Instructional strategies are the means for teaching and learning effectively. Modeling is an instructional strategy as stated by Salisu and Ransom [1] in which a new idea or approach to learning is demonstrated by the teacher and students learn through observation. Instructional techniques are the things teachers use to support students with their learning process [2]. Research has shown over the last decade that teachers have a significant effect on the academic and lifetime outcomes of students [3]. Social studies is a concrete subject that explores people in real life. Thus, teachers must use child-centred approaches to achieve the indicated aims, goals, and objective [4,5]. The social study purpose has not yet been attained because of poor methods of teaching and insufficient materials of instruction to encourage students [6]. 

The teacher's instructional method appears to be the tool for successful learning and good teaching makes learning more effective. Further, he argued that good teaching allows the student to learn both in quantity and quality, teaching poorly leads to poor learning and hence bad results [6]. Although integrated social studies involve a large number of methods and techniques for learning but there is no single method for teaching in all circumstances of learning. Thus, a social studies teacher must be informed about the advancements in methods of teaching [7,8].

A wide use of methods appears to eliminate the role of a teacher [9]. This contributes to the fading memories of students and reduces student concentration [10]. Additionally, it has been stated by Adesany and Adesina [11] that teaching and learning are famous for traditional education in which teachers are the focus of teaching, controllers, and leaders of the activities of the class. But teachers must be well trained in the teaching techniques, as a teacher must transform theory into practice in the classroom. However, effective teachers of social studies should also know what to teach and how to teach. They have to understand the content, teaching methods, and techniques to communicate the content successfully with the students [4].

The skilled teacher of social studies is a strength and organizational source in the successful execution of an upper basic  level  curriculum in  Nigeria. Expert opinions say that several teachers do not train social studies at the upper basic level of education [12]. This deficiency indicates that social studies are not adequately applied to achieve their transforming goals of creating functional people to achieve inclusive, cooperative, and interrelated national development of values, abilities, behavior, and awareness. This is because the young student needs to be provided with proper contents and values to display attitudes and actions toward cohesive nation-building, as upper basic level education is basically strategic to the advancement of social studies education in Nigeria. The upper basic level motivates students to become successful professionals of current and most future social studies [13].

The social studies program from the UBE level to the tertiary education level must be continued [14]. The inadequate application of social studies affects the number of transformed individuals in the profession of education in social studies. Social studies teacher education must also be revised and developed in the light of intermittent complex developments in the state of Nigeria and the world as a whole. "The unsatisfying condition of education in social studies as a curriculum instrument not only aims to cultivate ideals for national readjustment of value but also to promote better and improved human and social development in young learners" [15]. Esu [16] has noted that teachers should be concentrating on social creativity and how to develop the ability of students through teaching qualities. She clarified that teachers of social studies must develop their patterns of teaching and improves learners’ patterns of thought on evolving national problems.

Students are clearly weak in social studies at the upper basic level [8,13]. Imogie [17] found that the standard of teachers influences the learning strength of learners and their success in internal and external exams. In the research of Ukadike [18] the poor performance of students at the upper basic level was constructed on inefficient teaching methods and an adequate learning environment for successful learning. In addition, Ikem [19] pointed out that weak results in social studies and social learning are based on the following factors, such as the use of a large number of non-professional teachers who lack the qualified skill to transmit content to learners, including inadequate resources, inappropriate delivery or learning of their own resources.

In order to ensure the standard of teaching and learning in social studies, social studies teachers in training and in the service of social studies teachers can update their skills through conferences, seminars, and workshops. Trainee Social Studies Teachers must be introduced to the new instruction curriculum in order to allow effective teaching [13]. The teacher aspect is crucial in the qualitative teaching and execution of the curriculum in social studies. The standard of the teacher's social studies must be strengthened and improved to allow the teacher to respond to new developments and complex developments in content, pedagogy, and resources [7,8].

Modeling explains the process by observing, instead of by experiencing or learning new knowledge or new abilities or actions [1]. Research has shown that modeling is an important teaching technique, enabling students to watch the thinking processes of the teacher. Teachers use this kind of guidance to motivate students to pursue those habits that motivate learning. Learning would be incredibly difficult, if people were just to rely on the consequences of their own acts to warn them about what to do, not to mention risky. Fortunately, most human behaviors are learned in terms of observation through modeling: from the study of others, one gets an understanding of how new behavior is communicated. Modeling can be used in all disciplines and schools at all levels. Modeling is one of the most effective ways to develop new skills. Any culture that has not relied upon models in one type is hard to imagine transferring from generation to generation the most important and fundamental cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes. Had all human learning been done in the form of direct experience or attempts at trials and misunderstandings, human development would have been much more sluggish. Modeling plays a crucial role in the acquisition and growth of cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities, strong motor abilities, interpersonal abilities, and eventual professional capabilities from childhood to adult [1]. This study seeks to examine the effect of modeling instructional strategy on the performance of Upper Basic students in social studies and to see if the location has impacts as well as the variables’ interaction effects. 

Objectives

Following were the study’s objectives:

• To examine the relative effectiveness of modeling and lecture method teaching strategies on the upper basic students’ performance in social studies

• To compare the effect of modeling instructional strategy on the upper basic urban and rural students’ performance in social studies.

Research Questions

• What is the relative effectiveness of modeling and lecture teaching strategies on the upper basic students’ performance in social studies?

• What is the performance difference between urban and rural upper basic students taught Social Studies through modeling instructional strategy?

Hypotheses 

Ho₁: There is no significant difference in the mean performance of upper basic students in Social Studies taught with modeling instructional strategy and traditional lecture method.

Ho₂: There is no significant difference in the mean performance of urban and rural upper basic students in Social Studies taught with modeling instructional strategy.

