Effect of Multimedia Instruction on Secondary School Students’ Acquisition of Science Process Skills in Enugu Education Zone

This research examined the impact of multimedia-based teaching on secondary school student’s acquisition of science process skills within the Enugu Education Zone. The study was guided by two research questions while six null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study was anchored on two theories namely, Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML) and Jerome Brunner’s Theory. Pretest-posttest non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental design was employed. 1,577 Senior Secondary 2 (SS2) chemistry students in Enugu Education Zone was the target population, from which a sample of 160 students was selected. Instrument for data collection was Science Process Skills Acquisition Test (SPSAT), which was validated by three experts. The reliability of the SPSAT was determined using the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) which resulted in a reliability coefficient of 0.74. Over a six-week period, the experimental group was taught specific chemistry concepts using multimedia instruction (MI), while the control group received instruction on the same concepts through the conventional method (CM). Research questions were addressed using mean and standard deviation, and the null hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The results indicated that multimedia instruction significantly improved students' acquisition of science process skills compared to the conventional method. Based on these findings, it was recommended that chemistry teachers, students, and curriculum developers should integrate multimedia instruction as a teaching strategy, as it has proven more effective in enhancing students' acquisition of science process skills and overall academic performance in chemistry than the conventional approach.