LANGUAGE IN INDIA

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VERBAL ABILITY AND STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA
Ede O. S. Iyamu, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

Over the years, the very unimpressive performances of students in Social Studies in the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examinations in Nigeria have been the concern of all stakeholders in education. Existing researches on variables that are related to students' achievement in Social Studies have neglected the students' verbal ability and linguistic competence that are very important to effective and successful school learning.

This study investigated the relationship between students' verbal ability and their achievement in Social Studies. The study used the grades of 2000 students in English Language and Social Studies for three years. These grades were converted to grade points and correlated, using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation and t-test. It was found that a significant positive correlation exists between the students' verbal ability and achievement in social studies. It was, therefore, recommended that strategies should be explored to facilitate the students' verbal ability so as to enhance their achievement in Social Studies.

INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that Social Studies have found its way into the Nigerian school system. It has come to be accepted as a school subject with the primary responsibility for inculcating desirable values and civic responsibility in the young. Consequently, schools are mandated to teach Social Studies as a means of developing in the young ones the skills of citizenship education (Barr, Barth and Shermis, 1978; Kissock, 1980; and Jarolimek, 1981).

In recognition of the invaluable role of Social Studies in character formation and personality development, and as a veritable means of achieving the national education objective of inculcating the right type of values and attitudes for the survival of the individual and the Nigeria society, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the National Policy on Education, prescribed the subject as a core curriculum for junior secondary schools (FRN, 1981).

As a result, every student, irrespective of his or her preferences and interests, offers the subject. The theoretical framework that forms the basis of this paper derives from the contention that Nigerian educators have accepted the basic goals of Social Studies instruction as that of preparing the pupil for full responsible citizenship (Du Bey and Barth, 1980).

Thus, the essence of the Social Studies programme in the secondary schools is to contribute its own quota in the social education of the young (Okam, 1989)). It is expected to provide children with insight into the use of various knowledge structures and procedures that have relevance in modern civilization.

The programme is to be seen in terms of a development of intelligent, responsible and self-directing citizens. Knowledge of the foregoing objectives of Social Studies rests on a mastery of the various thought-processes, including the use of language, as required in the subject (Engle, 1977).

The content of Social Studies is unique in the sense that it describes human actions and relationships that must be well translated in a manner that is understandable to the school child (Skeel, 1971).

It follows that the students need a reasonable mastery of language arts to be able to read and understand Social Studies texts and workbooks; listen to and understand the teacher's explanation; and express accurately what they have learnt. In this regard, Rubin (1977:13) examines the curriculum relevance of language arts as an integral part of Social Studies thus:

It includes the four basic applications of language: writing, reading, speaking and listening. These embody, in sum the verbal arts of human communication. Each language skill, although dealt with separately for the purposes of drill and exercise, eventually is fused into the usage patterns of conventional human communication.

All the four basic language skills referred to are hereby expressed as verbal ability that is the totality of the teaching and learning of the English Language in the Schools.

ENGLISH IN NIGERIA

In Nigeria today, just like many African countries that are multilingual, and formerly British colonies, English Language usually serves as a secondary language and in most cases as the official language. It serves as a medium of instruction in schools; the language of law courts, legislature, offices, mass media, politics, trade and commerce. There are about 400 different language groups in Nigeria that would have found it difficult if not impossible to understand each other if there were no language that is common to all the people. English language now serves as a common bond and a unifying factor in this highly culturally and ethno-linguistically heterogeneous society.

As a language of school instruction, it is believed that improving the teaching of English Language in the schools would help to advance its goal of unifying Nigerians of different linguistic groups. Besides, a good mastery of the mechanics of the English Language is basic to the ability of the students to understand other subjects in the curriculum.

THE NECESSITY FOR VERBAL ABILITY - THE NIGERIAN SCENE

According to Bloom (1974), verbal ability is a necessity if a child is to learn in school. Ayodele (1987) opined that pupils' inadequacy in the range and control of language is a very important factor in educational failure in that this deficit generates a vicious circle of difficulties increasing in magnitudes as school life progresses.

Ayodele(1987) is of the opinion that in countries where the language of school instruction is not the mother-tongue, the postulate above assumes a greater dimension.

This is perhaps one of the important variables which most researches on school improvement and academic achievement in Nigeria have not given adequate attention. Mkpa (1993), Joof (1989), and Onyesom (1991) have reported on the impact of the dearth of instructional materials on the effective teaching and learning of Social Studies in Nigeria. Imogie (1989), and Iyamu (1991) reported on the shortage of qualified Social Studies teachers in Nigerian Secondary Schools and how this must have set back effective instruction. Billy (2003) reported on the influence of parental characteristics on students' performance in Social Studies.

