DEVELOPMENT OF AN INTERACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT USING COMPUTER ANIMATION

ABSTRACT

This study is aimed at developing an interactive and intuitive learning environment with the use of computer animation in Nigeria Schools. In this case we examined 12 Senior Secondary School pupils in Year 1 in University of Benin Demonstration Secondary School (UDSS) who offer Computer Studies and grouped them into three groups, each group was given a topic for evaluation and further divided into 2 sub divisions (Set A and Set B). The moderating effect on mental ability were also investigated. In this study a random secondary school was selected from the 540 secondary schools in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. The Three (3) groups were given any of the following topics to work on, which were; How Internet works, Computer Virus and Programming languages. Set A in any of the three groups used Animation contents on the Group topic, while Set B used traditional teaching style (the use of related textbooks to the topics chosen) to learn, a static time duration was given to both Sets. The pretest-posttest, mean, standard deviation and percentage ratio were adopted for this study. The scores were recorded and for all three groups, the collected data was analyzed to determine whether there was a significant difference in the performance of the students who learn using content with animations and the ones who use content without animations (using related textbooks). The findings from the study showed that learning outcomes for students who used the interactive digital content with animations improved significantly, where the mean ratio for the experimental group (Set A) exceeded those of the control group (Set B). It is therefore recommended that content developers should design, develop, produce and disseminate interactive digital content with quality animations embedded in it to help learners, students conceptualize abstract concepts, laws, theories and principles found in the subject matter. Therefore, computer animation is recommended as a means of teaching Computer Studies to students in Nigerian secondary schools.