FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST THE SUCCESFUL TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST THE SUCCESFUL TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES I
ABSTRACT
This study focused on Factors militating against the successful teaching of social studies in secondary schools in Abuja municipal. Three objectives and hypotheses were formulated. The study was carried out in Abuja municipal. The study adopted a survey research method. The study used 200 samples of teachers. Purposive and random sampling technique was used to choose the sample size for this study. The research employed primary and secondary sources of data. Primary data were gathered through questionnaires distributed among the Among the selected two hundred (200) respondent. The data gathered from the questionnaire were analysed and presented in frequency and percentage tables. The data were also interpreted and the chi square statistical test was used to test the stated hypothesis. The result revealed that school environment significantly influence teaching and learning; availability of adequate teaching and learning resources significantly influence teaching and learning. The study also revealed that socio economic status of parents significantly influence teaching and learning. The study recommended that Social and economic policies should be put in place by government to enable children from parents of low economic status to have equal opportunity of advancing the cause of education of their children.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The chapter includes an explanation on why this topic will be important, research problem, the purpose and significance and the specific research questions along with the delimitations of the study.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The choosing of social studies as a subject in both junior and senior secondary school curriculum has been seen as a choice to be made by the prospective student just to complete the required number of subjects one is expected to choose to meet the minimum standard requirement by the school board. This is because most persons do not choose social studies subject as a course because they desire to make a profession out of it, but just to complete the required number of subjects permitted. In most cases, it is very difficult to see students registering social studies as a course in the final senior secondary school certificate examinations. This trend does not seem to be very healthy for social studies as a course especially as it has been seen as a subject that inculcate the right type of value and social norms in the learners who become committed to the subject.
The need for the examination of factors militating against the teaching and learning of social studies as a subject is justified by the demand for social education principles whose product makes a more responsible citizenship in the communities. Inyang-Abia (1995) in examining the problems of teaching and learning social studies posited that the subject social studies is very important since it helps to prepare young people of our time to be committed to social responsibilities that expands in number and some cases, those positions are suffering from inadequacies and incompetent of reliable citizens to fill such vacancies. The national policy on education (1981) states the objectives of social studies in respect to social life as follows:
- Enable students to imbibe the basic existence of factual information about society with emphasis on where and how it may be discovered, classified, arranged and presentation rather than haphazard memorization.
- To develop respect for the ideals, heritage and institution of the nation and a feeling of brotherhood towards fellow human being everywhere.
- To acquire and develop a capacity to learn certain skills such as listening, speaking, ability to observe, analyze and influence economic and political judgment.
- To learn about the problems and challenge that confront people today in the realm of social living and human relation at different levels, local, state, national and international.
Little or no effort was made in propagating or integrating social studies subject until recently that Social Studies began gaining ground in the various level of education system, this has made it possible as a result of increase in the training of social studies teachers and other were also trained in other related field. The teaching of social studies in our school system has been taught by both trained and quack teachers, making the teaching of the subject is done in a disjointed and uncoordinated manner which makes little sense and meaning to the student. Example History, geography, economic are taught separately by professionals especially in our secondary schools, but social studies has never been taught like that. The new social studies program is integrated in the sense that it is interdisciplinary in form as it draws its content from other social sciences.
