Cultural Inhibitions and Students’ Academic Achievement in Social Studies in Colleges of Education in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The experience of the researchers as classroom teachers in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States of Nigeria and as lecturers and researchers over the years, where they observed that students’ academic achievement in Social Studies is relatively poor. The little output in education does not give much hope for the expected national and individual development. It is this poor achievement in the subject that necessitated this present study which sought to examine the influence of cultural inhibitions and students’ academic achievement in Social Studies in Colleges of Education in Cross River State, Nigeria. To achieve the purpose of this study one hypothesis was formulated to direct the study. Literature review was done according to the variable under study. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. A sample of seven hundred and fifty-three (753) students were randomly selected for the study. The selection was done through simple random sampling technique. The main instruments for data collection were the cultural inhibitions questionnaire (CIQ) and Social Studies Achievement Test (SOSAT) developed by the researchers. The instruments were subjected to face validation by experts in measurement and evaluation. The reliability estimate of the instruments were established through split half reliability method. The reliability co-efficient was corrected with Spearman Brown prophesy formular. Pearson product moment correlation analysis was the statistical technique adopted to test the hypothesis. The hypothesis was tested at .05 level of significance with 751 degree of freedom. The result of the analysis revealed that there is a significant positive relationship between cultural inhibitions and students’ academic achievement in Social Studies. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that cultural practices such as male child preference, male inheritance etc should be relaxed in order to give room for our girls to compete favourably in all aspect of life with their male counterpart in order to bring about the desired national development, since education is the bedrock of every viable society.