EFFECT OF CONSTRUCTIVIST-BASED LEARNING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEREST IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SOCIAL STUDIES CONCEPTS IN NSUKKA EDUCATION ZONE

ABSTRACT

The high rate of social problems in our society (such as kidnapping, examination malpractices, terrorism etc) which in turn creating an economic mal-function and under-development of the nation which is so significant to our nation Nigeria, low academic achievement in both internal and external examination of junior Social Studies student and the inability of the Social Studies students to apply the knowledge acquired in school to solve real life situations has necessitated this study. The study therefore  finds out effect of constructivist-based  learning strategies on students’ achievement and interest in junior secondary Social Studies concepts in Nsukka Education  Zone.  To  ensure  that  the  study achieved  what  it  was designed  for,  six  research questions were raised and six hypotheses  were formulated  and tested. Many literatures  were reviewed. A quasi-experimental research design was used. The population of this study consists of all the junior secondary co-education school students (4182) of Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State. A sample of 260 students was drawn. The instruments developed for these studies were Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT) and Social Studies Interest Inventory (SSII). The data  obtained  were  analyzed  using  means  and  standard  deviation  to  answer  the  research questions. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance using analysis of covariate (ANCOVA). The reliability of SSAT and SSII were determined using KR-20 reliability method. The tests were administered twice after a week interval to determine the reliability of SSAT with the use of Pearson moment correlation and the internal consistency of SSII were ascertained using Cronbach alpha procedure. The result of the analyses indicated that the effect of treatment and gender was not a significant factor in students’ achievement and interest in Social Studies. Students taught using constructivist-based learning strategies performed significantly better than their counterparts who were taught using lecture method in both SSAT and SSII respectively. Based on the findings it was recommended that teachers should incorporate constructivist-based learning strategies in their teaching and learning in the classroom in order to provide the students with  diverse,  engaging  and  challenging  tasks  for  internalization  of  learning  and  proper attainment of Social Studies goals.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Social Studies is one of the compulsory subjects studied in junior secondary schools in Nigeria.  Social  studies  can  be  defined  as  an  integrated  study  of  the  Social  Sciences  and humanities to promote civic competence and help young people develop the ability to make informed  and  reasoned  decisions  as citizens  of culturally  diverse,  democratic  society  in  an interdependent world (The National Council for Social Studies in the United States of America,

1992). The subject according to Nwoji (2006) is a living subject which deals with the matters of the moment as a preparation for now and the future. Seeing Social studies as an integrated study, its goals to the society as mentioned in the National Policy on Education of Federal Republic of Nigeria (2013) are:

The development  of the  individual  into  a sound,  patriotic  and  effective citizen; integration of individual into the immediate community, the Nigeria society  and  the  world;  inculcation  of national  consciousness,  value  and national unity; and also development of appropriate skills, mental, physical and social abilities and competencies to empower the individuals to live in and contribute positively to the society (p.1).

For all these goals to be achieved with the help of social studies, teachers have to be grounded effectively in the application of instructional strategies and skills in their teaching.

The effective teaching and learning of social studies contents can help to achieve the above  goals. The  importance  of Social  Studies  cannot be overemphasized  as  mentioned  by Nwanyanwu (1999) as:

It help learners to understand their culture and other people’s culture;  it help the learners to be good citizens by educating them on the right type of behaviors; attitudes and values, it trains the learners to be good and effective leaders and followers because it encourages the learners to obey the  laws  that  governs  our  society  and  respect  for  the  constituted authority; it help the learner to develop a good sense of judgment and a sense of moral and social responsibility, it helps man to understand his environment, identify its problems and provide solution to the problems in his environment; it helps individuals to develop ability to relate well with his people in his environment; it help learners to be aware of what is happening  around  him  as  well  as  other  parts  of  the  world  and  also produce good citizen for the society(p. 2).

In  spite  of the  importance  of Social  Studies  in national  development,  students  have continued to show poor achievement and interest in social studies. Achievement as one of the dependent  variable  in  this  study,  achievement  connotes  performance  in  a school subject  as symbolized by a score or mark on an achievement test (Momoh, 1997). It is affected by the degree of original learning, the method of learning and the learners’ memory capacity among other factors (Demmert, 2001). Students’ achievement according to Epunnam (1999) is defined as the learning outcomes of the student which include the knowledge, skills, and ideas acquired and  retained  through  his  course  of studies  within  and  outside  the  classroom  situation.  For instance the data analysis of 2012, 2013 and 2014 Junior Secondary School Examination (JSSE) results of some of the sampled schools collected from the Post Primary School Management Board Nsukka   showed that 48.7%, 45% and 52% of students who sat for the examination in

2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively performed poorly in Social Studies. These three years were used because they were the ones they were able to lay hands on at the school board as at the time the researcher visited the board. The results showed that the method applied for teaching could have effect on their achievement. It is also anticipated that students’ achievement could have positive correlation with their interest in such subject, which is another dependent variable of this study.

