Effect of Shadow and Problem-Based Instructional Strategies on Secondary School Students’ Learning Outcomes in Environmental and Citizenship Concepts in Social Studies in Ibadan Metropolis

Abstract

The study examined the effects of shadow and problem-based instructional strategies on secondary school students’ learning outcomes in social studies. Study adopted the pre-test, post-test, control group and quasi-experimental design. The population for the study comprised all junior secondary school students in Ibadan Metropolis and the sample consisted of 270 Junior Secondary School class II student selected from nine schools in Ibadan Metropolis. Simple random sampling was used to select six single-sex schools (3boys only and 3girls only) and purposive sampling was used to select three co-educational schools for the study. Stratified random sampling was also used to select 30 students (15 males and 15 females) from each co-educational school and simple random sampling was used to select 30 students from each single-sex school. The instrument used for the study was the Social Studies Learning Outcomes Test (SSLOT) designed and validated by the researchers and experts in Social Studies. The instrument was made up of 40 multiple-choice items designed to measure the students’ learning outcomes in Social Studies. The test, re-test estimation of internal consistency method of reliability was adopted and the reliability co-efficient of 0.77 and 0.74 was obtained respectively. Five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The data were analyzed using t-test and ANCOVA statistical tools. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the learning outcomes of students in the experimental and control groups. It was found that shadow strategy was the most effective, followed by problem-based strategy and traditional expository lecture method in improving students’ learning outcomes in Social Studies. It was therefore recommended, that teachers should make their lessons more interesting, appealing, lively and friendly to enhance students’ learning outcomes in Social Studies. Teachers should make use of shadow and problem-based strategies that encourage development life-skills in learners.

Keywords: Affective Learning, Life-Skills, Problem-based strategy, Responsible Citizens, Shadow strategy.