ABSTRACT
This study sought to investigate the effect of cooperative learning instructional strategy on students’ achievement in senior secondary school government curriculum in Onitsha Education zone, Anambra State. It is a quasi-experimental study of non- equivalent group design. Five research questions and five null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A sample of 160 SS2 students from four purposively selected secondary schools in Onitsha Education zone, Anambra State Nigeria were used for the study. Government Achievement Test (GAT) was developed, validated and used for data collection. The instrument (GAT) was trial-tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation which established a reliability index of 0.89. Mean, Standard Deviation and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) were used for the data analysis. The results revealed among others that students performed significantly better in Government curriculum when taught with cooperative learning instructional strategy than lecture method; that male and female students’ achievement does not differ significantly when taught with cooperative learning instructional strategy and that school location does not affect students’ achievement when cooperative instructional strategy is used in teaching Government curriculum. It concluded among others that if cooperative learning instructional strategy is adopted in teaching and learning of Government curriculum in senior secondary schools, students’ achievement would improve. The study recommended among others that curriculum designers should recommend cooperative learning instructional strategy as one of the participatory instructional strategies to the teaching and learning of Government curriculum and that government teachers should use it in the teaching and learning of the government curriculum.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Teaching and learning are two concepts in education that are intricately interwoven. Basically the two concepts complement each other. Expectedly any organised teaching could bring about learning. According to Akudolu (1994) teaching is a systematic activity deliberately engaged in by somebody to facilitate the learning of the intended worthwhile knowledge, skills and values by another person through necessary feedback. Maduewesi (1998) buttressed the above position by elaborating on the vital role of active teaching in the child’s learning process.
According to Ezeani (1998:2), teaching is “done through educating, directing, guiding, instructing, preparing, coaching, initiating, training, indoctrinating, preaching, conditioning and brain-washing”. Ezeani explains that teaching has too aspects, make belief aspect and interactive approach. The make belief aspect is intended to force the learner accept certain knowledge, attitudes and principles with little or no room for interaction between the teacher and the student. According to Maduewesi (1998) effective teaching brings about learning.
Learning is the central focus of any teaching/learning endeavour. Consequently, learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of the interaction between an individual and the environment (Ezeani, 1998). This suggests that for learning to take place, there must be an interaction between the learner and the learning environment. The learning environment could comprise the teacher, the instructional strategy and even the learners. Teacher is a person that has knowledge of pedagogical contents and methods as to facilitate learning. Whenever a teacher uses good instructional strategy in teaching, students learn. Hitherto, Mezieobi, Ossai, Onyeanusi, & Egharevba (2012) opine that teacher’s instructional strategy facilitates teaching and learning.
Instructional strategy is vital in teaching and learning exercise. Instructional strategy is the technique and procedure, used by the teacher for facilitation of learning contents and environment to promote learning (Offorma, 2006). Nosiri (1999) Supports this definition when she states that instructional strategies in the context of what happens in the classroom denotes a number of maneuvers that compromise a system or pattern of teaching. It could be seen as the teaching skills harnessed by the teacher including all other actions that cannot be identified easily with particularly named teaching skills such like certain teacher/pupil demonstrations, mannerisms and questions among others. Instructional strategies for teaching and learning of Government in senior secondary schools include among others lecture, demonstration, dramatisation or role play, and cooperative learning instructional strategies (Eze, 1999; Ojukwu, Mbaebie, & Anyabolu, 2005). However, Federal Ministry of Education (FME, 2007) recommends strategies like the use of resource persons, discussion method, inquiry techniques, debates, enter-educate approach, study trips among others for teaching and learning of senior secondary school Government curriculum.
The same document calls these strategies interactive and/ or participatory approaches to teaching and learning of Government Curriculum. Interactive teaching is the teaching pattern where the teacher involves the students in the classroom interaction with free mind of idea exchange (Maduewesi, 1998). However, researches have shown that the dominant method of teaching used by teachers is the lecture instructional strategy (Eze, 1998, Ezeani, 1998 & Aguokagbue, 2006). Lecture instructional strategy is a didactic strategy that allows the flow of knowledge from the teacher to the learner.
Observations have shown that teachers most often use lecture instructional strategy in teaching and learning of senior secondary school Government. Nonetheless, Usulor (2012) states that among all factors causing low academic achievement of students, didactic instructional strategies that do not encourage educational achievement of students is on the top list. The use of lecture method against the modern exploratory and/ or interactive methods of teaching could be one of the factors that affect students’ achievement in senior secondary school Government curriculum. However, given the nature of the senior secondary school Government curriculum as a Social Science, interactive instructional strategies ought to be used for effective teaching and learning of Government contents for a better comprehension. This accounts for the reason the researcher intends to investigate the effect of cooperative learning instructional strategy on students’ achievement in senior secondary school Government curriculum. Again, cooperative learning instructional strategy was not included among the listed instructional strategies for the teaching and learning of senior secondary school Government curriculum. Nonetheless, cooperative learning instructional strategy is an interactive and/ or participatory strategy that could be used in teaching and learning ((Slavin, Karweit, & Madden, 1989; Johnson & Johnson, 1998).
