The study was conducted to ascertain the effect of collaborative learning strategy on office technology and management students’ academic achievement and interest in office management. Two specific purposes, research questions and null hypotheses were carefully developed to guide the study. In carrying out this study, a quasi experimental design was adopted which involved both treatment and control groups to be used intact since no randomization was needed. The population of the study comprised of NCE III students. Two colleges of education were selected through a purposive sampling technique. One group comprising of 34 students of both male and female was assigned to the treatment group and the other group made up of 26 students was assigned to the control group. An instructional package was developed for each of the groups. Package for the treatment group was the collaborative learning strategy while the package for the control group was individualized learning method. Data were collected with the aid of two instruments namely: Office Management Achievement Test (OMAT) and the Office Management Interest Inventory (OMII). Both instruments were validated and necessary adjustments made. The internal consistency testing of OMAT using K-R20 yielded a reliability index of 0.94. Also, Cronbach alpha of 0.94 was obtained from the reliability testing of OMII. Data for the two research questions that guided the study were answered using mean and standard deviation. On the other hand, the two hypotheses that guided the study were tested using ANCOVA. The results revealed that collaborative learning strategy has a strong positive effect on Office Technology and Management Students’ Academic Achievement and Interest in Office Management. Collaborative learning strategy, in this study, is better than the individualized learning method in enhancing both male and female students’ academic achievement and interest. Therefore, the study recommended among others that curriculum planners should integrate the collaborative learning strategy into the office management curriculum because of its effectiveness in enhancing students’ academic achievement and interest in the course. College management should train and retrain office management lecturers on ways of adopting and effectively using collaborative learning strategy in learning.
Keywords: Academic Achievement, Interest, Office Management, collaborative learning strategy, office technology and management
