BEYOND CONVENTIONAL TEACHING: A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON IMPLEMENTING COLLABORATIVE ONLINE LEARNING IN COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION FOR NCE STUDENTS

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of Collaborative Online Learning (COL) on the academic achievement and interest of Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) II Computer Science students in Kaduna State, Nigeria. The study adopted a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test non-equivalent control group design. The population comprised 2,510 NCE II students offering Computer Science in Colleges of Education in Kaduna State. A sample of 100 NCE II Computer Science students was selected from two intact classes using purposive sampling to select the institutions and intact class sampling to select the participating classes. Data were collected using a Computer Science Achievement Test (CSAT) and a Computer Science Interest Scale (CSIS), with reliability coefficients of 0.84 and 0.86, respectively. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that students exposed to COL had higher achievement and interest than those taught using the conventional instructional approach. For interest, the COL group recorded a higher mean score (M = 3.67) than the conventional group (M = 2.70). The ANCOVA results indicated a statistically significant effect of COL on students’ academic achievement, F(1, 97) = 68.42, p < .001, and interest, F(1, 97) = 74.15, p < .001. The study concluded that COL is an effective instructional approach for improving Computer Science achievement and interest among NCE II students. It recommended that Computer Science lecturers in Colleges of Education should integrate structured collaborative online learning activities into their teaching and provide students with appropriate digital resources, technical support, and opportunities for meaningful online collaboration.