Effect of Audio Tutorial and Guided Inquiry Methods on Social Studies Pre-Teachers’ Environmental Knowledge and Achievement in Colleges of Education in Kogi State

Abstract

The researchers investigate the effects of audio tutorial and guided inquiry methods on social studies pre-teacher’s environmental knowledge and achievement in Colleges of Education in Kogi State. The design of the study was quasi-experimental research design which adopted the following procedures: pre-test, treatment, post-test, non-equivalent and intact classes. Two research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study was 1404 pre-service teachers from three colleges of education. The sample consisted of 244 (200 level) students who offered Social Studies. Purposive and cluster sampling techniques were used to draw the sample for this study. An instrument titled Social Studies Achievement Test (SSAT). The instrument was validated by specialist in education measurement and evaluation and social science education with a reliability co-efficient index of 0.87 obtained using Kuder-Richardson 20 statistic (K-R 20). This was considered adequate for the study. Research questions was answered using mean and standard deviation. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that audio tutorial and guided inquiry methods are effective in the improvement of social studies pre-service teachers’ achievement in environmental knowledge more than the lecture method and the mean achievement scores of social studies pre-service teachers taught environmental knowledge using audio tutorial, guided inquiry and lecture method in the pre test and post test are significantly different. It was recommended that Curriculum planners such as NERDC should ensure that they are proactive in the incorporation of audio tutorial method and guided inquiry methods as part of the methods for teaching Social Studies pre-service teachers in higher institutions, since it was found to be effective in enhancing students’ achievement.