Social studies tries to direct the attention of student to their immediate environment before showing them more of the other world. It begins with the family as the first unit of the community, then school, community, state, nation and the international community. The advantage of this system is that, it promotes greater integration of learning experience by unifying subject matter as it employs systematic correlation of subject around them drawn from the function of living things and their interactions with their environment. Social studies is also organized around the problems and needs of adolescent especially those that demand persona-social understanding as reflected in the social studies syllabus in secondary schools. The content and subject matter revolves around them like members of the family, responsibilities, obligation, citizenship etc. social studies by its mandate is a course that should introduce the students to make a more responsible and responsive citizenry capable of properly socializing and being a functional member of his immediate environment and the worlds around us. This is the onus of social studies as designed by the designers of the syllabus and curriculum content. If this then is what the subject social studies is designed to achieve, to what extent has this been achieved and how responsive are students in our public and private secondary schools willing to learn and subscribe to the making of social studies a life-long career?In spite of the relevance of social studies education as stated above, the Nigerian society has witnessed great deterioration among students in terms of performance in social studies education in both public and private institutions (Alokan, Osakinle & Onijingin, 2013). One of the major problems facing social studies today is the inadequacy of the implementation of the social studies education programme . This has led to incessant demand for textbooks by both social studies teachers and students, excessive dependence on textbooks for social studies instruction and fear as to whether the objectives of the social studies would be attained. In terms of the teaching methods and instructional materials, teachers often use lecture method in the classroom, thereby neglecting other methods of teaching like dramatization, role-playing, construction, creative activity, inquiry, discovery, simulation, expository, questioning method. Creative activities and learning experience develop not only the creative abilities of the learner but also their intellectual skills. It also arouses the interest of students, sustains their attention and motivation to learn. The lecture method is often in cognitive domain, thereby neglecting the other two domains which are very important in the implementation of social studies curriculum in junior secondary schools. Poor implementation of social studies curriculum has led to poor performance of students, with specific reference to the output of social studies both internal and external examinations.
In a view of the importance or the roles that social studies play in Nigerian educational system and society, its curriculum deserves to be adequately implemented in terms of methods and instructional materials. Again, the performance of students in social studies examination is not encouraging, thus warranting the central problem, which this study seeks to address. What are the reasons for this? Could it be poor attitude to the subject, poor teaching methods, inadequacy of instructional materials and defective evaluation/ assessment?
Hence, the need to develop effective methods of teaching the subject.
1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Presently, junior secondary school students’ interest and academic achievement in social studies is declining. Attitudes associated with Social Studies appear to affect students’ performance in the subject. Also, many Social Studies teachers teach Social Studies without instructional materials and facilities (Adeleke et al 2013). The quality of teachers,and class room facilities are grossly inadequate and obsolete. Owolabi et al. (1991) also indicated that a serious disconnection exists between Social Studies training in secondary schools and the needs of the labour market, as students that do not proceed to higher education have been found to be incompetent in the field of work. Where students consistently perform poorly, the implication is that adequate teaching and learning has not taken place in schools. Therefore, the problem of this study is to examine the problems of teaching and learning of Social Studies in secondary schools.
The general purpose of the study is to investigate the Factors militating against the succesful teaching of social studies in secondary schools. The specific objectives include:
- To determine the influence of school environment on teaching and learning in secondary schools in Abuja Municipal.
- To determine the influence of availability of teaching resources on teaching and learning in secondary schools in Abuja Municipal.
- To determine the influence of parents socioeconomic status on teaching and learning in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal.
The research questions for this work include:
- Does school environment teaching and learning of social studies in secondary schools in Abuja Municipal?
- Does availability of teaching resources teaching and learning of social studies in secondary schools in Abuja Municipal?
- Does parents socioeconomic status teaching and learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal?
1.6 HYPOTHESIS
This study identified the following hypothesis to achieve the study objective:
Hypothesis One
H0: School Environment Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: School Environment Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of Social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
Hypothesis Two
H0: Availability of Teaching Resources Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: Availability of Teaching Resources Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
Hypothesis Three
H0: Socio economic status of Parents Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: Socio economic Status of Parents Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
- SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study gives various insights into the challenges of teaching social studies in junior secondary schools in Nigeria. These highlighted challenges will enable stakeholders in the education sector to take adequate measures in tackling these challenges, and make learning of social studies a lot easier for both teachers and students in junior secondary school levels.
- SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
This study covers the Factors militating against the successful teaching of social studies in secondary schools schools in Nigeria using Abuja Municipal as a case study. Findings and recommendations for the study may not reflect the true view of the challenges of teaching social studies in Nigeria, as the researcher could not cover a wider area in Nigeria due to time and financial constraints
The study was confined to secondary schools in Abuja municipal, Nigeria. However, every effort was made to ensure that sampling used was adequate to collect information required for drawing conclusions. Schools Teachers were preferred by the researcher as the main respondents because they were the direct consumers of the researcher’s concern.
N SECONDARY SCHOOLS
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FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST THE SUCCESFUL TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
FACTORS MILITATING AGAINST THE SUCCESFUL TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES I
ABSTRACT
This study focused on Factors militating against the successful teaching of social studies in secondary schools in Abuja municipal. Three objectives and hypotheses were formulated. The study was carried out in Abuja municipal. The study adopted a survey research method. The study used 200 samples of teachers. Purposive and random sampling technique was used to choose the sample size for this study. The research employed primary and secondary sources of data. Primary data were gathered through questionnaires distributed among the Among the selected two hundred (200) respondent. The data gathered from the questionnaire were analysed and presented in frequency and percentage tables. The data were also interpreted and the chi square statistical test was used to test the stated hypothesis. The result revealed that school environment significantly influence teaching and learning; availability of adequate teaching and learning resources significantly influence teaching and learning. The study also revealed that socio economic status of parents significantly influence teaching and learning. The study recommended that Social and economic policies should be put in place by government to enable children from parents of low economic status to have equal opportunity of advancing the cause of education of their children.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The chapter includes an explanation on why this topic will be important, research problem, the purpose and significance and the specific research questions along with the delimitations of the study.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The choosing of social studies as a subject in both junior and senior secondary school curriculum has been seen as a choice to be made by the prospective student just to complete the required number of subjects one is expected to choose to meet the minimum standard requirement by the school board. This is because most persons do not choose social studies subject as a course because they desire to make a profession out of it, but just to complete the required number of subjects permitted. In most cases, it is very difficult to see students registering social studies as a course in the final senior secondary school certificate examinations. This trend does not seem to be very healthy for social studies as a course especially as it has been seen as a subject that inculcate the right type of value and social norms in the learners who become committed to the subject.
The need for the examination of factors militating against the teaching and learning of social studies as a subject is justified by the demand for social education principles whose product makes a more responsible citizenship in the communities. Inyang-Abia (1995) in examining the problems of teaching and learning social studies posited that the subject social studies is very important since it helps to prepare young people of our time to be committed to social responsibilities that expands in number and some cases, those positions are suffering from inadequacies and incompetent of reliable citizens to fill such vacancies. The national policy on education (1981) states the objectives of social studies in respect to social life as follows:
Little or no effort was made in propagating or integrating social studies subject until recently that Social Studies began gaining ground in the various level of education system, this has made it possible as a result of increase in the training of social studies teachers and other were also trained in other related field. The teaching of social studies in our school system has been taught by both trained and quack teachers, making the teaching of the subject is done in a disjointed and uncoordinated manner which makes little sense and meaning to the student. Example History, geography, economic are taught separately by professionals especially in our secondary schools, but social studies has never been taught like that. The new social studies program is integrated in the sense that it is interdisciplinary in form as it draws its content from other social sciences.
