Abstract:
The purpose of this study were twofold : to construct a set of transparencies, specially focusing on the curriculum areas of classification numbers, call numbers and book-shelving in the use of books and libraries course of upper secondary students; and to compare the achievement and retention of upper secondary students in learning the use of books and libraries with and without transparencies that specially constructed in the curriculum areas cited above. The population used for research consisted of sixty students in Matayom Suksa IV in the Wat Bavornmongkol School, who were in attendance during the first semester of the 1979 academic year. Selection of the population was decided by the final scores in Matayom Suksa III. The scores were stratified and selected into two groups, the experimental and control groups with thirty students in each group. Thus the arithmetic means and variances of both groups were similar. Research tool used were 25 handmade transparencies composed of pictures and captions and a set of achievement tests composed of 40 items. The experimental group was taught by lecture method accompanied by specially prepared transparencies; while the control group was taught by lecture method accompanied by charts. Two tests used to measure achievements were constructed and taken on trials to assure validity and reliability before the experiment was conducted. Pre-tests and post-tests were given to the experimental and control groups, and retention tests were given to both groups four weeks after the immediate performance. Determination of the significant differences of the arithmetic means was done by the t-test at the .05 level. The conclusions are: 1. The effectiveness of transparencies as evaluated by the experts was in good level (89.00 percent). 2. Learning with and without transparencies effected both experimental and control groups on more knowledge gained, for the arithmetic means of the pre-test and post-test scores of both groups were significant differences at the .05 level. 3. Learning with transparencies heightened the achievement capacity more than learning without transparencies, for there were significant differences at the .05 level between the post-test scores of the experimental and control groups. 4. Learning with and without transparencies did not effect higher retention in one month, for there were no significance differences at the .05 level between the post-test scores and retention scores of both the experimental and control groups, but learning with transparencies still effected higher achievement for there were significant differences at the .05 level between the retention test scores of the experimental and control groups. The recommendation is that transparencies should be constructed and utilized in other areas of the course on instruction of library use, taking into considerations the appropriate contents and time required for the application of each.