In spite of these research findings and their recommendations on how to improve the teaching and learning of Social Studies in Nigerian secondary schools, students' performances in the Junior School Certificate Examinations have continued to decline (Billy, 2003; Ahmed, 2000). In fact, many schools have witnessed improvement in the supply of qualified Social Studies teachers and basic instructional materials in the past 15 years. These have not resulted in a commensurate improvement in students' performance.

THE PROBLEM

The quest for ways of improving school learning and students' performances is a continuous one. Researches have focused on key variables that are related to students' performances in Social Studies in Nigerian secondary schools as a result of which many intervention policies have been put in place. These include employment of qualified teachers, provision of teaching and learning materials and retraining opportunities for Social Studies teachers.

Since these interventions have not yielded the expected results, it is likely that there are still other important variables related to students' achievement that are yet to be explored. Along this line of thought, is it not possible that students' verbal ability is one of such important variables that are related to their achievement in Social Studies? This study is therefore aimed at finding out the relationship between the verbal ability of Nigerian junior secondary school students and their achievement in Social Studies.

THE HYPOTHESIS

The following hypothesis was formulated for testing in the study.

There will be no significant relationship between the verbal ability and performance of students in Social Studies in the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination in Southern Nigeria.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

A study of this nature is needed to provide empirical data on how students' verbal ability and linguistic competence could influence their performance in Social Studies. Since Social Studies is a core subject in Nigerian secondary schools and it is supposed to create a solid foundation for the training and development of intelligent, responsible, self-directing and democratically minded citizens, this study will help to contribute immensely to the realization of this goal. The study will further justify, where necessary, the need to integrate language arts into Social Studies classroom dispensations at the secondary school levels of education.

PROCEDURE ADOPTED

This study employed the survey design. It used the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination grades of students in English Language and Social Studies. Such grades were for 2000 students randomly drawn from thirty secondary schools across Southern Nigeria for each of the 2000/2001, 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 academic years. The examination grades covered the three academic session range from A to F (that is A, B, C, D, E, F,). These were weighted 6,5,4,3,2, and 1 to facilitate the computation of the students mean performances.

The degree of relationship between the students' performances (grades) in English Language (verbal ability and linguistic competence) and Social Studies was established by means of the Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r). This was done for each of the years so as to establish a pattern, and a basis for decision-making. When a relationship existed, the t-test was utilized to test whether such a relationship was significant.

Results - Below are the results of this investigation.

Results in Table 1 show that the students' performances in English language and Social Studies had a correlation (r) index of 0.67 and a t-value of 38.2 in 2000/2001, which means that there was a positive relationship between the students' verbal ability and their performance in Social Studies. The results further show a correlation (r) index of 0.87 and t-value of 78.8 in 2001/2002 and a correlation (r) index of 0.67 and a t-value of 44.6 in 2002/2003 academic year. Thus, the students' performances in Social Studies in the three years under study were positively related to their verbal ability expressed as their performances in English language. The hypothesis is therefore rejected as a significant relationship has been established.

DISCUSSION

The results reported in Table 1 show beyond reasonable doubt the importance of English Language to students' performance in Social Studies in the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examinations in Nigeria. The pattern established by the results shows a consistent positive relationship between students' performances in these two subjects. Thus, as students perform well in English language, they also corroborate the views of Blooms (1974) and Okam (1989) that verbal ability is a necessity if a child is to learn in school.

According to Okam (1989), the language competence of students is crucial to fostering comprehension and interpretation. Language therefore has a functional application as it is meant to enhance an understanding of the interrelationships of all the structures (terms, concepts, propositions, laws, theories, facts and generalizations) that make up the content of Social Studies texts on the one hand and the learning experiences and activities presented by the teacher. The results of this study therefore provide a rationale for exploring a new direction in the teaching of Social Studies in Nigerian secondary schools including the formal integration of the subject with what is generally termed language arts in the classroom dispensations (Rubin, 1977).

The present study has further established social studies as an expressive subject. It is not symbolic like the sciences. As a result, students need to be acquainted with the medium of the subject, that is language. According to Skeel (1971), Social Studies is intended to aid the child in understanding man as he relates to himself (Psychology); to truth (Philosophy); to his spatial environment (Geography); to groups or institutions (Sociology); to his heritage (History); to his government (Political Science); to cultural expression (Anthropology); and to the resolutions between his wants and available resources (Economics).

These imply that the content of the subject is couched in a language medium. Unless students have the necessary linguistic competence, they are likely to find it difficult to understand and interpret the foregoing interrelationships between man and his environments. It is not surprising therefore to find in this study those students' performances in social studies correlate positively with their linguistic competence.

