ABSTRACT

The study aims to unravel the influence instructional materials in the teaching and learning of social studies in junior secondary schools. The main aim of this work is to determine the availability of instructional materials in these schools and to find out the extent of usage of these materials by teachers and schools, lastly to find out the extent of or level of interest showed by students in social studies lessons using instructional materials.

To arrive at a logical conclusion three research questions were formulated to guide the study. A population study involved in this study was drawn from all the public junior secondary schools in Oredo Local Government area of Edo state. Out of the approximately 13 existing government owned schools in Oredo Local government area of Edo state, five were randomly chosen and used for data collection and for empirical analysis.

A well construed, ten –item research questionnaire was drawn and administered to 20 students and 4 teachers each from the various randomly selected schools in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State.

The responses from this proceeding were carefully analyzed using simple percentage scores, (which are used to draw conclusions).

The study made the following findings

vInstructional materials are very crucial to the success of any teaching and learning activity

vThey help to arouse and create interests in students and thus making the work of the teacher more purpose oriented

vMost importantly it was discovered that instructional materials help to prevent distractions, (attritions).

The conclusions made from these major findings stated above, (the study) Have shown that the availability and absence of instructional materials in these schools have far reaching positive and negative consequences and implications for social studies teaching and learning. Also from the result of the study, the researcher makes some pivotal recommendations.