EFFECT OF GUIDED-DISCOVERY METHOD ON STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING FOR SKILLS ACQUISITION

Abstract

The study mainly determined the effect of guided-discovery method on students’ interest in financial accounting for skills acquisition.The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design.The population for the study comprised 667 NCE I students offering financial accounting in nine colleges of education in North West, Nigeria.Random sampling technique was used to select Federal College of Education, Kano and Kaduna State College of Education, Gidan-Waya, Kafanchan.Eighty financial accounting students from KSCOE, Gidan-waya and sixty financial accounting students in FCE Kano were used.The criteria for selecting the two colleges of education was based on colleges of education with approved financial accounting programme with final account of small scale enterprise, available qualified financial accounting lecturers, andapproved required facilities.The instrument for data collection was a 25 items five-point likert scale response of Financial Accounting Interest Inventory Scale (FAIIS).The instrument was subjected to face and content validation by three experts.The Reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha Coefficient formula which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.91.Before the commencement of the experiment, all students both in experimental and control groups were subjected to pre-test in order to obtain the pre-scores for the study.On completion of the experiment, post-test and post post-test scores were collected two weeks after the post-test.The data collected were analyzed using mean to answer the research questions while ANCOVA statistics were used for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.Based on the data collected and analyzed, and results interpreted, the study found that guided-discovery method significantly increased students’interestin trading account, profit and loss account and balance sheet of small scale enterprise.There was significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students taught with guided-discovery method and those taught with conventional method.Based on the findings of the study, it was recommendedamong others, that seminar, workshop and conferences should be organized by the educational administrators and ministry of education where colleges of education lecturers will be trained on the use and application of guided-discovery method for effective teaching and learning of financial accounting, and that colleges of education lecturers in the country should be provided with required in-service training for skills update in the use of modern and students-centred methods of instruction such guided-discovery.

Key words: Guided-discovery method, lecture method, students’ interest, financial accounting, and skill acquisition.