THREE MODES OF COOPERATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING OUTCOMES IN PEACE EDUCATION CONCEPTS IN SOCIAL STUDIES IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Peace concepts are taught in social studies to inculcate in students desirable learning outcomes in Nigeria. Deficiency in learning outcomes of Peace Education (PE) concepts is partly responsible for high level of violent behaviour among junior secondary school students in Lagos State. Past studies focused largely on social and psychological factors influencing PE with little consideration for intervention through cooperative learning strategies. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effects of Graffiti Cooperative Learning Strategies (GCLS), Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Strategy (JCLS) and Group Investigation Cooperative Learning Strategy (GICLS) on students’ learning outcomes (achievement in, attitude to and practice of) in PE in social studies in Lagos State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of gender and religiosity were also examined.

The study was anchored to Social Interdependence Theory of Learning, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design with 4 x 2 x 2 factorial matrix was adopted. Simple random sampling technique was used to select four from the six Educational Districts (EDs) in Lagos State, while the purposive sampling technique was used to select eight public Junior Secondary Schools (two per ED) with social studies teachers. The schools were randomly assigned to GCLS (71), GICLS (64), JCLS (71) and control (79) groups. The instruments used were PE Achievement Test (r=0.89), Attitude to PE (r=0.77) and PE Practice (r=0.72) scales and instructional guides. 12 weeks were used to conduct the treatments. Data were analysed using Analysis of covariance and Scheffe post –hoc test at 0.05 level of significance.

Participants’ age was 12.50 ± 2.30 years, and 55.6% were females. There were significant main effects of treatment on students achievement (F(3;267)=7.16; partial =0.07) and practice (F (3, 267) = 4.79; partial η²= 0.05) but not on attitude. Those exposed to GICLS had the highest post-achievement mean score (16.30), followed by JCLS (14.86), GCLS (13.86) and control (13.17) groups. Also those exposed to JCLS had the highest post-practice means score (53.69), followed by GICLS (51.99), GCLS(50.47) and control (50.15) groups. Gender had a significant main effect on students’ practice of PE (F(1; 267) = 4.12; partial =0.02) but not on attitude and achievement. The male students had a higher practice mean score (52.28) than their female counterparts (50.87). Religiosity had a significant main effect on students’ achievement in PE (F (1;267)=5.63; partial =0.02) but not on attitude and practice. Students with high religiosity had a higher achievement mean score (15.26) than their counterparts with low religiosity (14.11). The two- and three -ways interaction effects were not significant.

Graffiti, group investigation and Jigsaw cooperative learning strategies enhanced junior secondary school students’ achievement in, attitude to, and practice of peace education in Lagos State, Nigeria. These strategies should be adopted in teaching peace education concepts in social studies, particularly among female students.