The effectiveness of instructional materials in 21st century classrooms and learners' academic outcome

The global quest for quality education and the promotion of 21st century skills learners (UNESCO, 2OO2) has necessitated educational stakeholders to introduce teaching aids that would stimulate students’ apprehension for eventual outcome that satisfies educational goals. Many teachers in Cameroon still depend on conventional teaching methods at the expense of modern instructional tools intended to increase learners’ engagement. This paper therefore sets to assess the effectiveness of instructional materials in the classroom and how it contributes significantly to learners’ academic outcome. This took us to critically review literature on the concept of instructional materials in the teaching-learning process. The theory of experimental learning was used to demonstrate how such materials leads to increase learners’ reflection and creativity. It employs a pure quantitative approach and made use of the correlation research design. The sample size considered for this study was 92 students selected from two secondary schools in the Yaoundé II sub Division of Mfoundi Division, Centre region of Cameroon. The data was presented on tables and analysed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results shows a significant value 0.76 with a percentage score of 71.6. The findings reveal that most schools do not have adequate instructional tools to support learning and that teachers still face difficulty in effectively using instructional tools for an interactive classroom. We therefore suggested that (1) teachers should be trained on the effective usage of modern instructional materials to influence student learning outcome and governments and (2) schools should provide funds for the acquisition of instructional tools.