Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Abstract

The study examined the influence of teaching strategies on pupils’ academic performance in Social Studies in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study.

The quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. The population of this study comprised 1534 primary five (Pri. 5) pupils in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area. A sample size was 120 primary five (Pri. 5) pupils drawn from four (4) public primary schools in the study area. The major instrument for data collection in the study was a Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT).

The data generated for the study were subjected to statistical analysis using independent t-test. The findings showed that there is a significant difference in the academic performance of pupils taught using the team teaching strategy and those taught by a single instructor in Social Studies; and that there is a significant difference in the academic performance of pupils taught using the peer tutoring strategy and those taught by regular Social Studies teacher in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area.

Based on the findings, it was recommended that primary school teachers should be discouraged from the continuous use of conventional lecture method in the teaching of Social Studies as the method make pupils performed poorly in the subject.

LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1: t-test Analysis of Mean Achievement Scores of Pupils

Taught using team teaching strategy and those taught

using single teaching strategy in Social Studies

Table 2: t-test Analysis of Mean Academic performance of pupils

taught using the peer tutoring strategy and those

taught by using lecture strategy

 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Teaching strategies are strategies teachers use to help pupils become independent, strategic learners. They become learning strategies when pupils independently select appropriate ones and use them effectively to accomplish tasks or meet goals. Instructional strategy is the ways educational aims are translated to practice as well as reality.

Instructional strategy are the additional ways or techniques teachers use to encourage pupils to learn and become knowledgeable and independent thinkers such as active learning opportunities, formative and summative assessment, peer interaction and project-based Hirum, (2015).

(Ekott, 2017) Classified instructional strategy into three namely; organizational, delivery, and management instructional strategies. Organizational instructional strategy has to do with how the instruction would be sequenced. Delivery instructional strategy has to with the medium use and how pupils will be grouped while management instructional strategy has to do with scheduling and allocating resources at various levels.

According to Marzano, Pickering & Pollock (2017), teaching strategies which are the techniques which teachers adopt while teaching the pupils to increase their participation in the teaching/learning process include: team teaching, personality traits, identifying similarities and differences;

micro-learning, spaced repetition, or distributed practice, mobile phones, summarizing and note taking; reinforcing effort and providing recognition; homework and practice; nonlinguistic representations; cooperative learning; setting objectives and providing feedback; generating and testing hypotheses; questions, and advance organizers and Think-Pair-Share strategy.

The ability to break a concept into its similar and dissimilar characteristics allows pupils to understand (and often solve) complex problems by analyzing them in a more simple way. Teachers can either directly present similarities and differences, accompanied by deep discussion and inquiry, or simply ask pupils to identify similarities and differences on their own. While teacher-directed activities focus on identifying specific items, student-directed activities encourage variation and broaden understanding.

Equally, according to Andy (2007), there is an obvious tendency for learners to look disdain and contempt on teachers who display some uncertainty as to the knowledge of the subject matter and the way which such knowledge is imparted to the learners. This is so because poor strategies of instructional delivery by the teacher can impede learners’ understanding of instruction.

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Organization of learning experiences involves familiarity with the methods and strategies which these experiences could be delivered. This implies that, the Social Studies teacher is first expected to learn about the philosophy behind his subject which he teaches. He is expected to convince both himself and his learners that his subject area has usefulness and applications to the real life situation through the selection of appropriate teaching strategies and methods.

There is no doubt that, a well prepared lesson may fail to produce the desired objectives as a result of poor teaching strategies. One could liken such a case to a good cook, who has spent hours preparing a nice dish but at the point of dishing the food out to the consumers, he uses a dirty spoon and plates. No matter how hungry the consumers are, their appetites would have been killed. This analogy is applicable to the teacher and his lesson.

Despite research in education, the primary school teachers are still facing the challenges of adequately preparing pupils to acquire the necessary skills, knowledge and attitudes. Kenya educators have been challenged to respond more to growing personal, social, economic and technological challenges (Republic of Kenya, 2012).

Uwezo East Africa (2016) explained on the assessment of pupils  and learning in primary education from 2010 to present. The assessment findings indicated that pupils were not learning, pupils performance have not been improving and recommended that education reforms be undertaken to improved pupils’ performance. Furthermore, revelation by Ministry of Education that teaching strategies used by most teachers no longer yield desired learning achievement and attestation those learners may be ill prepared to cope with twenty first century challenges.

