Instructional materials have been observed as a powerful strategy to bring about effective teaching and learning. The importance of quality and adequate instructional materials in teaching and learning can occur through their effective utilization during classroom teaching. Instructional materials here include all the tools that the teachers can use to make the learning more interesting and memorable.
Effective teaching of any subject will not only stimulates student’s interest in the subject but also enhance their achievement in the examination. To achieve effective teaching and learning process, there is the need for use of instructional materials. Instructional materials are the different teaching aids or apparatus which a classroom teacher employs to facilitate his or her teaching for the achievement of the stated objective. Instructional materials as those materials which are helpful to the teachers and students and which maximize learning in various areas. The use of instructional materials in teaching of is very important because it provides a concrete basis for conceptual thinking motivates people to learn and captures pupils’ imagination if used correctly.

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The cognitive domain of learning involves knowledge and the development of intellectual skills. It includes the recognition of specific facts, procedural patterns and concepts that serve in the development of abilities and skills Achievement test is a test given at the end to find out the extent to which a student has achieved something, acquired certain information or mastered certain skill as a result of planned instruction or training.
Therefore, teaching as a concept requires that teachers should not only have knowledge and skills in a subject but also the professional competence in the use of methods and materials to be able to influence the behavior of learners by using instructional materials.

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Instructional materials refer to those alternative channels of communication, which a classroom teacher can use to concretize a concept during teaching and learning process. Traditionally, classroom teachers have relied heavily on the 'talk-chalk' method during their teaching. But recently, instructional materials help to provide variations in the ways in which messages are sent across. In using instructional materials teachers and students do not only extend the range of sense organs we use but also extend the range of materials used for convening the same message through the same organ. For instance, in teaching a topic a teacher can manipulate real objects or use their stimulators. Instructional materials therefore constitute the media of exchange through which a message transaction is facilitated between a source and a receiver. In addition to extending the range of materials that can be used to convey the same instructional message to learners instructional materials also facilitate the 'process' nature of communication. Infact, it means that both the receiver and the source share and exchange ideas, feelings in any communication.
Instructional materials are essential and significant tools needed for teaching and learning of school subjects to promote teachers ‘efficiency and improve students’ performance. They make learning more interesting, practical, realistic and appealing. They also enable both the teachers and students to participate actively and effectively in lesson sessions. They give room for acquisition of skills and knowledge and development of self- confidence and self- actualization. Teaching aids are those materials used for practical and demonstration in the class situation by students and teachers. Instructional materials are objects or devices that assist the teacher to present a lesson to the learners in a logical and manner.
More so, instructional materials are visual and audio-visual aids, concrete or non-concrete, used by teachers to improve the quality of teaching and learning activities. Therefore, effective teaching and learning requires a teacher to teach the students with instructional materials and use practical activities to make learning more vivid, logical, realistic and pragmatic. Instructional materials are however, indispensable to the effective teaching and learning activities. Teaching aids are always useful in supporting the sense organs. Despite the fact that instructional materials are essential tools that can make learning practical and knowledge acquisition easier.

