Extent of availability and usage of various laboratory equipment among physics students' in Port-Harcourt, Nigeria

This study investigated the availability and usage of laboratory equipment among physics students’ in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was used for this study. To guide this work, four research questions were stated. The population of the study covers all SS2 students offering physics in Port Harcourt. A sample size of 390 physics students selected through simple random sampling technique were used for the study. A questionnaire titled “ Extent of Availability and Utilization of Laboratory Equipment for physics Instruction Questionnaire (EAULEPIQ)” was used for the study for compliance of respondents .The data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer all the 4 research questions. Findings from this study showed that availability and utilization of laboratory equipment for learning physics are at low extent and this is unethical for Physics instructional practices. As a result the following recommendations among others were made: the state Government and all educational stakeholders should ensure that adequate laboratory equipment are supplied to all physics laboratories in all secondary schools; also the state educational board should always organize physics practical inter school competitions where winners will go with enviable prizes, this will motivate teachers and students to always use laboratory equipment for instruction thereby producing physics students that are competent in their use of it for easy understanding of concepts and simplifying abstract concepts in physics. When this is achieved, incompetence in the use of laboratory equipment will be overcome by physics students thereby improving performance.