MOBILE PHONES USAGE AS SCAFFOLDING STRATEGY FOR CHILDREN’S ACQUISITION OF NUMERIC SKILLS IN PUBLIC EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTRES IN SOKOTO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of using mobile phones to scaffold the acquisition of number skills among children in public early childhood education schools. The study has four objectives, four research questions and four null hypotheses. The experiment lasted for four weeks using two groups of 80 children each selected from 10 public ECE schools located within Sokoto metropolis. One group was labeled as the experimental group and was taught number counting using mobile phones and the other group was labeled as the control group and was taught the same content using the traditional chalk and talk method. The t-test statistics was used in the analysis of data. The result revealed the existence of significant mean difference in the ability to identify and count numbers between pupils in the two groups, with pupils in the treatment group performing better. The result also shows that there is statistically significant difference in the ability to identify or count numbers between male and female children in ECE schools. Generally, the result indicated that teaching numeric skills using mobile phones as a scaffolding strategy is more effective than the using the traditional chalk and talk method. The study recommends among other things that, teachers in public ECE schools in Sokoto state should endeavor to use scaffolding strategies in order to foster learning in terms of developing numeric skills among children. Equally, the Sokoto state government should equip all public ECE schools in the state with modern technological tools and ECE teachers should be given free smart mobile phones as motivational incentives to facilitate the use of such devices for effective instructional delivery.