Interest  is defined  as  an  individual’s  predisposition  in  a particular  context  (Hidi  & Renninger, 2006; Mitchell, 1993). That is, it provides the competence to carry out activities using one’s skill, which enables him/her to perform effectively. Interest has to do with what an individual has acquired from a specific study in a given instructional sequence. Interest level of learners is one personality characteristic that influences students’ academic achievement (Brookover, Thomas & Paterson cited in Nwoke 2004). According to Eze (1992), heterogeneity of this interest in  the classroom  is a common phenomenon. This study will try to ascertain whether various interest levels could relatively achieve higher improved achievement due to the new instructional strategy that is been introduced.

The low academic achievement and interest in social studies has been labeled on different reasons. Could it be from the teacher, the learner or even the methods been adopted by the teacher? Teachers are one of the key elements in schools and effective teaching is one of the key propellers for student improvement. Teaching effectiveness is dependent upon the interaction between the instruction, subject-matter, knowledge and teaching (pedagogical/methods) ability (Sean,Derek & Ritchard, 2002). This means for a proper learning to take place the teacher need to employ  different  method,  strategies or techniques  for smooth  flow of learning.  Different methods are used in teaching Social Studies. According to Adetoro (1999) it ranges from lecture and demonstration methods are content driven and certainly not learner-centered. These methods are teacher centered which are based on behavioural learning theories and not learner centered they are based on cognitive psychological learning theories. These methods which are predominantly used in Social Studies in the junior secondary schools according to Boyle, Duffy

& Dunleavy (2003), emphasize knowledge transmission from the teacher to passive students and encourage rote memorization of facts. The consequence of the use of non-constructivist strategy

in teaching social studies in the junior secondary schools is that students are unable to retain their learning and apply it to new situation and may also account for poor performance of Social Studies students in both internal and external examination and the high level of social problems in the society (Doolittle & Camp, 2000).

The Federal Government of Nigeria have tried in different ways so as to reduce the rate of social problems in our society for proper attainment of the objectives of Social Studies in Nigeria through the introduction of Civic Education into the educational curriculum so as deal with some of those sensitive issues (examples are kidnapping, examination malpractices, raping etc.)  and  also  the  introduction  of  Information  Communication  Technology  as  a  strategy  of teaching thereby making the teachers going for training and retraining so as to adapt to the new strategy. In this vain, Egwu (2009) stressed out the main reason for the introduction of civic education is to strengthen the Federal Governments’ effort toward reinforcing democracy and democratic culture in Nigeria. According to the National council for Social Studies (NCSS) (1992) identified that the introduction of civic education by the federal Government would help in inculcating in the citizens the right attitude towards doing things. All these reasons given above for the re-introduction of civic are parts of the aims Social Studies is trying to achieve. Based on these foregoing, due to the efforts made by the Federal Government, Social Studies teachers and also researchers in Social Studies in realizing the goals of Social Studies instead, those objectives still remains mostly unachieved and the social problems keep on increasing in our society.

Based on these foregoing, introducing civic education in the curriculum seems not to be the best approach in solving all these issues because the main problem of Social Studies is the poor implementation  of the contents. Seweje (2000) confirmed  that the methods adopted by

teachers in most cases include the talk and chalk (lecture) with very little concern for practical activities. Seweje (2000) explained further that a teacher is expected to be a facilitator whose main function  is to help learners to become active participants  in their learning and thereby making  meaningful  connection  between  prior  knowledge,  new  knowledge  and  the  process involved in learning. That is why the researcher is introducing a constructivist based strategy which may be a way out of these problems for proper and meaningful learning of Social Studies concepts that are seen or pose as difficult topics hence, influencing the students’ achievements and interest in the subject matter.

Constructivism is a learning theory which argues that human beings construct knowledge and meaning from their experiences (Oludipe & Oludipe, 2010). Constructivism is not accepting what you are told but to use your prior knowledge to assimilate what you are taught and your perceptions  about  it. Active  involvement  of learners  is  emphasized  in  constructivism  hence knowledge gained lasts longer in the memory (Oludipe & Oludipe, 2010). Constructivist theory provides a framework through which the emergent ideas about teaching, learning and assessment can be unified (Young &Collin, 2003). For instance, in teaching Social Studies learners should be exposed to those processes that will make them identify the major difference among information, knowledge and reality. Learners gain knowledge when appropriate information is given to them and they process the information constantly. Information does not become knowledge automatically until learners have been actively involved in its processing (Akinleye,

2010).