Thus, the concern of this study is cooperative learning instructional strategy. The reason for choice of cooperative learning instructional strategy in this study is that it is a practical and/ or participatory method of teaching that would appeal to effective teaching and learning of senior secondary school Government. This can again be substantiated by the fact that FME (2007) has recommended the use of participatory approaches to teaching and learning of senior secondary school Government curriculum given its nature as a functional Social Science.
Cooperative learning instructional strategy could be seen as an instructional strategy that advocates group learning and group activities for a better academic achievement. Cooperative learning is working together to accomplish shared goals (Majah, 2006). Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small heterogeneous groups of students who work together to maximise their own and each other’s learning. There is a great difference between group learning and cooperative learning. Group learning is simply putting several students to work together. They may or may not be cooperating. Cooperative learning on the other hand is an arrangement in which students work in heterogeneous groups and are rewarded on the basis of the success of the group (Cempa, 2008).
Group is essential to cooperative learning. For example since the content scope of this study will be political parties and pressure groups, a teacher can group the students into a group of 5 each to discuss the units and will award marks based on group achievement. This perhaps means that cooperative learning favours heterogeneous group of students and could bring about better academic achievement. Cooperative learning is generally defined as a teaching arrangement in which small, heterogeneous groups of students work together to achieve a common goal (Kagan, 1994). Existence of heterogeneous groups in schools produces the greatest opportunities for peer tutoring and support as well as improving cross-race and cross-sex relations and integration (Kagan, 1994).
Cooperative learning instructional strategy tends to be an important instructional strategy that enhances students’ learning across groups. In cooperative learning instructional strategy students encourage and support each other, assume responsibility for their own and each other’s learning, employ group related social skills, and evaluate the group’s progress (Cempa, 2008). The basic elements are positive interdependence, face-face-promotive interaction, social skills, group processing and individual accountability. This assumption of cooperative learning could be supported by the constructivists’ theory by Vygotsky (1978) which supports participatory learning where the learner constructs his own knowledge. However, the findings of this study could either refute or support this assumption. Social learning theory by Bandura (1977) seems to support team learning by doing which the cooperative learning advocates. This is because human beings are social creatures by nature and cooperation has been used throughout history in all aspects of human lives. This suggests that students’ studying as a group may influence their academic achievements.
Achievement could be seen as an index for determining academic success of the students. It could be referred to as the academic accomplishments of students as a result of exertion of efforts, skills, perseverance and practice (Hornby, 2001). Academic achievement is commonly measured by examinations or continuous assessment but it appears there is no general agreement on how it is best tested or which aspects are mostly tested (Wikipedia, 2013). In education however, the cognitive, affective and psychomotor areas of achievement are measured (Offorma, 2006). In this study the academic achievements of senior secondary school Government curriculum students will be tested using Government Achievement Test (GAT). Okoye (1996:20) defines achievement test as “a test that asseses a person’s performance in a course of study which he/she has undergone”. Hence, the Government achievement test in this study will be given to determine the extent students pass or fail certain Government concepts like political parties and pressure groups.
Hitherto, students’ achievements in senior secondary school Government curriculum have been described as low, average and poor. (WAEC chief examiners’ report, 2008, 2009, & 2010). The same WAEC chief examiner’s report (2011), states that students’ achievement in senior secondary school Government curriculum is generally poor. Nonetheless, as far back as 2007, the same WAEC chief examiner’s report attributed poor achievement of students to method of teaching adopted by the teachers. Consequently, Ugwuda & Agwagah (2009) attribute poor achievement of students in simultaneous equation to dominant use of lecture method. The researchers argue that lecture method if not poorly used encourages rote memorisation of concepts. However, rote memorisation of ideas could bring about memory failure which affects students’ achievement.
Apart from instructional strategies, there are some other factors that could affect students’ achievement. Some scholars have accepted that gender and school location could affect students’ achievement (Orji, 2013, Egbe, Mba & Nebechukwu, 2010 and Agwagah, 1997). Gender according World Health Organisation (W.H.O, 2003) refers to socially constructed roles, behaviour, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men or women. It may imply masculine and feminine roles associated to males and females in the society. Some research findings document that males perform better than females. For instance Ede & Onyia (2004) state that males perform better than females in Economics when taught with lecture method. Okeke (1991) documents that males perform better than females in English Language when taught with lecture instructional strategy. Akuma (2005) states that males out perform their female counterparts in map work when lecture method is used. However, Manasaray (1988) states that females perform better than their male counterparts in Social Studies when exposed to lecture instructional strategy. However, some researchers have the view that gender has no significant effect on students’ achievement (Onuoha, 2010; Okeke, 2013). Onuoha documents that male and female students have equal achievement when taught with concept mapping instructional strategy. Similarly, Okeke documents that male and female students have almost equal academic achievement when exposed to project-based method. It is the above controversy that necessitates the inclusion of gender as variable in this study to see the effect of cooperative learning instructional strategy on students’ achievement across gender.
