Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL STUDIES EDUCATION
IN THE NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
By
Dr. (Mrs.) A. A. Jekayinfa
Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions of social studies
education in Nigerian secondary schools. Questionnaires consisting of 30 items,
describing the three orientations of social studies was used to collect data from three
hundred (300) social studies teachers in thirty (30) secondary schools in Kwara, Niger
and Oyo States. The data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics for
analysis. The results indicated that, the perceptions of teachers to the different
orientations were in varying degrees. While most teachers perceived social studies as
both citizenship Education and Social Science, few perceive it as reflective inquiry. The
results also indicated that there were significant differences in the perceptions of male
and female teachers on the issue of social studies being social science and reflective
inquiry. It was suggested and recommended that teachers should be broad minded when
teaching social studies bearing in mind that it consists of all the three orientations
highlighted in this study. It was also recommended that teachers should not concentrate
on one orientation at the expense of the others but instead, the three orientations should
be blended together when teaching social studies at the secondary school levels.
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
INTRODUCTION
As a result of the efforts of the Social Studies Association of Nigeria (SOSAN)
during the 1969 National Curriculum Conference, social studies education has now
assumed a pride of place in our educational system. It has become the medium through
which citizenship education is taught at the secondary school level. Social Studies
consists of about four orientations. A social studies orientation is a set of statements
describing any one of the multiple emphasis in social studies education. Each major
emphasis has developed answers to the questions about content, method and purpose of
teaching social studies. At the secondary school level, three of these orientations have
been developed.
The first is the social studies orientation emphasizing the transmission of
citizenship learning such as moral, values and attitudes. According to the National Policy
on Education (NPE, 1981) , social studies curriculum include citizenship education which
emphasizes how individuals develop positive attitudes to their rights, freedom, duties
obligations as citizens. The other two orientations are:
i.
The one emphasizing structure of the social sciences which includes mainly
the concepts of economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, political
science and;
ii.
The orientation emphasizing problem solving through reflective inquiry.
These orientations, especially the last two have been combined to write the 1982
social studies syllabus. It was not definitely clear as at the time of this research whether
secondary school teachers perceive social studies as one of these orientations or as a
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
combination of two or all of them. It is therefore the purpose of this study to find out
teachers’ perceptions of social studies education in the Nigerian secondary schools.
Review of Related Literature
There is a death of literature in this area and in Nigeria, the few that are available
are thus reviewed. Olawepo (1984) carried out an investigation on teachers’ perceptions
of social studies orientations at the primary school level. Making use of 1,221 primary
school teachers randomly selected from 114 schools in Kwara State, he came out with the
result that while many teachers perceived social studies as citizenship education, few
perceived it as both social science and reflective inquiry.
Barth and Morris (1976) carried out a study examining the preferences of teachers
in training from different backgrounds among the social studies orientations or traditions
as he calls them. He administered “the social studies three traditions checklist” on fifty
five (55) social studies student-teachers from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and at the
same time, to eighty-five social studies teacher candidates from Purdue University
(USA). The check-list consisted of forty-five (85) liket-type items, which were analysed
in a way that fifteen items were associated with the Barth and Shermis (1970)
orientations for:
(1)
Citizenship transmission
(2)
Structure of the social sciences and
(3)
The reflective inquiry
The findings of Barth and Morris showed that there was a significant difference in
the preferences of the Americans and Nigerian candidates. While 81% of the Americans
perceived that they were learning towards some form of inquiry, only 43% of the
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
Nigerians clearly selected any position with the percentage of responses across the
different orientations being equally distributed among citizenship transmission, reflective
inquiry and social science orientations. While about 46% of the Nigerian responded
favourably towards all the three orientations at the same time, only 6% of the American
candidates felt that each of the three orientations was of equal value.
Orimoloye (1983), making use of three hundred (300) randomly selected teachers,
teacher educators and inspectors, carried out an investigation into the perspectives of
social studies practitioners on citizenship education in primary and secondary schools in
Oyo State. He made use of four models of social studies education namely; citizenship
transmission, structure of the social sciences, reflective inquiry and socio-political
involvement. The result of the investigation revealed that the respondents positively
endorsed all the four models but in varying degrees.
