INTRODUCTION
The philosophy of Nigeria education as stated
by the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) (2014) is based on the development of
the individual into a sound and effective citizen and the provision of equal
opportunities for all citizens of the nation at all levels both inside and
outside the formal school system. That is why the Federal Republic of Nigeria
(FRN, 2014) stipulates that every Nigerian child has a right to education for
the purpose of engendering national development, achievable through
pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. For easy
achievement of the stated goal, secondary education is segmented into two
sections; three years of junior secondary school and three years of senior
secondary. The secondary education level occupies an important and critical
position in the setup of the educational system as a transitional stage between
basic and tertiary education. Ideally, the secondary schools are to carter for
the needs of educating and training middle level technicians and skilled
workers. This is done by deliberately designing the curriculum to cater for
fundamentally lifelong knowledge base programmes. The
school system has been trying to achieve this desirable purpose through the
various school subjects. But since most school subjects deal with specific
areas of knowledge, the all-round or holistic approach to human behaviour especially character formation, value, knowledge
and skills for national citizenship seem to be lacking. Hence the introduction
of Social Studies into the school curriculum.
Social Studies as a school subject or
academic field of study is the study of the aspects connected with all human
beings to enable them to live a fulfilled and comfortable life. Though the
subject has been defined differently, its curriculum is a potent tool that
develops learner’s skills for effective citizenship and lifelong education.
Thus, Social Studies is commonly seen as a cultural integration where both the
material and non-material culture of a people are studied. Kazi, (2017) sees
Social Studies as an eclectic distillation of social phenomena for socio-civic
living or behaviour in the society. This source
further elaborates that Social Studies is both, values-free and values-laden in
nature which teachers of the subject must be aware of, to produce effective and
prospective citizens for Nigeria. Therefore, Social Study is those portions of
the Social Sciences selected for instructional purposes applied to include
anything pertinent to the immediate purpose of learning and adapted to the
level of comprehension of the student.
Specialists asserts that Social Studies is yet
to achieve its objectives of contributing in developing the spirit of
patriotism, loyalty, spirit of fair play, justice, national consciousness,
preserving the country’s national heritage and becoming useful citizens to the
nation and the individual person at the junior secondary school, which could be
as a result of poor teaching and or inadequacy of instructional materials, poor
selection and use of instructional technique or inadequate motivation of students.
The learner is completely left-out in the assessment and evaluation process,
yet the learner is the central factor in the teaching-learning process. The
success or otherwise of Social Studies teaching learning activities depends to
a large extent, on how well the teacher communicates and to what extent the
teacher is able to involve the learners in activities during and after
instruction. (Offorma, 2014) This is because the
desired changes in learning behaviour will not come
merely through teacher’s instructional activities but also, students’ interest.
Interest is viewed as attraction which forces
or compels one to respond to a particular stimulus. It is therefore the duty of
the teacher to identify and use the appropriate learning aid that will make students
develop interest in learning, so as to improve student’s academic achievement.
Academic achievement of students, both at
primary and the junior secondary school level, speak not only of the
effectiveness of schools but also a major determinant of the country’s
educational direction, future development and the medium through which the
attainment of individuals and the nation’s educational goals can be achieved in
learning. One major factor of attraction is the method of teaching and all the
strategies and techniques that teachers and students employ for
teaching-learning of school subjects including Social Studies. Though many may
argue that methods of teaching have been over emphasized, but methods,
techniques and strategies that encourages learner self-worth can never be over
emphasized. This is to say self-regulated learning may be important in this
discussion.
Self-regulated learning refers to the
monitoring and controlling of one's own cognitive achievement before, during,
and after a learning process. Self-regulated learning could have a wide
influence in areas, including subjective well-being, physical health, social
achievement, economy, and online education. Gender is another factor that seems
to influence pupils’ achievement in social studies. Since gender are those
range of characteristics distinguishing males and females, particularly in the
masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Gender has remained a topic
of discussion and a source of disagreement among researchers in the educational
system. While some studies show evidence of males’ superiority over the females
in social studies, there are those that show no significant differences in
males’ and females’ achievement in Social Studies. These inconsistencies create
and sustains curiosity hence the need to investigate whether learners exposed
to self-regulated technique will achieve differently based on gender.
