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This research work titled effect of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention in secondary school Economics in Asaba Education Zone of Delta State, Nigeria aimed at determining the effect of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention in secondary school Economics in Asaba Education Zone of Delta State, Nigeria. It also aimed at determining the effect of the strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention relative to gender and school location, all with a view to finding solution to the perennial poor students’ achievement in secondary school Economics caused by extensive use of conventional (expository) instructional strategy in teaching economics. The design of the study is quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group research design, involving two intact groups of one experimental group and one control group. Nine research questions and nine hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The area of the study was Asaba Education Zone of Delta state of Nigeria. The population of the study was two thousand; eight hundred and thirty two students (2,832) of senior secondary school class 2 (SSS 2) students of Economics. The study adopted purposive sampling technique to select six schools from 42 co-education secondary schools in the area. The sample size was 341 students made up of 99 male and 89 female students in urban schools and 85 male and 68 female students in rural schools based on the number of students in intact classes in the sampled schools. Simple random sampling was used for assigning the sampled schools to control and experimental groups. Different lesson plans were prepared and used for the two strategies, that is, lesson plan for meta-cognitive instructional strategy and lesson plan for expository instructional strategy. Three instruments, Economics Achievement Test (EAT), Economics Interest Inventory (EII) and Economics Retention Test (ERT) were used for data collection. The EAT and EII were used for both pre test and post tests while ERT was used two weeks after the post test. EAT and ERT are 48-item multiple choice objective test questions covering four difficult Economics concepts namely; price determination, elasticity of demand, and elasticity of supply and price legislation. The EII was Likert-type four-point scale comprising of 30 items covering students’ interest in Economics. The instruments and lesson plans were validated and trial tested before use. By means of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer application, the research questions were answered using means and standard deviations. The ordinal data of interest inventory were exported to Microsoft excel from SPSS in order to sum up the scores of each respondent and thereafter imported back into SPSS data as scale data for the analysis. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) technique was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 levels of significance. The major findings are that there are statistically significant difference in achievement, interest and retention of students in Economics when exposed to treatment. Meta-cognitive instructional strategy proved efficacious in enhancing students’ achievement, interest and retention in Economics more than conventional (expository) instructional strategy. There are no statically significant difference in male and female students’ achievement, interest and retention in Economics who are taught using meta-cognitive instructional strategy. Also, the achievement interest and retention of students in urban and rural schools who are taught using meta-cognitive instructional strategy are not significant. The researcher therefore, recommended thatmeta-cognitive instructional strategy should used in teaching Economics in secondary schools irrespective of gender and school location. The researcher recommended seminars; workshop and conferences to be organized for teachers to enable them learn how to make best use of meta-cognitive instructional strategy to teach difficult Economics concepts and topics.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

             Globalization is affecting every area of human endeavor all over the world. As a result, there is a very high demand for improvement in nearly every aspect of human life.  This demand has mounted serious pressures on all that are concerned all over the world for improvement and development. No nation or any of its component or institution wants to be left out. The economy, politics, socialization and education of the world are individually affected by globalization. School subjects including Economics and the modes of instruction are also affected. 

            Economics curriculum is particularly affected by these changes. The curriculum content is no longer as scanty, without mathematical and statistical contents, as it used to be from the inception till about a decade ago. Then virtually every candidate can pass it at credit level without difficulty at the school certificate and general certificate examinations. Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (2008) thus confirm that “the 21^st century has witnessed landmark economic reforms and strategisation globally. In Nigeria, the last decade has also witnessed unprecedented economic reforms that have   influenced different sectors of the economy. These reforms have ushered different concepts, models and theories not only into Economics but also into other disciplines. There is therefore need to make the post-basic Economics curriculum responsive to make it relevant to Nigeria’s quest to be among the top 20 players of the world economy come 2020. Development of the human capital and the entire country is the hall mark of new Economics curriculum”. “Curriculum can be taken to mean the instruments by means of which schools seek to translate the hopes of the society into concrete reality” (Onwuka, 2002:7). Curriculum, according to Great Schools Partnership (2014),is “the knowledge and skills students are expected to learn, which includes learning standard or learning objectives they are expected to meet; the units and lessons that teachers teach; the assignments … materials …tests, assessments,  and other methods used to evaluate student learning”. Economics was introduced in secondary schools curriculum in Nigeria in 1966 and the students were first examined in 1967 after much controversy which led to the realization that Economics was necessary for every citizen to have the knowledge of economic system and how the economy works. It was generally believed that only those who studied Economics had all the answer to all the problems of the country.  Economics was recognized as a vehicle of strict intellectual discipline. Economic is a course of study that is taught in secondary schools, college of education, polytechnics and Universities. It is central to the study of management and social science courses in the country’s tertiary institutions. Without a credit pass in it in ordinary level certificate examinations, most tertiary institutions will not offer admission to the candidates to study management and certain social science courses. It is a social science that is concerned with optimum allocation and utilization of resource to satisfy the wants of consumers, firms and the economy at large. It aims at maximizing returns such as utility, profit, welfare, personal income, firms’ out-put et cetera, at the micro level; and  potential out-put, full employment level while keeping inflation low, equilibrium level of income and so on, at the macro level. It is a vehicle for rapid economic development, self reliance, economic /financial welfare and national economic self reliant. It governs the government economic policies and policy implementation, and it is a tool for regulating the economy. Economics is a course that cut across every sector of the economy and if Nigeria is going to achieve the current economic development plans: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and vision 20: 2020 and any short, medium or long term economic plan, the teaching of economic theories, concepts and policies effectively in schools must be an imperative.

