THE EFFECTS OF INTEGRATED GROUP BASED MASTERY LEARNING MODEL ON SOCIAL STUDIES STUDENTS’
ACHIEVEMENT
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study The recent socio- political and economic changes in the world and within nations have brought about changes in educational goals and greater challenges for social studies. The schools are called not only to equip the learner with basic knowledge of social studies content but also with higher cognitive skills, such as problem solving and thinking skills that allow for self-development and continuous learning. To meet up with these challenges, there is a movement away from the behaviourist method of direct teaching such as in the lecture method, note copying and dictations, where the learner is given contents to memorize and regurgitate. Social Studies as a discipline continues to enjoy changes in educational objectives. In the 20th century, History, Economics, Government and Geography
were taught as separate subjects with a listed series of facts to be memorised. With changes in educational outcomes students’ learning had to be reconsidered and taught as integrated discipline. Emphasis is now shied from learning as acquisition of facts to learning as utilization of facts; from learning as memorization (from Geography and History texts), to learning as a process of discovering important relationships and principles inductively; from learning for learning sake to learning as a way of inquiring and thinking according to the processes of the Social Sciences. This can only be achieved through the process of mastery learning strategy (Onibokun, 1999). Social studies as a subject is of a fairly recent origin throughout the world. The concept of social studies was first developed in USA in 1916 by the committee on social studies of the commission on the reorganization of secondary education of the National Education Association (Jarolimek 1977). Later in I930s social studies was introduced into Europe especially in Great Britain due to unprecedented enthusiasm to reform the conventional curriculum to meet up with the demands of the society. From 1950 to 1956, the subject had spread to many African Countries. The new independent nations of Africa were faced with how to re-order their national policies to enable them perform their expected roles as independent nations within the world community of nations. The
development of social studies in secondary schools in Nigeria gained momentum from the year 1977 are the introduction of National Policy on Education