Constructivist as a new method of teaching social Studies, the researcher would like to know if constructivist method is going to be gender balance in terms of achievement and interest of the learner. Besides, gender has been identified as one of the factors influencing student’s

achievement  and  interest  in  Social  Studies  education  (Howden  as  cited  in  Ogbuanya  & Owodunni 2015). The issue of gender has assumed prominence  in Social Studies education discourse. Gender is a sense of awareness of being male or female. It is a behavioural pattern and attitude perceived as masculine or femine within a culture (Coleman, 2000). Howden as cited in Ogbuanya  and  Owodunni  (2015)  remarked  that  disparities  exist  between  male  and  female students performance in Social Studies education. Some research such as Augustinah and Anaun (2014) revealed that female students perform better than their male counterpart in Biology, were as Sengaul serap and Ahmet (2004) in their study discovered that the male performed higher than the female in Physics. Hence, due to this contradiction, an attempt will be made to find out if constructivist instructional strategy will make a significant influence on academic achievement and interest level of boys and girls in Social Studies.

Much work has not been done on constructivist learning strategy in improving teaching and learning of Social Studies in terms of interest. They focused  mainly on achievement of students. Researcher such as Oludipe and Oludipe (2010) researched on Effect of Constructivist Based Teaching Strategy on Academic Performance of Students in Integrated Science and also Augustinah and Anaun (2014) researched on Effects of Constructivists’ Learning Strategies on Senior  Secondary  School  Students  Achievement  and  Retention  in  Biology  in  South-West Nigeria. Therefore, much has not been done on interest of Social Studies student, this study is designed to determine the effect of constructivist-based learning strategy on students’ academic achievement and interest in Social Studies concepts in the junior secondary schools.

Statement of the Problem

The basic introduction  of Social Studies is to help solve many social problems chief among are lack of unity in a multi ethnic country, religious intolerance that has led to loss of life

and properties, lack of patriotism and corruption. Several years of the introduction of Social Studies into the nations’ curriculum these social problems still persist. Despite the efforts of Federal  Governments  to  curb  all  these  social  problems  through  national  integration  by introducing   National   youth   service   corps   (NYSC),   National   Sports   activities   and   also introduction  of new subjects such as civic education  into the school curriculum instead, the problems continue to increase in a higher rate which in turn creating an economic mal-function and under-development of the nation which is so significant to our nation Nigeria. Increase in these social problems shows that those goals of Social Studies are yet to be attained.

It has  also  been  observed  that  the poor implementation  of Social  Studies by Social Studies teachers due to the didactic lecture method used by the teachers in teaching and learning of the subject matter makes most of the students not to be engaged in complex problem-solving activities and makes them not to apply school knowledge and skills to real-life problems because lecture method is mostly teacher-centered which makes the teaching of Social Studies boring, dull and uninteresting. For instance the data analysis of 2012, 2013 and 2014 Junior Secondary School Examination  (JSSE) results of some of the sampled  schools collected  from  the Post Primary School Management Board Zonal Office Nsukka  showed that 48.7%, 45% and 52% of students who sat for the examination in 2012, 2013 and 2014 respectively performed poorly in Social Studies. All these may have been responsible for the poor academic achievements in the subject  matter.  Research  have  shown  that  the  method  of  teaching  could  have  effect  on achievement and interest of the students. The question now is; how can the teachers who are majorly characterized with the use of lecture methods in teaching of Social Studies handle those concepts that are seen or pose as difficult topics in the curriculum? More so, it shows that the

poor academic achievement of students will reflect significantly to their level of interest in the subject matter and consequently in solving real-life problems.

Generally, gender is seen as a socially ascribed attribute which differentiate feminine from masculine. Difference in Social Studies achievement due to gender has caused a lot of concern to educationist. This affects gender stereotype in schools hence, the need to study the differential effects of male and female students’ achievement and interest in Social Studies is of utmost importance in this study.

Therefore, the problem of this study put in a question form is – What is the effect of constructivists-based   learning   strategies   on  students’  achievement   and  interest  in  junior secondary Social Studies concepts?

Purpose of the Study

The general purpose of this study was to  find out the effects of constructivist-based learning strategies on students’ achievement and interest in Social Studies in Nsukka Education Zone. Specifically, the objectives of this study are to;

1.  Determine  the  mean  achievement  scores  of  students  taught  Social  Studies  using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method.

