ROLE OF CAI ON THE INTEREST AND RETENTION OF STUDENTS AT SECONDARY SCHOOL LEVEL

The researcher investigated the role of computer assisted instructions on the interest and retention of secondary school students. It was an experimental study conducted on the 80 female students of St.Helen High School. The sample was divided into control and experimental groups on the basis of pre-test. One group (Control) was taught the course contents of physics with the traditional lecture method and the other group (experimental) was taught with the computer assisted instructions. After one month treatment both the groups wereexposed to interest inventory. To check the retention a delayed post-test (retention test) was administered six weeks after the post-test. The results shows that in the computer assisted instructions the students showed more interest and they retained the concepts for a long period of time as compared to the traditional lecture method. When the location (Rural and Urban) differences were analyzed the result shows that there were significant location differences onthe interest but not on retention of students.