Without effective instructional delivery of Economics, nations will, without doubt, remain impoverished. This is because there must, for instance, be technological and economical efficiency in the use of both human and material resource in Nigeria to maximize output and minimize costs for firms, maximize satisfaction for consumers and welfare for governments, leading to increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which in-turn leads to increase in standard of living. There is also the need to stabilize the economy through effective trade, monetary and fiscal policies in order to maintain stable exchange rate, favourable terms and balance of payment as well as to reduce unemployment, control inflation and to tackle the problem of stagflation which currently ravaging the economy.   

Unfortunately, many students fail Economics in senior secondary school certificate examinations organized by West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Examination Council (NECO). In fact, the poor academic achievement, retention and interest of senior secondary school students in Economics is alarming since the enrichment of the curriculum with many more contents including those that are mathematical and statistical in nature. Difficult Concepts and Topics in Economics/ Social Science Education 511 (SSE 511) students of School of Post Graduate Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, carried out a survey assignment in Enugu state of Nigeria on difficult concepts and topics in secondary school Economics and find out that many students and teachers perceive many concepts and topics in Economics difficult and that students’ dispositions about the subject have changed from what they used to be. According to them, the students claimed that the topics are too many, some of them are very difficult and that some are strange (Difficult Concepts in Economics [SSE 511] Students, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 16^th February, 2015; personal communication). Using percentage for data analysis and 50% as base line for topics not preferred by the students to be set in senior secondary school certificate examination, if they were asked to choose, SSE 511 students discovered that the concepts and topics not preferred because they are perceived difficult include price determination; elasticity of demand and supply; types of demand and supply; problems involving graphical illustration; nature of Nigeria economy; mining; instruments for business finance; theory of consumer behavior; basic tools for economic analysis; fiscal policy; element of national income accounting; human capital development; economic lessons from Asian Tigers, Japan, Europe and America; Economic reform programme; current economic plans and economic development challenges amongst others.                 

Researchers have found out that the causes of students’ poor achievement, interest and retention in Economics are traceable to poor teaching methods, the difficult nature of some Economics concepts and topics, negative attitudes of students towards Economics, gender factors, school locations and teachers/students inability to cover their syllabus before they take their final examinations in Economics (Okwor & Nwaosu, 2011& WAEC chief examiner’s report, 2007).

            It has been observed that the use of expository teaching strategy which seemed to be successful due to the scanty Economics curriculum content as at then is no longer effective in teaching and learning Economics in secondary schools since the enrichment of the curriculum with new concepts, models and theories. Ossai (2014:153) stated that “instructional strategy otherwise known as teaching method can be conceived of as a plan of activities to teach content and sequence learning experience”.  Meziobi, Fubara and Meziobi (2008) stated that “teaching strategies are the umbrella term, in fact an overall large scale teaching plan or framework, that encapsulate both teaching methods and teaching techniques.”  Therefore, instructional strategy includes the method and the techniques used in and outside the classroom by the teacher and learners in order to achieve the planned learning outcome.