Students’ learning location like gender, has
generated curiosity among researchers. Some researchers reported that students
from urban areas performed better than those from rural secondary schools. In
this light, location has both direct and indirect effects on academic
achievement of learners and therefore, the need to investigate whether Social
Studies students exposed to self - regulated learning technique will achieve
differently based on the location of the school.
Over a considerable volume of time, resources
and efforts invested into the educational system, in relation to the
corresponding outcome is not quite encouraging as the difference between the
“educated” and the “uneducated” seems to be very little, as the behaviours of the “educated” does not discriminate the
“uneducated”. Digging into performances of the educated simply shows poor
achievements in the subjects that possess the potency to build effective,
critical thinkers and problem solvers. Since the main purpose of learning in
any given society is to effect change in the behaviour
of the learners, then, Social Studies should be handled with the sense of responsibility,
because as a school subject or academic field of study, it is saddled with the
responsibility of developing in the learners the spirit of patriotism, loyalty,
spirit of fair play, justice, national heritage and becoming useful citizens to
the nation and to the individual person from cradle to dead.
Specialist of Social Studies envisaged that
the objectives of the subjects are yet to be achieved. Based on the statistical
records of student's academic achievement, the objectives of
Social Studies at the junior secondary school level has been dwindling.
Recently, there has been increasing interest among researchers in the field of
Social Studies on how students can improve their academic achievement in Social
Studies. Some studies from foreign nations and few schools in Nigeria suggest
that exposing students to self-regulated learning strategy may enhance their
achievement and interest in Social studies. But there is no record of whether
self-regulated learning technique has been used in secondary education level
within the study area, except for Naanvit Star
Nursery/Primary School Pankshin that is practicing self-regulated learning
method of teaching, and has recorded a considerable level of success
demonstrated by the increasing enrolment of pupils, and record of how well
their products perform at the secondary levels. The problem is whether the use
of self-regulated learning technique will improve students’ interest and
achievements in Social Studies at the junior secondary school level in Pankshin
Local Government Area.
In
this respect, it can be argued that the concept of self-regulated learning
marks a shift in educational research from considering students’ learning
capabilities and environments as fixed entities, to focusing on students’
learning processes and responses, which are dynamic in nature, and influence
their academic success. Hence, factor such as self-regulation should be taken
into consideration. The
broad question for this study therefore, is, what is the effects of
Self-Regulated Learning Technique on Students’ Interest and Academic
Achievement?
Aim and Objectives of
the Study
The aim of the study
is to investigate the effects of self-regulated learning technique on the
interest and academic achievement of upper basic students in social studies in
Pankshin, Plateau State Nigeria. Specifically,
the study intends to achieve the following objectives to:
1.
determine
the pre-test and post-test achievement mean score of the experimental and
control group.
2.
ascertain
the pre-test and post-test interest mean scores of the experimental and control
group.
3.
determine
post-test mean achievement score of male and female students who are exposed to
self-regulated learning in Social Studies in Pankshin.
Research Questions
The following
research questions guided the study;
1.
What
is the achievement mean score of the experimental and control group before and
after exposure to treatment?
2.
What
is the interest mean score of the experimental and control group before and
after exposure to self-regulated learning in Social Studies in Pankshin.
3.
What
is the achievement mean score of male and female students after exposure to
self-regulated learning in Social Studies in Pankshin?
Hypotheses
The following
hypotheses were formulated and tested at alpha 0.05 level of significance.
1.
There
is no significant difference in the achievement mean scores between the
experimental and control group after exposure to self-regulated learning
technique
2.
There
is no significant difference in the interest mean scores between the
experimental and control group after exposure to self-regulated learning
technique.
3.
There
is no significant difference in the achievement mean score between male and
female social studies students after exposure to self-regulated learning
technique.
Concept of
Self-Regulation.
