Abstract

This work entitled “Effects of teaching strategies on students’ academic performance in history in secondary schools in Buea municipality” sought to explore the various strategies that history teachers use in teaching history and how these strategies enhance students’ academic performance in history in secondary schools in Buea municipality. According to Tambo (2003), a research design is a blue print which specifies how data related to a particular problem can be collected, measured, and analyzed from a given population or data. Here the descriptive research design will be used which is the survey research design. The survey research design studies only a small population and the feeling is generalized to a population. This study was carried out in some selected schools in the Buea Municipality. The schools include; Bilingual Grammar school Molyko, Government High School Buea Town, Baptist High School Great Soppo and Government Technical High School Molyko. The instrument used for the collection of data for this study was a closed ended question. Three research questions were used to collect data using questionnaire. In research question one, direct teaching strategy enhance students’ academic performance in history. In research question two, indirect teaching strategy facilitate an improvement in students’ academic performance. From research question three interactive teaching strategy enable learners to understand historical happenings or events. It was therefore recommended that government should provide adequate teaching and learning materials to ease teaching and learning of history, draw up the curriculum considering learners needs or objectives and interest, carry out training programs for teachers and formulating policies that motivate the teachers and encourage creativity. This will help improve on student’s academic performance since teaching will be done in a more effective and efficient way.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Historical Background

Education according to Good (1973), is the aggregate of all the processes by means of which people develop abilities, attitude and forms of behavior that are of positive value to themselves and to the society in which they lived. Student’s performances in history has often being considered to be greatly influenced by the effectiveness of teaching strategies teachers use in the field. History according to Cheyney (1968) refers to a body of facts about the past activity of man, to be studied, understood and explained. Also history according to Emmanuel Carr (1973) is a continuous process of interaction between historians and his fact s and the unending dialogue between the past and the present.

History is highly interdisciplinary and this historical approach depends on the attentiveness to their relationship between physical and human phenomenon. History as a discipline can be spitted broadly into 3 main fields; Cameroon, Africa and World with each treating the main aspects in its own. History has always been subject many students fear because of the difficulties to master dates, names of personalities and places, period and events or facts especially when taught using the traditional teaching strategies. Hence to remedy this situation, effective teaching strategies are used that could match students learning styles like the use of direct, indirect, interactive teaching strategies. While seeking innovative ways to improve teaching like organizing excursions, inviting guess speakers, organizing annual field trips. The argument that has been put forward by scientist that history is a mere memorization of facts is quite a misleading argument because history constitute the foundation of any given society or of human operation. It is the duty of the historian to look through the past in search of models and other positive values that can contribute in making up the present and of course determining the future.

Conceptual Background

According to miles and Huberman (1994), a conceptual framework is a visual or written products that explains either geographically or in a narrative form, the main things to be studied, the key factors, concepts or variables and presumed relationship among them (P. 18). The effects of teaching strategies on student’s performances in secondary schools play a great role in the teaching and learning of history. An effective teacher is one who is able to bring out intended outcomes or results of learning copper (1986). History is the study of important past events about human activities and societies Perkin (1970). Therefore, any event in history worth studying must be significant or epoch making.

Eichelberger (1989, p.21) argued that, all disciplines that generate knowledge based on systematic collection and objective analysis or empirical information must be considered as science. History as we have seen involves asking questions about events of the past, and collecting data systematically to answer the questions. Hence Fisher (1970) state that history indeed is a problem solving activity. According to Keene (2008), argued that each student learns best by using strategies and objectives that reflect their experiences, abilities, aptitude, and interest. Since history and other factors play a vital role in the teaching of history, the conceptual background will therefore focus on the effects of teaching strategies on student’s performances like the direct, indirect and interactive teaching strategies. Ogbonna (2000) explained that it is good for teachers to vary their content for they help to arouse interest in the subject and encourage creativity and make students to learn.

Research by Kounun (1970) found that teachers who are not able to move students smoothly from one activity to the next, suffer from “jerkiness” and “slow down”. Jerkiness consist of thrust, dangles, truncations and flip-flops, while slow down consist of over dwelling, and fragmentation. Adunolla (2011) holds that regular poor students’ academic performance is fundamentally linked to the application of inappropriate lesson content, implementation, and evaluation by the teachers. Poor lesson can be greatly affected by the strategies used by teachers in the teaching and learning process. Teachers help students understand facts, concepts, and go beyond the knowledge level to higher levels of thinking. They help them to apply, analyze, synthesis, create new ideas as well as solve problems. To do this, teachers need to know the various strategies that will match students learning styles. This explain why Commager (1967) holds that, a society that is ignorant of its past is like a person without a memory or like a tree without roots. So, such a society will be condemned to rediscover what is already known, to reinvent techniques that have already been invented, to search for solutions to problems that had already been solved, and to commit the same errors that their ancestors had committed but in a different way. This simply mean that a study or knowledge of history help us to continue working from where our predecessors stopped and to avoid the problems that they had experienced. As Best and Khan (1993) put it, we use history to understand the present in light of the present events and development. Hence it can be argued that history prevent us from reinventing the wheel. This explains why teachers shift away from the traditional strategy of teaching history to seek innovative ways to improve on the teaching and learning of history.

