The purpose of this study was to identify students' preferred instructional methods for teaching Social Studies in a selected Senior High School in Afadzato South District of Ghana. This study employed a concurrent triangulation mixed-method strategy. A multi-stage sampling strategy was used to select 78 form three students. Purposive sampling was used to select 3 Social Studies teachers. Self-developed observation and interview guides were used in collecting the data. Self-developed questionnaires were also used in collecting data from only students. However, both teachers and students participated in the study through the interview and classroom observation in order to ascertain an in depth understanding of students' responses to the questionnaires. Validity and reliability were established by piloting the research instruments in one of the senior high schools in Afadzato South District. Besides, the research instruments were given to other colleague researchers to review before the final data were collected. Also, concepts were explained to students for clarity before responding to the questions. The study's findings revealed that students prefer to learn and be taught Social Studies in a variety of ways. Students also prefer learner-centred strategies to teacher-centred methods. It was concluded that Social Studies objectives will be attained via students' preferred methods of instruction. The study recommended that teachers must alternate their teaching methods to meet students' preferences, to enable them to develop positive responses to Social Studies in order to have a vibrant Social Studies programme, with students actively involved in achieving the objectives of Social Studies.
The emergence of COVID-19 has posed unprecedented challenges to every sphere of social life, including education. To mitigate the educational challenges, students and teachers were urged to adjust to online teaching and learning. This spurred a slew of studies into ICT and online teaching and learning. However, studies had given little attention to resilient mechanisms beyond ICT and online teaching and learning, particularly, in Social Studies. This study, therefore, purported to elicit the challenges encountered by students and teachers in the teaching and learning of Social Studies during the COVID-19 school closures. It also sought to identify holistic resilient approaches to withstand future unforeseen contingencies. An explanatory sequential mixed method design was employed in this study. Overall, 300 form three students of senior high school and 15 Social Studies teachers participated in this study. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS Version 20. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data. Some of the challenges identified by this study in the teaching and learning of Social Studies include lack of technical support, data cost, unstable or no Internet connection, absence of television or radio, no or poor electricity connection, inadequate textbook ownership and absence of self-learning textbooks. The resilient mechanisms suggested by teachers and students towards future pandemics include the development of online learning infrastructure, provision of technical support for students and teachers, provision of ICT and online learning equipment for economically disadvantaged students, provision of solar-powered or dry cell ICT or online teaching and learning equipment, expansion of the school infrastructure and provision of adequate self-learning and informative textbooks. It was concluded that, with the aforementioned resilient mechanisms, Social Studies education will not be truncated in case of future pandemics. The study recommended curriculum reform in order to design textbooks that are informative enough to allow learners to learn easily. This study suggested that further studies be conducted to include all major stakeholders in education so as to unravel all other resilient strategies.
The sudden emergence of the COVID-19 resulted in an abrupt shift from the traditional face-to-face teaching method to the technology-mediated form of education at almost all levels of education in Ghana. To this end, teachers are expected to have competence not only in pedagogy and content but also in using technology to facilitate instruction. In this regard, this study sought to examine whether or not teachers of Ghanaian languages have Technological Knowledge and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge with respect to implementing technology-mediated instruction. To achieve the set purpose of the study, a cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Data were collected with a questionnaire on a five-point Likert scale. The gathered data were analyzed by computing the means and standard deviations of the Likert scale items. The findings of the study show that teachers of the Ghanaian languages possess good Technological Knowledge as well as Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). Thus, they perceived themselves to be competent enough to implement any form of technology-mediated instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having ascertained the perceived Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge of teachers, the study recommended that Ghanaian language teachers should be resourced with working technological aids to make technology integration feasible amid the outbreak of COVID-19.
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