It has been observed that teachers in Nigeria predominantly use expository instructional strategy for content delivery in various subjects (including Economics). In order to cover the scheme of work, teachers resort to transmission of facts, dogmas and theories to the students who have to regurgitate them in half digested form in examination. Oduolowu (2007) observed that “among other outdated instructional techniques, rote learning which focuses on memorization and regurgitation of facts is still used by teachers in the country (including those in Asaba Educational Zone in Delta State) p. 15. Conventional instructional method of ‘talk and chalk’ is grossly inadequate for teaching a problem- solving approach discipline such as Economics.   The prevalent uses of traditional teaching method in teaching Economics do not allow the students to have in-depth knowledge of Economics concepts which also adversely affects retention and interest. This ugly development hinders the critical thinking skill that Economics develops in the learners and can make the topics difficult to the students.  In order to achieve instructional objectives and education goals, students are expected to excel in the academic work, experience comfortable academic environment and provision of necessary infrastructural facilities while “Gbanaja” according to Ossai, (2014), “pointed out that the method adopted by any teacher in teaching any particular subject can affect learner’s level of achievement”.  There is therefore, the need to employ appropriate instructional strategy that can enhance students’ achievements, interests and retention in Economics irrespective of their gender groups and their school locations.

Knowledge construction requires higher cognitive ability on the part of the learner to enable him/her become conscious of himself as a learner,  his level of knowledge, his learning ability, the learning task needed to be performed,  what is needed to be learnt from the curriculum content, be able to adjust  his/her previous knowledge and use it meaningfully to restructure the new knowledge in the best way he/she can easily make meaning out of it whether in the classroom, in group interactions and in personal studies. The instructional strategies currently adopted by teachers neglected and overlooked these potentials at the various phases of Economics curriculum. However, the meta-cognitive instructional strategy variously referred to as memory-monitoring and self regulation, meta-reasoning, meta-cognition, meta-awareness and auto-consciousness can help students to improve their achievement, interest and retention in Economics. 

            Various scholars gave various definitions of meta-cognition. Being aware of what you know and don’t know, understanding what you will need to know for a certain task and having an idea of how to use your current skill to learn what you don’t know is an aspect of meta-cognition.  This is the aspect of meta-cognition referred to as meta-cognitive knowledge or meta-cognitive awareness which is made up of personal knowledge, task knowledge and strategic knowledge. Meta-cognition is defined by some scholars as the process of thinking about thinking and reflecting on ones thinking and seems to be a big predictor of success: academically, socially and professionally. In this definition, meta-cognitive awareness and meta-cognitive regulation are implied, though there is the third stage or class of meta-cognition referred to as meta-cognitive experience which has to do with the drive or the motive that propels active learning of perceived difficult task. Chick (2015) defined meta-cognition as the process used to plan, monitor and assess ones understanding and performances and includes ones thinking and learning and oneself as a thinker and learner. In Chick’s definition, the process of planning, monitoring and assessing ones understanding and performances talks about the three steps in meta-cognitive strategy or meta-cognitive regulation while the reference of oneself as a thinker and a learner has to do with meta-cognitive awareness all of which may not be developed in learners except through instruction.  Any one that acquired meta-cognitive abilities has acquired the knowledge, skills, and values that govern, control and regulate the learning of other knowledge, skills and value. This means that meta-cognition has in it, the driving force behind acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. It affects the three domains of educational objectives in which retention, achievement and interest lie. The more meta-cognitive one is, the more one would be able to acquire knowledge, skills, attitudes and values.  It will help learners to choose the right cognitive tool for task and plays critical roles in active and successful learning.

Cognition on its own is a term that refers to the thinking process of an individual. These processes include attention, perception, memory knowledge representation, language problem solving, reasoning and decision making (Kolleg, 2007; Marzonu & Kendall, 2007). Constructing understanding requires cognitive and meta-cognitive elements; learners “construct knowledge” using cognitive strategies, and they guide, regulate, and evaluate their learning using meta-cognitive strategies. It is through this “thinking about thinking” that real learning occurs. As students become more skilled at using meta-cognitive strategies, they would gain confidence and become more independent learners. Meta-cognition therefore, means learning how to learn. It is one’s ability to identify learning tasks, set learning goals, identify ones strength and weakness as a learner, use one’s prior strategic knowledge to plan a strategy for approaching  learning task, take necessary steps to solve problems, monitor ones cognition, reflect on and evaluate results; and modify ones approach when necessary.

There are three classifications of meta-cognition. They are meta-cognitive knowledge or meta-cognitive awareness, meta-cognitive regulation or self regulation and meta-cognitive experience. Each of these can be taught and/or modeled in the teaching and learning process. Meta-cognitive regulation is the aspect that is referred to as the meta-cognitive strategy which can be used during content delivery of any discipline. Research has shown that “meta-cognitive skills can be taught to students to improve their learning” (Anderson & Therriault, 2003).  Meta-cognitive strategy can be thought alongside with certain teaching or cognitive strategy by slightly adjusting the teaching techniques to accommodate the meta-cognitive elements. It involves the processes of teaching the students that they can affect how their ability to learn develops; teaching them how to set learning goals and plan to meet them; monitor their own learning and adapting when necessary; and evaluate their thinking process after completing the task and instruction. The teacher can model application of questions, think-aloud, read-aloud, jump start journal, lecture wrapper, the use of graphic organizers and mnemonics appropriately during the planning, monitoring and evaluation stages of meta-cognitive regulation.

