in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. A research question and null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The design of the study was a causal comparative or (expost-facto) design. The sample for the study consisted of 87 Senior Secondary School Two (SSSII) Technical Drawing students drawn from the three sampled schools in three Area Councils of FCT. The students were categorized into three groups based on Group embedded figure test (GEFT). The instrument used for data collection was Technical Drawing Achievement test (TDAT). The instrument was face and content validated by three Technical Drawing Lecturers and two experts in Measurement and Evaluation. The reliability coefficient of Basic Electricity Achievement Test (BEAT) was established using Kuder- Richardson formula 20 (K-R20) and this yielded an index of 0.69. Data were analyzed with mean, standard deviation and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results of the study revealed that cognitive style significantly influenced students’ achievements in Technical Drawing. Recommendations made among others were that students’ cognitive styles be adopted for effective teaching of Technical Drawing in Secondary Schools