The impact of physics laboratory on students offering physics in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State

The impact of Physics laboratory on students was carried out among senior secondary school students offering Physics in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State using descriptive survey. Five public schools were random-even samplying technique was adopted for precision. Fifty questionnaires were distributed to students in each school, making it a total of 250 students in all schools and retrieved immediately to avoid alteration of information. Percentage analysis was to evaluate the collected data. The findings revealed that physics laboratory helps in the teaching of physics students in senior secondary schools, in Ethiope West L.G.A. of Delta State, because 80.4% of the respondents agreed to the statement while 19.6% disagreed. Also, 87.2% accepted that physics practical improve learning that stimulate positive impact while 12.8% disagreed. 92.2%, 75.9% and 88.3% agreed while 7.8%, 24.1% and 11.7% disagreed with the statements; there is a significant relationship between students and teachers during experimental classes, physics laboratory helps to inculcate scientific reasoning among physics students and physics laboratory enhances students’ performance in physics in senior secondary schools in Ethiope West L.G.A. of Delta State respectively.


INTRODUCTION
Science is the tap root upon which the bulk of present day technological breakthrough is built.All over the world, nations including Nigeria are striving hard to develop technologically and scientifically, since the world is turning scientific and all the proper functioning of lives depend greatly on science.Ogunleye (2000) observed that science is a dynamic human activity concern with understanding the working of our world.Owolabi (2004) defined science as an integral part of human society.Its impact is felt in every sphere of human life, so much that it is intricately linked with a nation's development.Science as a field of study is divided into other discipline such as Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
Physics as one of the branches of science is one of the science subjects in the secondary school curriculum, like other subjects, it performs some vital roles which help in the achievement of some national goals.In fact, physics is the basic science subject that deals with those *Corresponding author.E-mail: adrian4ist2007@gmail.com Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License fundamental questions on the structure of matter and interaction of elementary constituents of nature that are susceptible to experimental investigation and theoretically inquiry.
Physics as one of the science subject has remained one of the most difficult subject in the school curriculum (NERDC, 2004).A study by Owolabi (2004) revealed that the performance of Nigeria student in ordinary level Physics was generally poor, which he attributed to many factors including teaching strategy; it was consider as an important factor.Jegede et al. (1992) reported factors responsible for student general poor performance in Physics as; poor laboratory facilities, inability of the physics teacher to put across ideas clearly to the students and inadequate numbers of learning facilities in school as against consistent increase in the number of students.
Physics as a science subject is activity oriented and the suggested method for teaching it which is guided discovery method is resource base (NTI, 2007).This suggests that the mastery of physics concepts cannot be fully achieved without the use of the laboratory.The teaching of physics without learning materials (laboratory equipment), will certainly result to poor performance in the subject.
The laboratory consists of various tools and equipment used by scientists/science students either for the finding of new knowledge or to ascertain previous findings.Physics laboratory is a place where different types of experiment and researches concerning all the discipline of physics take place.Physics laboratory has been described as a room or a building specially built for teaching by demonstration of theoretical phenomenon into practical terms.Laboratories have been found to be the scientist workshops where practical activities are conducted to enhance a meaningful learning of science concept and theories (Seweje, 2000;Oluber and Unyimadu, 2001).They have also been found to be a primary vehicle for promoting formal reasoning skill and students understanding, thereby enhancing desired learning out come in students (Ogunleye, 2002).
The laboratory has helped in increasing the performance of students in learning and understanding the subject physics.Beside, researchers have found science laboratories to be central to the teaching of physics in secondary schools that is why we have to consider this work "The Impact of physics Laboratory on students offering physics in Ethiope West Local Government Area of Delta State".

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Throughout the years, developing countries performance in physics among Senior Secondary School students has not being encouraging hence thorough investigation into the factors that could be responsible for the poor performance of students in physics need to be conducted.
To guide the study, some questions need to be asked in order to have a critical look at the Impact of Physics

Significance of the study
The findings from this study will pre-informed and post inform counselors, teachers curriculum planners, school administrators and the government, the problem facing student in the study of Physics.This would enable them take quick actions in view of this problem that has emanated.Parents/ Guardians would also get to know the problem encountered by their children and help them to correct these challenges.Hopefully the students would come out successfully in their various schools examination in physics.