High achievement is usually enhanced by appropriate instructional strategy. Achievement is the outcome of measuring the effects of relatively standardized sets of cognitive experience on a learner or group of learners. The higher the desired effect it has, the higher the achievement. Retaining cognitive experience over a long period of time may lead to a higher achievement. Retention is maintaining the availability of newly acquired information, experience or new meaning or some part of them. It is the ability to recall or to recognize what has been learnt or experienced over a long period of time.  Cope (2011) observed that active participation during instruction increases learning and retention. Retention in Economics is not be acquired by mere transmission of facts and dogma but through the application of appropriate instructional delivery strategy.

Agbo, Anorue & Asogwa (2008) identified that “the causes of difficulties in students’ learning of Economics include poor attitude of students towards the subject”. This means that the level of students’ interest in Economics is ebbing. Interest of the learners in Economics can be described as great attention or concern of the learners for Economics; an intellectual curiosity about the subject of Economics. It could be aroused by activity that tends to satisfy the needs of the learners. If teachers could engage the students in activities that tend to satisfy their students’ needs by applying the appropriate instructional strategies in teaching difficult concepts and topics in Economics, students’ interest in the subject will be kindled.

Gender as a variable could interact with students’ achievement, interest and retention.  In other words some instructional strategies could be gender sensitive when it comes to students’ achievement, interest and retention.  “Gender relates to the difference in sex (that is, either male or female) and how this quality affects their dispositions towards academic activities” (Okoh, 2007). With some instructional strategies and in some disciplines, girls may perform achieve poorer or better than boys. Nzewi (2010) noted that “females are grossly under-represented and many of them are noted to underachieve in science and technology”.  According to  Ibe (2004), education that will equip the individual with the power to adapt to change irrespective of gender should be the most important goal of education of any society that wants to progress.

Another observed variable that could influence students’ achievements, interest and retention in Economics is school location. Location is a particular point or place in physical space. School location, therefore, is a particular place where a particular school or schools are physically situated. According to Ezeja, Ezeora and Ezugu (2008), “school location for a quite number of times can serve as a contributing factor that influences academic performance and interest of students”. The achievements of the students in schools located in rural areas and that of those in schools located in urban areas could vary according to their locations.   

            Since the instructional methods persistently used in teaching Economics cannot help effectively in teaching the difficult Economics concepts, which manifests in perennial poor students’ achievement, interest and retention, the researcher deemed it necessary to study the effects of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on senior secondary school students’ achievement, interest and retention in Economics. As an additional advantage, meta-cognitive experience, an aspect of meta-cognition, has been identified to be responsible for creating identity that matters to an individual. In this sense, identity has to do with goal, aspiration and ambition. Identity provides a basis for meaning making for action and that learners experiencing difficulty in learning, as a result of being exposed to meta-cognitive experience apply the incremental theory of ability which states that if efforts matters, then difficulty is likely to be interpreted as meaning that more effort is needed so as to continue to identify with the identity (Oyesermen & Destin, 2010). Moreover,  “Meta-cognitive activities can guide students as they identify what they already know, articulate what they learned, communicate their knowledge, skills and abilities to a specific audience, set goals and monitor their progress; and evaluate and reverse their own work” (DePaul, 2014). Considering these qualities amongst others, it might not be out of place to investigate the effects of meta-cognitive instructional strategies on secondary school students’ interest, achievement and retention in Economics in Asaba Education Zone, Delta State.  

Statement of the Problem    

            Poor students’ achievements, interest and retention in Economics are alarming, despite the fact that many research has been carried out to remedy the situation. Instead of adopting result oriented teaching and learning strategy that will engage the students in critical thinking learning processes which in turn is capable of producing easy transfer of learning and progressive positive learning outcomes, the teachers  are still using outdated instructional strategy.  

