THE EFFECTS OF RELEVANCE AND ORGANIZATION OF COURSE CONTENT
ON ACHIEVEMENT IN CAMEROON SECONDARY SCHOOLS

        John Nkemnji
(1988 Ph.D. Dissertation Abstract - UT Austin)

    Intrigued both by student failure and societal disappointments in the rewards of formal education, (especially in Cameroon where the researcher has been both a student and teacher),  a set of hypotheses and research questions were generated for testing -- six hypotheses were tested.  Four of the hypotheses have been retained and two have been rejected. The study empirically tested the effects of relevance (and organization) of course content on achievement.  Subjects  (N=102)were secondary education students in Cameroon.  The educational system there follows a British and French model with little consideration of Cameroon's significant differences in available resources, societal structure, culture, and technical development. One hundred and two Form II students (about 9th. grade equivalent in the American system) were assigned randomly to four experimental treatment groups.  Lectures presented to subjects in the four groups were designed to reflect the following experimental conditions:

   (a). Explicitly relevant/intentionally organized content
   (b).  Implicitly relevant/intentionally organized content
   (c).  Explicitly relevant/incidentally organized content
   (d).  Implicitly relevant/incidentally organized content

    Subjects in the groups listened to, and watched a twenty-minute tape-recorded lesson, accompanied by slides on a common topic.  The content was identical for all experimental treatments except for the manipulation of factors of relevance and organization.  Student achievement was measured using an immediate and a delayed posttest designed to cover lesson concepts and objectives.  There was no pretest; however, subjects were pre-assessed following their responses to an item on the questionnaire.  Subjects completed two sets of questionnaires for statistical and demographic purposes.

    Results of the study, using a factorial ANOVA design, and the cross tabulation method of analysis, yielded asignificant effect (p<.01) for explicit relevance and intentional organization.  Interaction was found between relevance and organization.  Explicit relevance and intentional organization correlated with high motivation for learning. Student evaluation of lesson content indicated higher ratings for explicitly relevant and intentionally organized content. No other statistically significant results were obtained. Findings about the variable of relevance-of-lesson-content provided the first empirical verification of a practical theory.  The results are discussed in relationship to instructional theory, to probable effectiveness of lesson and textbook emphases, and to teaching.


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