The study determined the relative effectiveness of constructivism and meta-learning teaching methods on academic achievement and retention of basic electricity among Technical College students. A quasi-experimental research design was adopted. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 108 students from four technical colleges in Anambra State. Two technical colleges each were randomly selected to experimental group one and other two technical colleges to experimental group two. Experimental group one used constructivism teaching method while the experimental group two used meta-learning teaching method. The instrument for data collection was Basic Electricity Achievement Test (BEAT). BEAT was developed by the researchers and validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Kuder Richardson 20 formula was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which yielded reliability co-efficient of 0.87. Data collected for the study were analyzed using mean for research questions and ANCOVA for null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that constructivism teaching method had a significant effect on students’ achievement when compared to meta-learning teaching method. Also the study showed that meta-learning teaching method had a significant effect on students’ retention ability. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that teachers of basic electricity should adopt the teaching methods that incorporate constructivism teaching method and meta-learning teaching method in teaching and learning of basic electricity in order to enhance knowledge mastery and retention among students.
Keywords: Academic Achievement, Basic Electricity, Constructivism, Meta-learning, Retention, Technical Colleges
