Effects of Mentoring and Field Study Instructional Strategies on Students’ Climate Change Reduction Practices in Social Studies in Lagos State

Abstract

Climate change with its deleterious effect is a reality in developed and developing nations of the world. Several instances of climate change collapse in form of drought, deforestation, landslides, floods, earthquakes, depletion of ozone layer, global warming, as well as industrial pollution call for urgent change in human behavior and practices toward climate change to address the threat we faced. This study, therefore, determined the effects of mentoring and field study instructional strategies on students’ climate change reduction practices in social studies in Lagos State, Nigeria. It also determined the moderating effects of gender and school location on students’ climate change reduction practices. The pretest-posttest, control group, quasi-experimental design with a 3 2 2 factorial matrix was used. Participants were 284 junior secondary II students (143 males and 141 females). The multistage sample procedure was used to purposively select sample for this study in Lagos – Island and Lagos Mainland (Education District III and V). Participants were randomly assigned to mentoring (100), field study (96), and conventional strategies (88). Treatment lasted 10 weeks. Four instruments were used: students’ Climate Change Reduction Practice Questionnaire (r = 0.96) (CCRPQ) and teachers’ instructional guides for mentoring, field study, and conventional strategies. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance and Scheffe’s post hoc test at 0.05 level of significance. Treatment had significant main effects on students’ climate change reduction practices (F(2,271); 12.72, η2 = 0.09). The estimated marginal mean revealed the magnitude of reduction practices across the groups. Students exposed to field study strategy had the highest climate change reduction practices (x = 45.57), than their counterparts in mentoring strategy (x = 45.00), and those in conventional strategy group had the least reduction practices (x = 40.86). The significant main effect was as a result of the significant difference between field study group and mentoring strategy group and between mentoring strategy group and control group. The finding of this study showed that there appeared to be ongoing positive human behavioral change, which encouraged responsibilities for lifelong learning among the learners, to ensure sustainable growth and development. However, gender and school location had no significant main effect on students’ climate change reduction practice. Therefore, teachers should adopt field study and mentoring instructional strategies to complement conventional strategy for effective teaching and learning outcomes in climate change reduction practices in social studies in Lagos State, Nigeria.