TYPES OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

Before a teacher can design or produce an instructional material, he/she has to know what these instructional materials are, their advantage and disadvantage, characteristics and limitations etc. Therefore, some types of instructional materials could be outlined as thus- Graphic materials, Three- dimensional materials, still pictures, still projected pictures, motion pictures and Audio materials.
(1) Graphic materials: - This represent these charts, graphic, posters and diagrams, cartoons, comics, maps and globes which we draw on a cardboard paper or on a piece of cloth and present to our learners to help them visualize what we have been laboring so hard o explain verbally. Graphic materials belong to the finally of two- dimensional material and proportional relationships that may exist among variables in a phenomenon. Graphic materials are used to compress information, to focus and captivate attention, to vary stimuli presented and as an aid to recall. Graphic materials when properly produced can help in attaining all processes in the information processing model of learning as well as serve as avenue for applying principles from other learning theories.
(2) Three - Dimensional Materials: - They are different from charts and graphs which are illustration of two- dimensional materials because of the incorporation of a third element- department. Thus, whereas graphs and charts embrace the width and height of a visualized object, a three-dimensional embraces this third element department, a feature that makes the three- dimensional material a replica of the real thing. Different types of three-dimensional materials exist, namely: Models and mock-ups, specimen, kits and dioramas-which is the creation of a scene in an event.
(3) Still pictures: - This refers to flat opaque pictures which we take during festivals or when we are commemorating an event. They also refer to pictures we find in journals and magazines. They are called still pictures because in admiring them, we hold them in our hands or place them on a surface, which is we do not view them with the aid of projector, as is the case with motion pictures or still projected pictures. Like graphic materials, still pictures belong to the group of two -dimensional materials.
(4) Still projected pictures: - Still projected pictures are a class of instructional materials which our learners may not be familiar with. Therefore in order to assist them to better understand what is meant by still projected pictures is the negative format. Still projected pictures can be projected with a projector. The projector has powerful electronic bulbs, which throw light on to the image on the negative, and image is finally projected on to a screen or wall. Therefore, when dealing with still projected pictures, one is automatically dealing with a whole range of materials (such as slides, overhead transparency, filmstrip etc) whose image are imprinted in a negative/film and which has to be projected using different types of projector. A major characteristics is still projected pictures is that the images are projected one frame at a time. This is a major difference between still projected pictures and motion pictures. This characteristic enables a still projected picture to stay for as long as a learner wants it on a screen.
(5) Motion pictures: - Motion pictures are distinct from the other types of pictures because of the speed at which they are projected. It is this speed of projection that intact gives the impression of motion. Motion pictures range from the 8 mm standard format to 8 mm supper and finally to the 16 mm format. The width of the film thus constitutes a basic for classifying them. Motion pictures films have sprocket holes along both edges or along only one edge. The presence of sprocket holes facilitates projection. Motion pictures can be projected at 16 or 24fps (frame per second.) They can be silent or accompanied with sound. Sound films use either a magnetic tape or optical sound track for sound recording. If a film is sound, only one edge bears the sprocket holes while the other edge bears the sound components.
(6) Audio Materials: - This is a class name for tape recordings and discs. A disc or record as it is popularly called here is a round and flat acetate containing grooves, which produces sound vibrations through the action of a needled. Discs usually come in different sizes and play at different speeds. The clarity of sound production from a disc rests on the quality of needle, the speed and state of the grooves. Obviously, in oversea countries records exist for almost all subjects. People in music department appreciate the importance of records in their studies. Special effects such as the sound of thunder the cry of owl at night, the noise produced in a factory during work can all be recorded in disc and synchronized with other events to create special effects during production. To use a record, a teacher has to specify his objectives thoroughly. Hence, students can listen to a record as a group or individually.

COGNITIVE SKILLS

Cognitive skills, also called cognitive functions, cognitive abilities or cognitive capacities, are brain-based skills which are needed in acquisition of knowledge, manipulation of information, and reasoning.
Cognitive skills are the core skills your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and pay attention. Working together, they take incoming information and move it into the bank of knowledge you use every day at school, at work, and in life. Cognitive ability is closely associated with educational attainment, occupation, and health outcomes.

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AND COGNITIVE SKILLS

One important dimension in teacher education that is getting a lot of attention is related to the use of instructional materials in enhancing cognitive skills. Instructional materials are those materials used by a teacher to simplify their teaching. They include both visual and audio-visual aids and could either be concrete or non-concrete. These instructional materials bring life to learning by stimulating students to learn. The use of instructional materials in the classroom has the potential to help the teacher explain new concepts clearly, resulting in better student understanding of the concepts being taught as well as enhance cognitive skills. However, they are not ends in themselves but they are means to an end.
It is held that good teaching resources can never replace the teacher but the teacher uses them to achieve their teaching and learning objectives. Some of the instructional materials necessary for effective teaching and learning include the chalkboard, models, graphs, charts, maps, pictures, diagrams, cartoons, slides, filmstrips, radio, and television. The importance of the use of these materials cannot be underscored.
Instructional materials are essential since they help the teacher and learners avoid overemphasis on recitation and rote learning that can easily dominate a lesson. Resource materials allow learners to have practical experiences which help them to develop cognitive skills and concepts and to work in a variety of ways.
The use of instructional materials is for more knowledge to be internalized, more of the learner’s senses have to be stimulated other than hearing alone. In learning and teaching, the various senses can be stimulated through the use of audiovisual materials.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, students taught with instructional materials perform better than those taught without instructional materials. Students learn and perform better when they are taught with instructional materials because the use of instructional materials gives the students the opportunity to see, feel and touch the materials during teaching.
Finally, hands-on instructional materials show, rather than tell, which increase information retention. A truism often heard in teaching is that if you have not learnt, I have not taught. A reasonable conclusion then is that the importance of instructional materials in teaching and learning is most efficient illustrated through student achievement result.