Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of drama method of teaching on pupils’ information acquisition on and attitude to social issues in Nsukka. Five research questions and ten null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted a quasi-experiment research design. Four primary schools in Nsukka central local government authority, comprising of two private primary schools and two public primary schools were purposively selected for the study. The population of the study was 10,798 primary schools pupils. The sample for the study was 169 pupils in the intact classes used for the study. The instrument used for data collection were; an achievement test on information acquisition on social issues and an attitude scale developed by the researcher. The instrument had the background information of the primary schools pupils, the attitude and achievement test questions were based on these social issues namely; HIV/AIDS, examination malpractice, drug abuse, bullying, cultism and early pregnancy. A pre-test and post-test were conducted. Two lesson plans were developed by the researcher for both the control and experimental groups. The instruments were validated by experts in the faculty of education and later trial tested in order to test their reliability. Kuder Richardson formula 20 (KR20) was used to test the reliability coefficient of the achievement test and the index was 0.67 while Cronbach’s Alpha was used to measure the internal consistency of the attitude scale and the overall reliability coefficient was 0.85. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study revealed that pupils taught social issues using drama method of teaching performed better (20.25 ± 2.29) than pupils taught using conventional method (14.58 ± 3.50). Result also revealed that there was an improvement in pupils’ attitude (80.45 ± 11.38) to social issues when taught using drama method of teaching. The result of the hypotheses showed that there was a significant difference in the mean achievement score of pupils taught social issues using drama method of teaching and those taught using conventional method with those taught using drama method having a higher mean gain. There was a significant difference between the attitude mean score of pupils taught using drama and those taught using conventional method with those taught using drama method having a higher mean score in the post-test. However, there was no significant difference in the mean information acquisition of male and female pupils on social issues. Although there was an improvement in the achievement of male and female pupils when taught using drama and conventional methods, gender did not show any significant difference. It was recommended among other things that drama method of teaching should be adopted by social studies teachers in teaching social issues.
