Effectiveness of Educational Podcasts in Enhancing English Language Comprehension Among Secondary School Students in Cross River State

This study evaluates the effectiveness of educational podcasts in enhancing English language comprehension skills among senior secondary school students in Cross River State, South South Nigeria. Audio-based digital content has gained renewed relevance as a flexible, device-accessible medium that students can engage with outside formal classroom hours. The study employs a quasi-experimental design involving 120 Senior Secondary School Two students from two schools in Calabar Municipality. The experimental group accessed a series of 15-minute curriculum-aligned English comprehension podcasts over eight weeks via school-provided mp3 players, while the control group received only conventional instruction. Pre-test and post-test comprehension assessments were scored and compared using analysis of covariance. Results indicate a statistically significant improvement in comprehension scores for the experimental group. Students with higher frequency of podcast listening outside class hours recorded the greatest gains. The study recommends that Cross River State schools adopt educational podcast libraries as supplementary resources, and that the state Ministry of Education commission development of curriculum-aligned audio content in local dialectal accents to improve accessibility. Teacher training in audio content curation is also advocated. Keywords: educational podcasts, English comprehension, secondary school, Cross River State, audio learning