EFFECTS OF COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION ON THE TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN JIGAWA STATE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1         Background to the Study

Education in the 21^st century has simply become dependent on computer as a necessary tool for enhancing teaching and learning, communication and access to information (Mason, 1994). The challenge therefore is to be able to remain relevant in the competitive education system, through the adoption and deployment of modern technology as solutions.

rapidly over the past decade with development in electronics, in research on learning, and in the application of system principles to instruction. Instructional technology helps teachers to make effective use of the vast array of both old and new resources available to them. Modern development cannot thrive without emphasis on science and technology. This explains why Nigeria places premium on education as an instrument for its scientific, technological and economic development.

The National Policy on Education gave prominent place to Social Studies Education within the school curricular, as a core subject area, which all pupils in primary and secondary schools cannot dispense within their learning activities. This perhaps, is in recognition of the potentialities of Social Studies Education to inculcate the right kind of skills and virtues through unified and integrated disciplinary study of man (FGN, 2004).

A critical examination of Social Studies Education objectives, the subject involves many approaches of teaching and learning. It is obvious that lecture method is inadequate to achieve the diverse objectives of the subject (Makinde, 2000).

Therefore, the multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary underpinnings of the content of Social Studies Education calls for the application of new dimensions and

orientation in planning and synthesizing of a variety of teaching-learning techniques, such as the use of computers, stimulation technology, role playing techniques, guided discussion and other methods for the purpose of ensuring an attainment of appropriate Social Studies Education objectives.

The Social Studies Education must accept responsibility for involving learners in a variety of classroom activities. These activities should provide opportunity for the learners to practice appropriate behaviour. For example, to learn to think critically and form sound judgement, the learner must practice forming judgment. Thus the use of computer assisted instruction, which is multimedia and pupil/student-centred in nature, as a teaching technique in Social Studies Education, will go a long way to enhancing teaching and learning of the subject (Akinlaye, 1999).

Tancook (2002) supports the view that the integration of internet technology (computers), in the Social Studies Education curriculum will enhance teaching and learning more effectively.

It is against this background that this study attempts to find out whether or not there exist any effects of computer assisted instruction on the teaching of Social Studies Education in Junior Secondary School in Jigawa State.

1.2         Statement of the Problem

Through the researcher‟s experiences as a classroom teacher in some secondary schools, as well as, observations and discussions among fellow colleagues, the researcher deduced that most teachers in the Junior and Senior Secondary Schools in Jigawa State do not make use of computer as modern teaching aids in the teaching and learning of

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Social Studies Education in the classroom. This lukewarm attitude towards the effective use of instructional facilities, most especially the Computer Assisted Instruction (C.A.I), in teaching and learning of Social Studies Education is common to both, the professionally trained Social Studies Education teachers as well as the untrained professional teachers (that is, those without teaching qualification or from other fields other than Social Studies Education ).

The desire to embark on this research, therefore, stemmed from the above and the fact that there is the problem of poor performance by Junior Secondary School students in Social Studies Education in the state. These poor performances in Social Studies Education have been recorded for some years by examination bodies and Educational Resource Centre in the state, (Ministry of Education, Jigawa, 2001). It is against this backdrop that this research intends to ascertain or otherwise the effects of Computer Assisted Instruction (C.A.I.) in the teaching and learning of Social Studies Education in Junior Secondary Schools in Jigawa State.

EFFECTS OF COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION ON THE TEACHING OF SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN JIGAWA STATE