COMPARATIVE EFFECTS OF MULTIPLE TEACHING METHODS ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND INTEREST OF UPPER BASIC EDUCATION STUDENTS IN SOCIAL STUDIES IN ANAMBRA STATE

Education

The study investigated the effects of multiple teaching methods on academic achievement and interest of upper basic education students in social studies in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study while two hypotheses were tested. The study adopted quasi experimental design. The population for the study was all public upper basic education students in the twenty-one local government areas in the state. Due to the large size of the population, multi stage sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. A total number of 150 students were involved in the study. The four groups were randomly selected from four schools as follows; Control group (lecture method) - 36 students; Experimental group I (discussion method) – 40 students; Experimental group II, (demonstration method) – 32 students; and Experimental group III (inquiry method) – 42 students. The instruments for data collection were Social studies Achievement Test (SSAT) and Social studies Interest Scale (SSIS) which were validated by three experts, all from the Department of Social Science Education (Social Studies Unit), University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The reliability of the instruments was established using Cronbach alpha for SSIS and Kudder-Richardson 20 for SSAT. SSIS and SSAT yielded a coefficient of 0.84 and 0.76 respectively. The research questions were answered using mean while the hypotheses were tested using ANOVA. The findings of the study revealed that discussion method and demonstration respectively ranked first for improving the academic achievement and interest of upper basic education students in social studies while lecture method ranked last in both regards. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that: Social studies teachers at the upper basic education level should stop the use of lecture method in teaching students of social studies which hinders their achievement and interest in the subject; and Anambra state government should organize training/retraining for social studies teachers in the state on the use of demonstration method of teaching so as to enhance the interest of students in social studies.

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