Open AccessEffect of Instructional Medium on Students’ Performance: A Comparison of Reading and Oral Instruction in Nigeria
Author(s) -
Katrina A. Korb,
Binfa Kelvin Gono,
Samuel Adekunle Jinadu,
Abangom Ruth John,
Gabriel N. Mwoltu,
Rimdan Nanle Oona
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
makerere journal of higher education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2707-6113
pISSN - 1816-6822
DOI - 10.4314/majohe.v7i2.7
Subject(s) - reading (process) , storytelling , curriculum , test (biology) , mathematics education , content (measure theory) , pedagogy , psychology , computer science , literature , narrative , linguistics , philosophy , art , mathematics , paleontology , mathematical analysis , biology
Nigeria has a rich oral tradition. In the pre-literate Nigerian culture, knowledge and wisdom were shared through the oral methods of proverbs and storytelling. However, in modern formal education, knowledge is communicated largely through text. The purpose of this paper was to compare students’ performance based on these instructional mediums. Two studies using a between-subjects experimental design were conducted among Nigerian university students. Both studies included two conditions: lecture (oral) and reading (text). In both conditions, the same content was presented. In the reading condition, students read the content as an article whereas in the lecture condition, students listened to the content as a lecture. Post-test examination performance was then compared. Both experiments found that reading resulted in considerably higher academic performance than lecturing.Keywords: Instructional medium; Curriculum innovation; Teaching and learning