Judging from the outcomes of these various studies, it can be assumed that
secondary school teachers will have different perceptions of social studies education
especially as it relates to the orientations identified for use in this study. Since the social
studies orientation relating to the transmission of facts and citizenship learning have been
in use for more than fifteen years, one can also assume that this orientation will be more
favoured than any of the other two orientations.
Based on the literature reviewed and in the light of the assumptions made, the
researcher posed the following questions for possible solutions.
1.
What are the perceptions of the secondary school teachers of social studies
Education?
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
2.
Is there any significant difference between the teachers based in rural schools
and those based in urban schools in their perception of social studies
Education?
3.
Is there any significant difference between male and female teachers in their
perception of social studies Education?
The Problem
Various studies (Orimoloye, 1983, Olawepo, 1984, 1986) have been carried out to
investigate teachers’ preferences of social studies orientations in Nigerian primary
schools but little, if any at all, has been done in Nigerian secondary schools. This
research was carried out to fill that gap. Also studies such as Adeniyi (1991); Nakorji
(1991); Niyi (1995), have been carried out on the citizenship transmission aspect of social
studies education. These studies seem to give impression that social studies education is
limited to the transmission of citizenship values. It cannot be denied however that one of
the aims of social studies is to develop a reasoned commitment to those civic values to
function responsibly in a democratic society, and according to Barth (1985) social studies
is intended as an organized integrative experience in citizenship values and attitudes and
that citizenship education. At the same time, it is important to note that Social studies
entails more than citizenship values and attitudes and that citizen education is only one of
the three orientations of social studies at the secondary school level. It was therefore the
purpose of this study to investigate the perception of secondary school teachers on social
studies education.
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
Methodology
This study was purely descriptive and made use of a survey design. The subjects
of this study were three hundred (300) social studies teachers comprising of one hundred
and eighty three (183) males and one hundred and seventeen (117) females randomly
selected from thirty (30) secondary schools in Kwara, Oyo and Niger States. (see table
1).
Thirty schools, ten in each of the three states, were used for the study.
The
instrument consisted of a pool of items compiled from the literature to describe the three
orientations of social studies. Initially, the items in the pool were 55 but they were later
sorted out by social studies specialists at the University of Ilorin who assessed their
relevance.
Items with less than 70% agreement among the experts were deleted from the
pool. The instrument was thus judged to possess content validity. The reliability of the
instrument was established among some secondary school social studies teachers and all
the items were finally refined by the use of item remainder analysis which is commonly
used to indicate the contribution of each item to the internal consistency of a scale
(Gronbach, 1951). In all, 30 items were retained with 10 for each orientation. Using the
split – half internal consistency reliability method, the coefficient was 0.90.
The
instrument was thus considered to be highly reliable.
The instrument was individually administered on the selected teachers in the
various locations. After collection, the data were anlaysed using t-test statistical
procedure to determine if significant differences exist between teachers based in rural and
urban areas in their perception of social studies education.
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
Table 1
Distribution of the Respondents by Sex and Location of Schools
Sex
Location of School
Male
Female
Rural
Urban
183(61%)
117 (39%)
150 (50%)
150 (50%)
N = 300
The result of the comparison of the perception of male and female teachers on
table 2, concerning social studies education being social science and reflective inquiry
showed that there were significant differences. The calculated t-values of 3.085 and
6.242 are greater than the table value of 1.96. The result also showed that the perceptions
of male and female teachers on social studies being citizenship education did not differ
significantly. This is because the calculated t-value of 0.927 was lesser than the table
value of 1.96. It can thus be concluded that male and female teachers have similar
perceptions of social studies that it transmits citizenship education.
Table 2
Mean, Standard Deviations and t-value of Teachers’ Perception of
Social Studies Orientation by Sex
Social Studies
orientation
Citizenship Edu.
Social Science
Reflective Inquiry
Sex
X
SD
Male
2.6284
0.5383
Female
2.6923
0.6083
Male
2.610
0.6772
Female
2.8025
0.4845
Male
2.5137
0.5917
Female
2.8547
0.3539
NB: * Significant at 0.05 level.