This study involved equivalent pre-test and post-test, 2X2 quasi-experimental non-randomized research design. The instructional style was modeling strategy as the treatment on one group, whereas the traditional lecture method was utilized on a control group. The population of the research comprised of all public upper basic students in Delta state. The study sample consisted of two hundred and seven (207) upper basic students from four (2 urban, 2 rural) public secondary schools across Delta State. A multistage random sampling technique was used in the research. At the first stage, the entire State was taken as the sampling units. A second stage, purposive sampling was used to select schools. In the purposeful sampling, items are chosen based on specific characteristics besides accessibility which makes them important to the aim of the study. When we consciously but not randomly pick our study objects based upon logic or strategy, we use purposeful sampling [20]. From every selected school, an arm of upper basic students was randomly allocated to either the Experimental or Control Group. The instrument of the study was the Social studies Performance Test (SSPT) which comprised of 25 multiple-choice test items, drawn from the questions of earlier Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), standardized by the Delta State Education Ministry. The topics that were covered in test items were from social studies of the upper basic level, taught during the experimentation period. Two experts (one psychometrician and a teacher of Social Studies) validated the instrument and a table of specifications. To check the instrument reliability Pearson Product Moment Co-efficient Correlational (r) was used and a 0.72 value was obtained. The experiment was continued for eight weeks. After choosing classes, the Social Studies Performance Test (SSPT) was used as a pre-test to check the baseline performance of the whole classes chosen. The schools were given randomly to experimental and control groups. The modeling instructional strategy was utilized to teach the experimental groups. Whereas the traditional lecture method was continued to teach the control groups.

Q1: What is the relative effectiveness of modeling and lecture teaching strategies on the performance of upper basic students in social studies?

Table 1 shows the mean difference of 16.9 for modeling strategy and 9.14 for the lecture method. It showed that modeling strategy as the best method for teaching Social Studies.

Table 1: Mean and standard deviation of modeling instructional strategy and lecture method on the performance of upper basic students in social studies

Teaching Method (Treatment)	Pre-Test			Posttest			Mean Difference
	N		SD	N		SD
Concept mapping strategy	101	46.47	11.05	101	63.37	13.10	16.9
Lecture Method	106	43.31	10.59	106	52.45	9.43	9.14

Q2: To what extent does the performance of students differ through using modeling instructional strategies in Urban and Rural schools?

Table 2 shows that pre-test mean performance for urban and rural are 46.22 and 41.72 respectively, similarly, the standard deviation were 10.22 and 12.59. After posttest, it was observed that for the urban mean performance score was 7411 and standard deviation were 18.93. While for rural students, the mean performance scores and standard deviation were 58.21 and 13.94 respectively. This implies that the urban students perform better than rural with a mean difference of 27.89.

Table 2: Mean and standard deviation of upper basic social studies students’ performance using modeling instructional strategies in urban and rural schools

Locan	Pre-Test			Posttest			Mean Difference
	N		SD	N		SD
Urban	118	46.22	10.22	118	74.11	18.93	27.89
Rural	89	41.72	12.59	89	58.21	13.94	16.49

Testing of Hypotheses

H_o1: There is no significant difference in the mean performance of upper basic students in Social Studies taught with modeling instructional strategy

Table 3 shows that the difference among the two groups in the posttest scores is statistically significantly different after controlling the students’ success in Social Studies, that is, modeling strategy, F (2.278) = 255.076, p<0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected. This indicated that the mean performance of students taught with modeling strategy at upper basic level in social studies was significantly different.

Table 3: Analysis of Covariance on the mean performance of students in Social Studies at the upper basic level taught with modeling instructional strategy

R-squared = 0.714 (Adjusted R squared = 0.707)

H_o2: There is no significant difference in the mean performance of rural and urban secondary social studies students’ taught with modeling instructional strategy

Table 4 indicated that after controlling for the students’ performance in social studies, the difference in posttest scores are not statistically different between the two strategies in urban and rural schools. F (1,277) = 0.650, p < 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted. This implies that there was no significant difference in the performance of students using the two strategies in urban and rural schools.

Table 4: Analysis of covariance on the performance of secondary social studies students’ taught with modeling instructional strategy in urban and rural schools

R-squared = 0.713 (Adjusted R squared = 0.708)

According to the study results, it is found that modeling strategy enhanced the students’ performance besides the lecture method; location was not a factor in students’ performance in social studies in urban and rural schools. Therefore, if these strategies are used by social studies teachers’ students’ performance is more likely to improve. These results are in line with previous studies of Salisu and Ransom, [1] that modeling is an effective instructional strategy because it explains the process by observing, instead of by experiencing or learning new knowledge, abilities, or actions. Therefore, they suggested that modeling can be used in all disciplines in schools at all levels. As it is one of the most effective ways to develop new skills.

Also, location does not significantly influence the effects of modeling instructional strategies on students’ performance in social studies. Furthermore, when instructional strategy school location interacts it enhanced students’ academic performance in social studies.  The hypothesis results showed that that the mean performance of students taught with modeling strategy at an upper basic level in social studies was notably different. There was no significant difference in the performance of students using the two strategies in urban and rural schools.    

It is concluded that modeling instructional strategy enhanced the students’ performance rather than the lecture method in Social studies. Thus, if this strategy is utilized by the teachers of Social Studies then the performance of students will improve. Location did not significantly affect the Social Studies students’ performance when taught with modeling instructional strategy. This implies that the strategy may be utilized for urban and rural schools as well.

Recommendations

The suggestions are therefore that given below: 

• Social studies teachers may be encouraged to use modeling instructional strategies to enhance the academic performance of students in schools

• Heads of schools may provide teachers of social studies with an environment that allows them to use a modeling strategy that strengthens the learning of students

• Government may hire more professional teachers to enhance the standard of education at the upper basic level

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