Instructional Materials Usage and Learner’s Academic Performance in Rwanda Secondary Schools

The effective usage of instructional materials plays a significant role in the promotion of academic performance among leaners in schools. The purpose of this study therefore, sought to determine the correlation between instructional materials usage and students' academic performance in day and boarding schools of Ngororero District in Rwanda. Correlation research design was employed. The target population was 868 people with the sample size of 274 respondents. Questionnaire, interview guide and documentation were used during data collection where IBM SPSS software was involved in data analysis. The findings revealed there is poor use of audio materials in both boarding and day schools considering the grand means of 2.57 and 2.36 which are interpreted as low means. It was noted that the performance in boarding schools is good on high level comparing to that of day schools where for boarding schools the mean is 2.84 while in day schools the mean is 2.64. It was also found that there is a positive correlation between instructional materials and performance of students in Ngororero District whereby the correlation value is 0.484 and the tabulated p-value of 0.002 which is below the significance value of 0.05. The study recommends that educational planners introduce instructional materials that are in line with the use of technology in education, keeping in mind that some day schools are in remote areas where there is no internet connectivity. Educational stakeholders are recommended to collaborate with families of students in order to avail the necessary resources to improve instructional materials, especially in day schools. A vigorous follow-up on how instructional materials are maintained and how they are used should be an integrated part of inspections. Keywords: Instructional materials, academic performance, basic education, and secondary schools