Contextual Background

The Cameroon formal education system consist of pre-primary, primary, secondary, and higher education components. By the stipulation of education law No.98/004 of April 1998, which laid down guidelines for primary and secondary education in Cameroon, the Cameroon educational system is made up of two sub-systems. The two sub-systems are expected to co-exist but each preserving its specific methods of evaluation and award of certificate (section 15).

Certain curricular and pedagogic practices distinguish one sub-system from the other. For example, the French speaking sub-system is characterized by the use of the French language and curricular practices that leads to the Certificate Etudes Primaire Elementaire (CEPE) and the Baccalaureat Examination. Similarly, the use of the English language and curricular practices that leads to the First School Living Certificate (FSLC) and the General Certificate of Education (GCE) characterizes the English speaking sub-systems. Apart from such curricular differences, the objectives of education as well as its structures such as, academic year, school cycles, and their duration, supervision and related concerns are harmonized. In the context of teaching, as Leke Tambo quote “for a sea captain to be able to sail a ship successfully from one part of the world to the other, he or she must have a clear idea about things like direction, wind system, the behavior of crew members, and the technical workings of the ship. By the same token, a teacher can successfully manage the learning process only if he or she have a clear idea about the nature of the children, how human being learn, the purpose of education and the role of the teacher.

Looking at Cameroon context of secondary school education, the effects of teaching strategies is highly determined by student’s performances. For this reason, the government has taken some measures to increase teacher’s effectiveness in Cameroon secondary schools, these measures include; the development of curriculum Reform programs, such as drawing new syllabus, scheme of work, implementing instructional materials and strategies often based on student centered approach especially making use of recommended textbooks, and the creation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) centers in secondary schools. Mores so, the government give research allowances to teachers. These educational Reforms took place in May 2012 in order to boost teacher’s effectiveness in their respective fields. The government also created the teaching personnel reforms which include sanction on teachers who are not regular or who fail to do their work, organizes seminars, workshops and in service training in order to guide teachers on how to design effective instructional strategies that will match students learning styles, the creation of higher teacher training colleges to train teachers in various fields in order to increase their effectiveness and subsequent students achievement in Cameroon secondary schools. This in line with the 1973 national seminar for the reform of education in Cameroon where president Ahidjo explained that, the end of education is not instructing people for the pleasure of instructing them, it is to enable them participate with increase output capacity in the development of their country. And similarly, Ukeje (1966) argued that, it is the role of education to promote participation in social development, to influence people way of doing things, to be in accord with the changing times, improve standard of living, show ways of preventing sickness and practicing sound habit of health, sanitation and nutrition.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

History according to E.H Carr (1973), is the continuous interaction between historians and his facts and the unending dialogue between the past and the present. Teachers’ helps students understand facts, concepts, and go beyond the knowledge level to higher level of thinking. They help them apply, analyze, synthesize, create new ideas as well as solve problems. In order to enhance learners performances in history, teachers make use of effective teaching strategies to improve learners performances such as direct teaching strategy, indirect teaching, interactive teaching, experiential learning and independent study.

The use of effective teaching strategies helps to improve teaching in that it increases teacher’s effectiveness to develop proper lesson planning, lesson implementation, and lesson evaluation so as to boast students’ achievement. However, the use of traditional teaching strategy in teaching history makes it difficult for learners to understand historical events or facts, dates, period, names of personality and places thereby affecting students’ performance in the subject. In trying to improve on students’ performance, teachers considered innovative ways to improve on teaching to match students learning styles like organizing excursions, relating topics from the past to current national and international events, inviting guess speaker to speak on specific topics, organizing annual field trip to historical site, going out of the classroom and do on site maps, local survey, questionnaires or interviews. The use of effective teaching strategies helps students understand important historical knowledge by developing thinking, interpreting, analyzing, presenting and performance skills. This work aims at investigating the effects of teaching strategies on students’ performances in history.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

1.3.1 General Objective of the Study

To examine the effects of teaching strategies on students’ performances in history in some secondary schools.

1.3.2 Specific Objectives of the Study

1. To find out how direct teaching strategy affects students’ performances in history.
2. To access how indirect teaching strategy affects students’ performances in history
3. To determine how interactive teaching strategy affects students’ performances in history