Onyeguke, Udah & Onyekaba (2006) and Banunwa & Okeke (2010) strongly believe that instructional approaches used by the teachers contribute to the difficulties encountered by the students in comprehending certain concepts and topics in Economics and their inability to cover the scheme of work before they sit for certificate examinations, resulting to Poor academic achievements and interest in Economics. It was observed from the data collected from WAEC result sheets of five randomly selected schools from the area of study that in 2009/2010 session that 12% of the students scored F9; 36%: E8 – D7; 52% got C6-C4 and 0% got B3-A1. In 2010/2011 session, 24% scored F9, 50% scored E8-D7, 26% scored C6-C4 and 0% scored B3-A1. In 2011/2012 session 31% scored F9, 33% scored E8-D7, 36% scored C6-C4 and 0% scored B3-A1. In 2013/2014 80% of the students got F9, 20% got E8 and D7, 0% got C6-C4 and 0% got from B3-A1. From the above analysis, the students that got C6-C4 are below 37% of the students that took the examination each year except in 2009/2010 when 52% of them got between C6-C4. This trend is not encouraging at all.

The expository instructional strategy used in teaching Economics lacks the required critical thinking potentiality for active and effective learning of difficult concepts and topics in Economics. It does not encourage retention of facts nor does it promote students interest in the subject matter. It has little or nothing to offer the students individually or collectively in terms of creating meta-cognitive awareness, meta-cognitive regulation and meta-cognitive experience. It cannot instill the confidence and awareness on the students that they are active learners that can develop their learning ability through planning, monitoring and evaluating their own learning.  All these potentials that are absent in expository instructional strategy could they be inherent in meta-cognitive strategy? Unfortunately the effects of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention is not certain. This work is, therefore, intended to investigate the effects of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention in secondary school Economics in Asaba Education Zone, Delta State.

In more specific terms, the problems of this study are: what are the effects of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, retention and interest in Economics? What are the interaction effects of the instructional strategy and gender on students’ achievement, retention and interest in Economics? What are the interaction effects of the instructional strategy and school location on students’ achievement, retention and interest in Economics?

Significance of the Study

This study investigated the “effect of meta-cognitive instructional strategy on students’ achievement, interest and retention in secondary school Economics in Asaba Education Zone of Delta State, Nigeria. Economics topics are abstract and mathematical in nature and some of them are very difficult to understand, efforts to teach them using expository instructional strategy proved abortive. So, teaching Economics will require higher cognitive ability which involves meta-cognition. Theoretically, the result of this study will enable the teachers and the students to understand that the ability to learn is not a fixed quantity and that they can develop such ability over time as the strategy combines cognition and learning how to learn. It will enable the Economics teachers and students to assess their current knowledge of any give task, plan their learning, set realistic learning goals, determine the appropriate learning strategy, monitor the strategy and the instruction, orchestrate the various learning strategy and evaluate both the strategy and the learning. These will keep both the teacher and the learner focused on the instructional objective and as they do these, in class, groups or pairs, their learning abilities will improve which will lead to higher academic achievement in Economics.

The result of this work will sensitize Economics teachers to use effective instructional strategy for improved students’ understanding, achievement, retention and interest in Economics in secondary schools and other institutions of learning. It will enable Economics teachers to use the appropriate instructional strategy in teaching students in different school locations and in teaching different sex groups of students. The strategy can also be adapted to teach other related subject areas at all levels of education, mostly those subjects that the topics and concepts are abstract and mathematical in nature. This is possible, because the strategy under investigation has additional advantage of enabling students to set realistic learning goals, monitor their learning process and evaluate their learning strategies as well as encourages deductive and inductive reasoning. These skills are acquired in the class through regular explicit modeling of meta-cognitive strategy by the teacher during the content delivery until the students become used to it to the extent that they can use the strategy to tackle assignments and prepare for examinations even when the teacher is not there.  The result of this investigation will contribute tremendously in helping the students develop their appropriate learning strategy to overcoming their learning difficulties, master difficult concepts in Economics, cover their scheme of work and pass their examinations in Economics with good grades.

            The results of this study will also be of immense benefit to parents, tertiary education institutions, employers of labour, government, curriculum planners, educationists, researchers and the general public.  Applying the result of the findings of this study will prove the subject relevant to the learners (students); resulting in their ability to transfer learning to everyday life, improve student performances in Economics examinations and save the parents extra cost of training their children in schools because they will not need to pay extra fees for repetitions and re-enrollment of their wards to re-take examinations. It will also reduce the incidence of drop-outs and frustrations that accompany learning difficulties, high cost of schooling encountered by parents and students and poor students’ academic achievement.

It will ensure quality Economics manpower supply in the labour market as well as quality Economics candidates for admission into social science education, social science and management courses in the university and other tertiary institutions of learning, which will in turn boost national wealth and development. It will also

The researcher also hopes that the findings will serve as a stepping-stone for f