In addition, available teachers are using teacher centered teaching strategies in classroom instruction, which are theoretical in nature while majority of teachers in Kenya are not aware of a single teaching strategy. Therefore, the application of inappropriate teaching strategy by the teacher in delivering the subject matter to the learners will influence their academic performance negatively since it is the medium through which the curriculum are communicated to the learners.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The dwindling decrease in the academic performance of pupils in common entrance examination in recent years has been so alarming and this has raise so many questions from parent, educationist, government and nongovernmental organization and researchers on what could be the possible cause of this poor academic performance.

Many reasons have been attributed to this poor performance, some authors posits that the poor academic performance could be due to the fact that social studies as a subjects pose serious problems of comprehension to pupils since it have a lot of abstraction; others are of the view that the poor academic performance of pupils could be as a result of poor teaching strategies while some maintained that this problem is as result of lack of instructional materials.

From the foregoing it can be seen that this subject cannot be taught effectively without the teacher’s adoption of relevant teaching strategies such as team teaching strategies that will motivate pupils’ participation during instructional delivery.

The analysis above shows that careful and cautious attention should be accorded to it in order to build and sustain efficient achievement of pupils in social studies. The suggestions above leads to the following questions “could the use of team teaching strategy increase pupils’ participation in social studies classroom in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area?

The search of providing answer to the question above prompted the researcher to investigate into teaching strategies and pupils’ academic performance in Social Studies in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area.

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The main subject of this study was to examine teaching strategies and pupils’ academic performance in Social Studies in primary schools in Ikono Local Government Area. The specific objectives include:

1. to examine the academic achievement of pupils taught using the team teaching strategy and those taught by a single instructor in Social Studies
2. to examine the academic performance of pupils taught using the peer tutoring strategy and those taught by teachers

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions were raised in line with the specific objectives of the study.

1. to what extent is the difference in the academic performance of pupils taught using the team teaching strategy and those taught by a single instructor in Social Studies ?
2. to what extent is the difference in academic performance of pupils taught using the peer tutoring strategy and those taught by the regular Social Studies teacher?

1.5 Research Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses were formulated in line with the specific objectives and the research questions to guide the study.

Ho1:  There is no significant difference in the academic performance of pupils taught using the team teaching strategy and those taught by a single instructor in Social Studies

Ho2:  There is no significant difference in the academic performance of pupils taught using the peer tutoring strategy and those taught by regular Social Studies teacher

1.6. Significance of the Study

It is anticipated that the findings of this study would be of immense benefits to the major stake-holders in the educational sector. Teachers, school administrators, curriculum planners, researchers and pupils would find this study useful in the following ways:

1. it would reveal if the teaching strategies identified in this study (team teaching and peer tutoring) have a positive effect or otherwise on pupils’ academic performance.
2. Teachers of Social Studies would find this study useful in understanding the relevance and application of the teaching strategies for instruction to improve pupils’ academic performance.

iii. it would add to the body of existing literature on teaching strategies in relation to pupils’ academic performance in Social Studies and other school subjects.

1. Finally, the findings of this study would serve as a spring-board and a reference material for further research on teaching strategies and pupils’ academic performance not only in social studies, but other school subjects.

1.7 Delimitation of the Study

This study was delimited to teaching strategies and academic performance of Social Studies pupils in Ikono Local Government Area. The target population was all the primary 5 pupils in all the primary schools in the study area.

1.8 Limitation of the Study

The major factors that limited the scope of this study to Ikono Local Government Area were: adequate funds, time frame for the completion of the study and the researcher’s academic work-load which did not allow much time for the expansion of the work.

1.9 Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms used in this study were operationally defined as explained below:

Teaching strategy: The plans or techniques which a teacher adopts to impart or convey knowledge to the learners.

Team teaching strategy: An instructional plan where two or more teachers are involved in teaching a group of learners a particular subject.

Peer tutoring strategy: An instructional strategy in which more brilliant pupils are chosen by the teacher to teach the slow learners.

Academic performance: The level of achievement of individual pupils in test or examinations given on taught lessons.

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools

Teaching Strategies and Pupils Academic Performance in Social Studies in Primary Schools