One very important revelation in the results of this study is that the students' performances in Social Studies for the three years under study were not impressive. Studies including Micca (2002) and Yisa (2004) have reported on the perennial poor performances of Social Studies in the junior secondary School Certificate examinations in Nigeria. The present study also revealed that the relatively poor performances of students in social studies correspond with relatively poor performances in English Language. In the initial descriptive statistical analysis of the students' performances in the two subjects, it found that the students' average grade points in Social Studies for the three years ranged from 2.21 to 2.38 while those for English Language ranged from 2.09 to 2.44. These imply that the students performed poorly in the two subjects, with average grade points below 3.5, the midpoint of the grades scale.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This study set out to investigate the relationship between verbal ability and students' performances in Social Studies in Nigerian junior secondary schools. The results of the investigation showed that a significant positive relationship exists between verbal ability (linguistic competence) and students' performance in Social Studies. It could therefore be concluded that if students do well in English Language, they are most likely to do well in Social Studies. In order to enhance students' performance in Social Studies, efforts should be made to facilitate their verbal ability and linguistic competence. The following measures are hereby recommended.

1. The English Language teachers should explore strategies for facilitating students' practice of the language arts so as to enhance their performance in Social Studies.
2. There is need for a new direction in the teaching of Social Studies in Nigerian secondary schools through the formal integration of the subject with language arts.
3. The teachers should improve on their communication skills in the instructional process as these also have influence on students' verbal ability.
4. Care should be taken to select Social Studies texts that are written in language within the students' level of understanding.

REFERENCES

Ahmed, M.H. (2000). Constraints to the inquiry-teaching of Social Studies. Nigerian Journal of Social Studies Review, 1, 1 & 2, 70-81.

Barr, R., Barth, J.L., and Shermis, S.S. (1978). The Nature of Social Studies. California: ETS Publications.

Billy, R.T. (2003). Variables in school learning. Journal of Education Studies, 18, 113-125.

Blooms, S.B. (1974). Implication of IEA studies for curriculum and instruction. University of Chicago School Review, 14, 2-6.

DuBey, D.L. and Barth, J.L. (1980). Social Studies: The Inquiring Method Approach. Lagos: Thomas Nelson.

Engle, S.H. (1977). Exploring the meaning of Social Studies. In Rubin, L. (Ed).

Federal Republic of Nigeria. (1981). National policy on Education. Lagos: Federal Ministry of Education.

Imogie, A.I. (1989). Social Studies teachers supply in the context of 6-3-3-4 education system in Bendel State. Nigerian Journal of Social Studies, 1, 1 &2, 111-122.

Iyamu, E.O.S. (1991). Analysis of the dominant methods of teaching Social Studies in secondary schools in Bendel State, Nigeria (Unpublished M.Ed thesis, University of Benin, Nigeria).

Jarolimek, J. (1981). The Social Studies - An overview. In The Social Studies: Eightieth Year book of the National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (124-148).

Joof, A.E. (1989). Types of learning experiences in Social Studies education. Nigerian Journal of Social Studies. 1, 1 & 2, 33-41

Kissock, C. (1980). Curriculum Planning for Social Studies, New York: John Wiley 8 Son.

Micca, R. (2002). Assessing students' performances in Social Studies in Nigerian junior secondary schools. Journal of Education, 10, 92-25.

Mkpa, M.A. (1993). Constraints to the inquiry teaching of Social Studies. Nigerian Journal of Social Studies Review, 1, 1 & 2, 70-81.

Odusina, M.O. & Ikegulu, B.O. (1987). Analysis of the use of English as a vehicle of communication in science. JORIC (special), 2, 55-68.

Okam, C.C. (1989). Exploring the language of the Social Studies: The case for a rationalization of classroom instructions on the Nigerian scene. Nigerian Journal of Social Studies 1, 1 & 2, 42-47.

Onyesom, L.O.N. (1991). Teachers' perception of the constraints and strategies for effective implementation of the social studies curriculum in junior secondary schools in Delta State. Journal of Studies in Education, 2, 1 &2, 171-186.

Rubin, L. (1977). The curriculum in perspective: Schooling and subject-matter. In Rubin, L. (Ed). Curriculum Handbook. Boston: Allyn and Bacon Inc. (13-30).

Skeel, D.J. (1971). Social Studies; Dynamics of change. In Buffle, E.J. et. (Eds). Curriculum Development in Non-graded Schools. Bloomington: Indiana university press. (101-119).

Yisa, M.O. (2004). Social Studies in Nigerian schools. Education Forum, 15, 16-25.

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