Students' views on what aids their learning of school science in Lagos state, Nigeria

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Students' views on what aids their learning of school science in Lagos state, Nigeria

Mohammed, Victoria; Reiss, Michael J; Hargreaves, Eleanore; (2022) Students' views on what aids their learning of school science in Lagos state, Nigeria. SN Social Sciences , 2 , Article 99. 10.1007/s43545-022-00404-w. Green open access

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Abstract

In Nigeria, school science education is believed to be impeded by multiple issues, in part resulting from limitations on funding, but there is a dearth of research that attends to the views of learners themselves. The aim of this study was to explore the views of secondary students in Lagos, Nigeria about the school science teaching they received. A multiple case study research design was employed and semi-structured individual (n = 26) and group (n = 4) interviews were undertaken with 14–17-year-old students from four non-fee-paying, mixed-sex public secondary schools. Sampling was purposive, so that the four schools were fairly typical of secondary schools in Lagos, while the interviewed students were preparing to study science at university and follow science career pathways and included both students who were engaged in terms of their participation in class and those who appeared withdrawn. Analysis was undertaken within a theoretical framework derived partly from Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of teaching and learning and partly from Watkins’ theories of learning. Students articulated how certain teaching methods, such as learning with and from others in group work, using familiar examples as applications of knowledge and undertaking practical work, were felt to aid their learning of science. These views align with the sorts of approaches to teaching and learning advocated by both Vygotsky and Watkins. It was concluded that there exists quite a gap between what the students said were effective ways of their being taught science and what were often their experiences. Some of the differences are to do with funding shortages but others are to do with pedagogy and terminal assessment.

Type:	Article
Title:	Students' views on what aids their learning of school science in Lagos state, Nigeria
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI:	10.1007/s43545-022-00404-w
Publisher version:	https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-022-00404-w
Language:	English
Additional information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Students’ views, Nigeria, Secondary school science, Vygotsky, Chris Watkins
UCL classification:	UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151712