Social studies tries to direct the attention of student to their immediate environment before showing them more of the other world. It begins with the family as the first unit of the community, then school, community, state, nation and the international community. The advantage of this system is that, it promotes greater integration of learning experience by unifying subject matter as it employs systematic correlation of subject around them drawn from the function of living things and their interactions with their environment. Social studies is also organized around the problems and needs of adolescent especially those that demand persona-social understanding as reflected in the social studies syllabus in secondary schools. The content and subject matter revolves around them like members of the family, responsibilities, obligation, citizenship etc. social studies by its mandate is a course that should introduce the students to make a more responsible and responsive citizenry capable of properly socializing and being a functional member of his immediate environment and the worlds around us. This is the onus of social studies as designed by the designers of the syllabus and curriculum content. If this then is what the subject social studies is designed to achieve, to what extent has this been achieved and how responsive are students in our public and private secondary schools willing to learn and subscribe to the making of social studies a life-long career?In spite of the relevance of social studies education as stated above, the Nigerian society has witnessed great deterioration among students in terms of performance in social studies education in both public and private institutions (Alokan, Osakinle & Onijingin, 2013). One of the major problems facing social studies today is the inadequacy of the implementation of the social studies education programme . This has led to incessant demand for textbooks by both social studies teachers and students, excessive dependence on textbooks for social studies instruction and fear as to whether the objectives of the social studies would be attained. In terms of the teaching methods and instructional materials, teachers often use lecture method in the classroom, thereby neglecting other methods of teaching like dramatization, role-playing, construction, creative activity, inquiry, discovery, simulation, expository, questioning method. Creative activities and learning experience develop not only the creative abilities of the learner but also their intellectual skills. It also arouses the interest of students, sustains their attention and motivation to learn. The lecture method is often in cognitive domain, thereby neglecting the other two domains which are very important in the implementation of social studies curriculum in junior secondary schools. Poor implementation of social studies curriculum has led to poor performance of students, with specific reference to the output of social studies both internal and external examinations.
In a view of the importance or the roles that social studies play in Nigerian educational system and society, its curriculum deserves to be adequately implemented in terms of methods and instructional materials. Again, the performance of students in social studies examination is not encouraging, thus warranting the central problem, which this study seeks to address. What are the reasons for this? Could it be poor attitude to the subject, poor teaching methods, inadequacy of instructional materials and defective evaluation/ assessment?
Hence, the need to develop effective methods of teaching the subject.
1.3 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Presently, junior secondary school students’ interest and academic achievement in social studies is declining. Attitudes associated with Social Studies appear to affect students’ performance in the subject. Also, many Social Studies teachers teach Social Studies without instructional materials and facilities (Adeleke et al 2013). The quality of teachers,and class room facilities are grossly inadequate and obsolete. Owolabi et al. (1991) also indicated that a serious disconnection exists between Social Studies training in secondary schools and the needs of the labour market, as students that do not proceed to higher education have been found to be incompetent in the field of work. Where students consistently perform poorly, the implication is that adequate teaching and learning has not taken place in schools. Therefore, the problem of this study is to examine the problems of teaching and learning of Social Studies in secondary schools.
The general purpose of the study is to investigate the Factors militating against the succesful teaching of social studies in secondary schools. The specific objectives include:
The research questions for this work include:
1.6 HYPOTHESIS
This study identified the following hypothesis to achieve the study objective:
Hypothesis One
H0: School Environment Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: School Environment Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of Social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
Hypothesis Two
H0: Availability of Teaching Resources Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: Availability of Teaching Resources Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
Hypothesis Three
H0: Socio economic status of Parents Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
H1: Socio economic Status of Parents Does Not Significantly Influence Teaching and Learning of social studies in Secondary Schools in Abuja Municipal
The study gives various insights into the challenges of teaching social studies in junior secondary schools in Nigeria. These highlighted challenges will enable stakeholders in the education sector to take adequate measures in tackling these challenges, and make learning of social studies a lot easier for both teachers and students in junior secondary school levels.
This study covers the Factors militating against the successful teaching of social studies in secondary schools schools in Nigeria using Abuja Municipal as a case study. Findings and recommendations for the study may not reflect the true view of the challenges of teaching social studies in Nigeria, as the researcher could not cover a wider area in Nigeria due to time and financial constraints
The study was confined to secondary schools in Abuja municipal, Nigeria. However, every effort was made to ensure that sampling used was adequate to collect information required for drawing conclusions. Schools Teachers were preferred by the researcher as the main respondents because they were the direct consumers of the researcher’s concern.
N SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Attached Files