VIRTUAL AND FACE-TO-FACE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS IN MKPAT ENIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA

The study was carried out to examine the effect of virtual and face-to-face instructional strategies and students' academic performance in Mathematics in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area. In order to achieve this purpose, three objectives, three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The design for the study was quasiexperimental design. The population of the study comprised all the 1740 Senior Secondary two (SS2 Students in the sixteen (16) public secondary schools in the study area. The sample size of this study was one hundred (100) SS2 students drawn from two schools with two intact classes in the study area. Simple random sampling technique was used for the selection. The researcher developed an instrument tagged "Mathematics Performance Test (MPT)" to obtain data for the study. The instrument was subjected to face and content validity. A reliability coefficient of 0.86 was obtained for the instrument using Kuder-Richardson 20 formula. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while independent t-test was used for testing the hypotheses. The findings of this study showed that there is significant difference in the mean performance scores of students in Mathematics taught using virtual and face-to-face instructional strategies; there is no significant difference in the mean performance scores of male and female students in Mathematics taught using virtual instructional strategy; and there is no significant difference in the mean performance scores of male and female students in Mathematics taught using face-to-face instructional strategy. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that virtual instructional strategy enhances students' academic performance in Mathematics more than the face-to-face instructional strategy in Mkpat Enin Local Government Area. It was recommended among others that, seminars, workshops and conferences should be organized by the state ministries of education to train teachers on the use of virtual instructional strategy for teaching Mathematics concepts