Abstract
There have been controversies among scholars and experts if the knowledge of Physics can enhance the technological development of Nigeria while some are of the opinion that Physics boost the technological development of Nigeria, others are against this assertion even to the extent that the number of Physics courses studied by the technological and engineering students dropped from 20% as witnessed in BMAS university curriculum to 10-12% in the current CCMAS. The reduction of the number of Physics courses is a testament to them that Physics knowledge does not enhance the technological development of Nigeria. The sharp decline in the hatred for the knowledge of Physics education led the researcher to determine if the Physics knowledge can enhance technological development of Nigeria. The study also determined if acquiring technological skills as the NUC experts said in the CCMAS can also enhance technological development in Nigeria as the NUC experts said that the reason for removing Physics courses and adding more technological courses was for the technological development of Nigeria. The study was guided by four research questions and four research hypotheses. The study was a correlational research design. The population for the study was 2249 Physics respondents which comprises of 2185 SSS II Physics students and 64 Physics teachers in 22 schools in Awka Education zone. The sample size of the study was 289 Physics respondents which comprises of all the Physics teachers in the Awka Education zone and 10% of the population of students. Simple random sampling was used to sample the Physics students while no sampling technique was used for Physics teachers. The students were sampled for the answering of the research purpose 4. Three (3) research instruments were used for data collection which were Physics Knowledge Questionnaire (PKQ), Technological Skill Acquisition Questionnaire (TSQ) and Technological Development Questionnaire (TDQ). These instruments were validated by two (2) experts in Physics education and one expert in Measurement and Evaluation from the Department of Science Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka and their comments were incorporated in the final draft of the questionnaires. The instruments were tested using 40 respondents in Onitsha Education zone. The reliability indices of PKQ, TSQ and TDQ were 0.82, 0.85 and 0.84 respectively using Cronbach Alpha. The instruments were administered to the respondents by the researchers and research assistants, and after their responses were recorded and analyzed using mean score. Mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient were used to answer the research questions while Linear Regression Analysis of Variance was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. The study discovered that there was no significant relationship between Physics teachers’ knowledge on Physics and technological skills acquisition; no significant relationship between possession of technological skill acquisition and technological development; no significant relationship between students’ and teachers’ opinions on Physics knowledge and technological development and there was moderate significant positive relationship between the Physics teachers’ possession of Physics Knowledge and technological development in Awka Education zone. These findings implies that the negative perception of the role of Physics in technological development is because those experts do not have the adequately and moderate knowledge of Physics. The finding also implies that obtaining the technological skills do not transcend that the nation will develop technologically but obtaining adequate knowledge of Physics and the technological skills and utilizing them adequately will transcend into the technological development of Nigeria. Thus, the study recommended that Federal and State Governments must provide provisions and enablement that will make the Physics teachers toadequately utilize their Physics knowledge and other technological skills that they have obtained for the technological development of Nigeria.