METHODOLOGY
The research design, population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, research instrument, validity of the instrument, method of data collection and method of data analysis will be discuss below:

Research design
The design of the study is descriptive survey, because it is only interested in describing and collecting data on facts about "The impact of physics laboratory on students offering physics in Ethiope West Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State in Nigeria".

Population of the study
The population of the study consists of five public secondary schools in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State with 2500 numbers of students.

Sample and sampling techniques
The simple was drawn from five (5) secondary schools in Ethiope West Local Government Area.A total of Two hundred and fifty (250) students were randomly selected from the five (5).The five (5) schools were selected for an even spread.

Research Instrument
The research instrument used for the study was structured students questionnaire (SSQ).The questionnaire consists of 18 items constructed on a two point scare."YES" or "NO".It was divided into section A and B. Section A dealt with background information: the name of the school, Age, Sex and the present class.Section B solicited for the information on the "The Impact of physics laboratory on students offering physics as a subject".The questionnaire designed with 18 items covering all areas of how physics laboratory contributes to the learning of physics among secondary schools students.

Validity of the Instrument (SSQ)
The instrument was validated by experts in physics who ascertain whether the questions were relevant, clear and unambiguous, and also if the items were sufficiently inclusive of major factor that lead to the effective "Impact of physics laboratory on student offering physics in senior secondary school in Ethiope West L.G.A.

Method of data collection
The questionnaire was distributed by the researcher to the students Oluwasegun et al. 953 (respondents) in the selected senior secondary schools in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State.The questionnaire was administered to them to tick their responses and they were also collected immediately to avoid alteration.Two hundred and fifty questionnaires were administrated and recovered.

Method of data analysis
The response to the items posed in the questionnaire were collected and tabulated with regards to the response from each school, in order to answer each research question.In the analysis of the data collected simple percentage was used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section is concerned with the analysis of data collected from the five senior secondary schools.The summary tables show the results of the analysis, while all the calculations leading to the results are in the appendices section of this work.

Research questions 1
Does physics laboratory help in the teaching of physics in senior secondary school in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State?
The responses used in analyzing this research questions are item 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the students' questionnaire.The responses of the five secondary schools are shown in Table 1.

Research question 2
Does physics practical improve learning that stimulates positive impact towards the study of physics in Ethiope West L.G.A. of Delta State?
The responses used in analysing this research question are item 5, 6, and 7 of the students' questionnaire.The responses of the five secondary schools are shown in Table 2.

Research question 3
Is there any significant relationship between students and teachers during Physics practical classes in Ethiope West L.G.A. of Delta State?This responses used in analyzing this research question are item 8, 9, 10, 11 of the students questionnaire.The responses of the five secondary schools are shown in Table 3.

Research question 5
Does physics laboratory enhance the students'

Conclusion
Based on the finding of the study, the following conclusions are drawn.
-The non-availability of laboratory equipment has great effect on the performance level of students' in schools.
-Students' interests or motivation for the subject is affected by the numbers of practical classes they are exposed to, per week.
-Students' acquisition of skills is enhanced by their participation in practical classes.
-There are inadequate laboratory equipment in most of the secondary schools in Ethiope west L.G.A.
Laboratory on Students Offering physics in Ethiope West L.G.A. of Delta State The purpose of the research study is to identify the factors that affect students' performance in physics among senior secondary school students in Ethiope West Local Government area of Delta State. 1.To improve learning that stimulates positive impact towards the study of physics in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State.2. To inculcate scientific reasoning among Physics students in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State.3. To build a relationship between students and Physics teachers during lesson in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State.4. Most importantly to enhance performance in Physics, among Senior Secondary School students in Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State.
This research work is the impact of laboratory equipment on student performance in physics among secondary school students in Ethiope West Local Government area of Delta State, is restricted to only five secondary schools in the L.G.A.
reasoning among Physics students in Ethiope West Local Government area of Delta State?The responses used in analyzing this research question are items 12, 13, 14, and 15 of the students' questionnaire.The responses of the five secondary schools are shown Table 4.

Table 5 .
Mustapha (2002)ses.The finding in Table5reveals that physics laboratory enhances students' performance in physics in senior secondary schools, in Ethiope West L.G.A., the table discloses that 88.3% are in agreement while 11.7% opposed the statement.This also helps to authenticate the works of Adam (1988) andMustapha (2002)which state the importance of practical activities in school, that provides learners with the opportunities to use scientific equipment to develop basic manipulative skills and practice investigative or inquiry activities and develop problem solving attitudes needed for future work in science.