8
Df
298
Calculated
t-value
0.92758
298
3.08548
298
6.24283
Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
The perceptions of teachers in rural schools was found to differ significantly from
the perceptions of teachers in urban schools on social studies as reflective inquiry (See
Table 3). Since the calculated t-value of 3.47442 is greater than the table value of 1.96
the hypothesis that states that there can be no significant difference in the perceptions of
teachers in the rural and urban schools on social studies education was rejected. On the
orientations for citizenship education and social science, the hypothesis was accepted
since there was no significant difference in the perception of teachers in the two
environments (calculated t-values of 0.32996 and 0.11475 are lesser than the table value
of 1.96).
Table 3
Mean, Standard Deviations and t-value of Teachers’ Perception of
Social Studies Orientation by Location
Social Studies
Location of
orientation
Teachers
Citizenship Edu.
Social Science
Reflective Inquiry
X
SD
Calculated
t-value
Rural
2.716
0.5116
Urban
2.560
0.5301
Rural
2.805
0.5006
Urban
2.790
0.5107
Rural
2.416
0.4135
Urban
2.562
0.6284
0.32996
0.11475
347442
NB: * Significant at 0.05 level.
Discussion
The findings in this study indicated that social studies teachers perceived social
studies as both citizenship education, reflective inquiry and social science, but their
perceptions were in varying degrees. While teachers, regardless of their sexes perceived
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
social studies as citizenship education, there were significant differences in the
perceptions of male and female teachers as to social studies being social sciences and
reflective inquiry. Also, while teachers, regardless of their locations perceived social
studies as citizenship education and social science, perceptions of teachers in rural
schools differ significantly to those of their counter parts in urban schools as to social
studies being reflective inquiry.
This result is in consonance with the findings of
Orimoloye (1983) and Olawepo (1986) which recorded that all sampled teachers
positively endorsed the social studies orientations employed for their studies but in
varying degrees.
The result that teachers, regardless of where their schools were located agree on
social studies as citizenship education is in line with the aim of social studies as
documented in the National Policy on Education (1981) and with Barth (1985) who noted
that social studies is intended as an organized integrative experience in citizenship
education. The differences in the perceptions of male and female teachers as to social
studies being social science and reflective inquiry may be due to the fact that while some
teachers may have flairs for the teaching of social science components of social studies,
many especially males may tend towards teaching social studies using problem solving
approach through reflective inquiry.
The differences in the perceptions of rural and urban teachers as to social studies
being reflective inquiry may be attributed to the fact that social studies teachers,
including those at the tertiary institutions tend to emphasize the citizenship education
aspect of social studies more than the other orientations. The reason for this emphasis
may be as a result of the assertion often made that contemporary Nigerians need proper
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
citizenship education so as to curb indiscipline and other social ills which have eaten
deep into the fabrics of the Nation.
Conclusion
It is hereby recommended that Nigerian teachers both at the primary and
secondary levels should be aware of the fact that social studies have many orientations or
traditions and it should be taught in such a way that all the orientations i.e citizenship
transmissions, the structures of social science and problem solving through reflective
inquiry should be blended together so that pupils will have an organized integrative
experience.
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Nigerian Journal of Sociology of Education. 3(1), May, 1995
Reference
Barth, J. L. & Morris, W.R. (1976). “A study examining the preferences of
Teacher Candidates from different cultures towards social studies”.
Nigeria Educational Forum, 2 (2), 53 – 58.
Barth, J.J. & Shermis, S.S. (1970). “Defining the Social Studies, An exploration of three
traditions”, Social Education, 34, 743 – 751.
Cronbach, L .J. (1951). “Co-efficient Alpha and Internal Structure of Tests”.
Psychometricka, 16, 279 - 334.
Nakorji, U. (1991). An investigation into the citizenship qualities of Junior Secondary
School Studies in Niger State. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, University of Ilorin.
Niyi, E. (1995). Niger State Secondary Teachers’ Perception of Citizenship Education.
Unpublished M.Ed Project, University of Ilorin.
Olawepo, J.A. (1984). Teachers’ perceptions of Social Studies orientations at the Primary
School level. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Ibadan.
Olawepo, J. A. (1986). “The structure of Teachers’ Preferences for the former and current
orientations of the Nigerian Primary Social Studies”. Educational Digest 1(1).
Orimoloye, P.A. (1983). Social Studies Educators’ Perspectives on citizenship Education
in Primary and Secondary Schools, in Oyo State. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis,
Michigan State University.
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