Self-regulation means different things to different
people. Bell, (2016) asserts that self-regulation has no straightforward
definition. Nevertheless, Bell defines self-regulation as “control (of oneself)
by oneself”. Someone who has good academic self-regulation has the ability to
keep their academic activities in check. They can resist behaviours
that might lead to academic backwardness and focus on their targeted aim and
objectives. They can cheer themselves up when they’re feeling down. They have a
flexible range of emotional and behavioural responses
that are well matched to the demands of their environment. Chika, Obodo, and
Okafor (2015) defined self-regulated learning as the learning that is guided by
Meta-cognition (thinking about one’s thinking) and strategic action (planning,
monitoring and evaluating personal progress against a standard), and motivation
to learn. Self-regulated
learning (SRL)
refers to the process a student engages in when he/she takes responsibility for
his/her own learning and applies himself/herself to academic success (Ackerman,
2020). This process happens in three steps: Planning; The student plans his/her
task, sets goals, outlines technique to tackle the task, and/or creates a
schedule for the task; monitoring, in this stage, the student puts his/her
plans into action and closely monitors his/her performance and his/her
experience with the methods he/she chose; reflection, Finally, after the task
is complete and the results are in, the student reflects on how well he/she did
and why he/she performed the way he/she did (Ackerman, 2020).
This means self-regulated learning consists of many
techniques, which includes goal setting, self-efficacy, goal orientation,
metacognitive monitoring, self-evaluation, self-motivation among others. In
order to gain access, monitor, and regulate one’s cognitive activities, certain
technique such as self-instruction, self-monitoring,
among others are necessary. Self-regulation
serves as the foundation for lifelong functioning across a wide range of
domains, from mental health and emotional wellbeing to academic achievement,
physical health, and socioeconomic success.
Concept of
Self-Regulated Learning Technique
Teaching and learning
technique are the catabolic pool that energizes the inculcation of knowledge
and permanent idea learned under the supervision of a teacher. Basically, to achieve better in teaching and
learning process, learners are expected to be involved in the teaching and
learning process because they are the central processing unit in learning
activities. This aim can only be achieved when learners are exposed to the teaching
technique that is learner-centered, (Papanthy & Darra, 2019). During self-regulation process, learners
express their judgement about the efforts they make, which may be either
autogenously and comes from their personal interest, or heterogonous and comes
from someone else. Consequently, students should be encouraged to be regular
and active participants in their learning through self-regulated learning
technique. It is more efficient than the normal classroom setting that is teacher-oriented
and involves teacher-centered teaching. Once an individual acquires the
requisite skills of self-regulated learning technique, he or she can continue
to use them and study in the teacher’s absence using those skills already
acquired. This appears to give room for slow and fast learners to work in an
environment without each being a clog in the wheel of progress of another.
Effects of Self-Regulated Technique on Students’ Academic
Achievement
Social Studies
learners need to be independent and autonomous as the essence of successful
Social Studies learning is self-direction and self-management. This makes
Self-Regulated Learning and Social Study to have a lot in common. For instance,
the learner’s ability to exercise self-control, and an extensive body of
literature has shown that aspects such as withstanding temptation, resisting
distractions, persevering through long-term goals, delaying gratification – all
being part of self-control – vary considerably depending on individual
characteristics. (Yan,2018) The fact that all of
this is not an easy task has been confirmed by many learners who stated that
staying motivated and consistent can be hard to maintain. Not a large number of
students are self-regulated to the maximum of their capacities, but those who were reported as the higher level of
academic satisfaction and are able to absorb more knowledge.
METHODOLOGY
This study employed
quasi-experimental research design. Specifically, the non-randomised pre-test
post-test control group design, in which intact groups were assigned to the
experimental and control groups. As the name implies, the design involves two
groups (experimental and control). The population for this study consists of
all Upper Basic II students of public secondary schools in Pankshin Local
Government Area of Plateau State. There are twenty-three (23) public secondary
schools with a total number of one thousand nine hundred and eighty-two (1982)
students in the Upper Basic II level in Pankshin. Lottery method of simple
random sampling technique was used in sampling the schools, where the names of
all the schools within Pankshin were written inside pieces of papers, then
collected in a box and thoroughly mixed. The researcher picks the papers one
after the other. The first name of a school whether from a rural or urban
location shall be used then the researcher keeps picking until the opposite of
the first location is picked. Two instruments were used for data collection.
They are the Social Studies Achievement Tests (SSAT), and Upper Basic II
Students Interest in Social Studies Questionnaire (UBSISSQ). The Mean, Standard
Deviation and Simple Percentage were used in answering the research questions. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and
(MANOVA) were employed in testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.
ANCOVA was used to analyze the differences between the treatment and the
control groups on the dependent variable based on pre-test-post-test design,
especially since the samples were used as intact groups. This technique
helped in controlling extraneous variables and contamination due to biases as
well as serves as a means of increasing the power of the analysis done with it.
