An Investigation into Students¡¯ Preference of Instructional Methods used in Teaching and Learning of Social Studies

The thrust of this paper was on investigating students¡¯ preference of instructional methods used in teaching and learning of Social studies in secondary schools in Abakaliki metropolis of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Though, there have been several researches conducted by other researchers geared towards questioning the effectiveness of instructional methods in achieving the programme and instructional objectives of Social studies but many of these researches have failed to put into consideration ¡®which method (s)¡¯ did students prefer in Social studies classroom interaction. It was on this note that the research of this nature was conducted to determine students preference of instructional methods used in Social studies pedagogy. The researchers employed descriptive survey research design aimed at eliciting information from the respondents based on one research question that guided the study. The population of the study comprised of three hundred and seventy-four (374) JSS II students drawn from nine (9) governments owned secondary schools in the study area. Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection and data were analyzed using simple percentage. The findings of the study revealed that students prefered instructional methods that involve active participation of students in teaching and learning of Social studies. The findings also revealed that most teachers rely more concentional note-taking methods as only instructional methods for classroom interaction. It is based on these findings that the researchers recommended that government and other bodies in educational industry should organize workshops for teachers on indispensabilities of instructional methods to achieveing instructioal objectives of Social studies.?