2.  Determine  whether  differences  exist  in  the  achievement  scores  of  male  and  female students taught Social Studies with constructivist strategy.

3.  Determine  the  interaction  effect  between  the  instructional  treatment  and  gender  in students’ achievement in Social Studies.

4.  Ascertain the mean interest scores of students taught social studies using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method?

5.  Find  out  the  interest  scores  of male  and  female  students  taught  social  studies  with constructivist strategy.

6.  Determine  the  interaction  effect  between  the  instructional  treatment  and  gender  in students’ interest in Social Studies.

Significance of the Study

This study has a theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, the study anchored on  Piaget’s  theory  which  sees  the  child  as  ‘continually’  interacting  with  the  world  around him/her, solving problems that are presented by the environment and learning occurs through taking action to solve the problems. Moreover, the knowledge that results from these actions is not imitated or from birth, but ‘actively constructed’ by the child. In this way, thought is seen as deriving from action; action is internalized or carried out mentally in the imagination and in this way thinking develops. Therefore, this study will justify the relevance of this theory.

Practically, this study would be significant to the following; Social Studies teachers, the learners, the instructional designer, Ministry of Education and the Society.

For the social studies teachers, the findings of the study will serve as a basis for the introduction of innovative teaching strategies that will enhance teaching and learning of social studies in order to be meaningful and interesting. It will encourage the use of constructivist- based learning strategies in teaching Social Studies most importantly those topics that are found to be difficult in the curriculum.

As for the learner, the findings will serve as a reference purpose for future research for the learners of Social Studies and those at the secondary school levels so as to be well informed and through these findings their interest in Social Studies may increase which will help in their

future achievement when they continue in line with Social Studies thereby helps in increasing their level of values acquired in a new situation and in solving problems.

The instructional designers will benefits from the findings also, in that it will enable the curriculum designers to be informed on the need for constructivist based curriculum and would decide whether to continue with lecture method or to supplement it with constructivist-based models of teaching. In that it will serve as a guide in the planning and review of junior secondary school social studies curriculum.

The ministry of education will benefit a lot from the findings because they are the one responsible for creating the curriculum and the needed manpower in the educational sector so as to provide qualitative education to her citizenry therefore, the researcher believes that  the result of the study may stimulate the government to review Social Studies curriculum by including those constructivist-based  strategies in teaching Social Studies concepts especially those that poses as difficult topics in the curriculum. It will also serve as reference materials to the ministry of education policy makers.

The society will benefit from the findings because education  is supposed  to prepare citizens for effective life in the society. The constructivist based instructional model emphasizes hand-on and mind-on activities. It will provide the society with the required and equipped human resources such as ideas, knowledge, value and skills adequate to solve societal problems for the attainment of a self reliant nation as well as a great and dynamic economy.

The Scope of the Study

The scope of the study was limited to Nsukka Education Zone of Enugu State and was carried out using Junior Secondary School (JSS) III students in four (4) schools. This study was to carry out the effect of constructivist learning strategies on the achievement and interest of junior secondary Social Studies concepts.

The content scope of the study consists of conflict, conflict resolution and management which are some of the topics in JSSIII scheme of work. The students were taught the topics to determine their achievement in Social Studies. The choice of the topic was due to the high levels of social problems in our society. Such social problems ranges from religious intolerance, lack of patriotism, corruptions and the chief among all terrorism that is now the talk of the whole world.

Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study

1.  What  are  the  mean  achievement  scores  of  students  taught  Social  Studies  using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method?

2.  What are the achievement scores of male and female students taught Social Studies with constructivist strategy?

3.  What is the interaction effect between the instructional treatment and gender in students’

achievement in Social Studies?

4.  What are the mean interest scores of students taught social studies using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method?

5.  What  are  the  interest  scores of male  and  female  students  taught  social  studies  with constructivist strategy?

6.  What is the interaction effect between the instructional treatment and gender in students’

interest in Social Studies?

Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses were formulated for the study. They were tested at a 0.05 level of significance.

H01: There is no significant difference in the mean achievement scores of students taught Social

Studies using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method.

H02: There is no significant difference in the achievement scores of male and female students taught Social Studies with constructivist strategy.

H03:  There  is  no  significant  difference  in  the  interaction  effect  between  the  instructional treatment and gender in students’ achievement in Social Studies.

H04: There is no significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught social studies using constructivist strategy and those taught using lecture method.

H05: There is no significant difference in the interest scores of male and female students taught social studies with constructivist strategy.H06:  There  is  no  significant  difference  in  the  interaction  effect  between  the  instructional treatment and gender in students’ interest in Social Studies.

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