The t-test decision rule states that; if the p-value is less than 0.05 level of
significance the null hypothesis will be rejected. But if the p-value is
greater than 0.05 level of significance the null hypothesis will be accepted.
RESULTS
Research Question One
Table 6 analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was
conducted to determine if there is no significant difference in the achievement
mean score between male and female students in social studies after exposure to
self-regulated learning technique. Table - shows that the main effect of male
yielded (M = 65.35; SD = 10.58 and female (M = 63.58; SD = 15.05); F (1,73)
=.195, p > 0.05, since the p-value of 0.660 is greater than 0.05 level of
significance, the null hypothesis was rejected, indicating that there was no
significant effect of gender on the achievement of students taught social
studies using self-regulated learning technique. Hence, we can say that there
is no significant effect of gender on achievement of students exposed to
self-regulated learning technique in Pankshin.
DISCUSSION OF THE RESULT
The findings from the
pilot study will serve as a guide to the main study. The summary of the findings:
the result of the study shows that the post-test mean scores of the
experimental group of (
= 64.12, SD
=13.80) is higher than the pre-test mean score (= 39.01, SD =8.93) with a mean gain of 25.11, indicating
that there was improvement in the achievement of students after treatment.
Also, for the control group, the mean score is ( =38.96, SD = 9.63)
at the pre-test, while at the post-test, the mean score is (=42.70 , SD =10.25) with a mean gain of 3.74, showing
that students in the experimental group had a higher achievement mean score
after treatment using self-regulated learning as against those in the control
group who were not given treatment, with a mean difference of 21.37.
The results of
interest mean scores of the experimental and control groups before and after
exposure to self-regulated learning in Social Studies in Pankshin, for
experimental group shows that the post-test interest mean score ( =35.09, SD = 4.66)
is higher than the pre-test interest mean score ( =17.92 , SD =
4.75) with a mean gain of 17.17, indicating that there was improvement in the
interest of students after treatment. For the control group the interest mean
score is ( =17.08, SD = 4.42)
at the pre-test, while at the post-test, the mean score is (=19.13 , SD =4.76) with a mean
gain of 2.05. The findings show that students in the experimental group had a
higher interest mean score after treatment using self-regulated learning as
against those in the control group who were not given treatment, with a mean
difference of 15.12.
Results
of achievement mean scores of the male and female students after exposure to
self-regulated learning in Social Studies in Pankshin, shows that the post-test
mean score for male is 65.35 with a standard deviation of 10.58, while the
achievement mean score for female is 63.58 and a standard deviation of 15.05.
The findings show that male students had a slightly higher achievement mean
score than the female students after treatment using self-regulated learning
with a mean difference of 1.77.
CONCLUSION/RECOMMENDATIONS
Self-regulated
learning accord students the opportunity of being masters of themselves in
their own learning. With self-regulation technique, students can manage
themselves as learners and direct their own behaviour
including their attention during learning. It is a cognitive strategy that
appears to enable students to actively be in-charge of the learning process and
to monitor their own progress in learning exercise. Child’s active involvement
in learning, to free the child from dependence on the teacher. The study
recommend that Government should be proper care-giving support to learners on
the area of their interest. Students’ motivation should be adequate to enhance
the level of skills in them.
REFERENCES
Bell,
A. L. (2016). What is self-Regulation and
why is it so Important? London: Dent Press.
Chika, E. N., Obodo, A. C., & Okafor,
G. (2015). Effect
of self-regulated learning approach on
junior secondary school students’ achievement in basic science. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(5),
789 – 800.
Federal
Republic of Nigeria (2014). National
policy on education (7th ed.). Lagos NERDC Press.
Kazi,
N.P. (2017). The scope and methodology of
teaching and learning of social studies education. (Revised Edition). Jos
AIS Publishing Concept
Offorma, G. C. (2014). Curriculum Implementation and Instruction. Onitsha: Uni- World
Educational Publishers.
Papanthy, P. J., & Darra, H. (2019).
Design: The only methodology of technology? Journal
of Technology Education, 11(2),
48 – 60.
Thomas, L.
(2022,). Quasi-Experimental Design | Definition, Types & Examples. Scribbr.
Yan, Z. (2018). Student self-regulation
practices: the role of gender, school level and goal orientation. Regulation
in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 25(2), 183 – 199.
