Effect of Exit-Tickets Instructional Strategy on Secondary School Students’ Academic Performance in English Language in Taraba State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of the Exit-Tickets instructional strategy on secondary school students' academic performance in English Language in Taraba State, Nigeria. The study was motivated by the persistent concern over students' low achievement in English Language and the limited empirical evidence on the effectiveness of Exit-Tickets as a formative assessment strategy in Nigerian secondary schools, particularly in Taraba State. A quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test non-equivalent control group design was adopted. The population comprised all Senior Secondary School II (SSS II) students offering English Language in public secondary schools in Taraba State during the 2024/2025 academic session. A sample of 240 students, determined using the Taro Yamane (1967) formula and selected through a multistage sampling technique, participated in the study. Data were collected using the English Language Achievement Test (ELAT), validated by experts, with reliability established using Cronbach's Alpha. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while Paired simple t-test and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) tested the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that students taught using the Exit-Tickets instructional strategy achieved significantly higher academic performance than those taught using the conventional teaching method. The study concludes that Exit-Tickets constitute an effective formative assessment strategy for improving students' achievement in English Language. The study contributes empirical evidence supporting the integration of Exit-Tickets into secondary school English Language instruction within the Nigerian educational context.