TWO MODES OF SCHOOL-BASED OUTDOOR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES AND LEARNING OUTCOMES OF PUBLIC PRE-PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

One of the objectives of pre-primary education is to inculcate cognitive and social skills in pre- primary children. Deficiency in these skills is partly accountable for poor learning among the pre-primary school children in Ibadan. Previous studies largely focussed on home, indoor classroom activities and children-related factors with little emphasis on interventions through outdoor activities. This study, therefore, was carried out to determine the effects of structured and unstructured school-based outdoor educational activities on learning outcomes (cognitive and social skills) of pre-primary school children in public schools in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of parental involvement and gender were also examined.

Cognitive and Social Constructivist Learning theories provided the framework, while the pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. The multi-stage sampling procedure was used. Three Local Government Areas (LGAs), (Ibadan North, Ibadan North East and Ibadan North West) were randomly selected. Purposive sampling was used to select three public pre-primary schools (one per LGA) based on availability of space and resources to carry out outdoor exploration. Three intact classes (one per school) were randomly assigned to Structured School-based Outdoor Educational Activities (SSOEA-16), Unstructured School-based Outdoor Educational Activities (USOEA-15) and control (18) groups. The instruments used were Cognitive Skills Assessment (r = 0.89), Social Skills Rating Scales (r = 0.80), Parental Involvement Questionnaire (r = 0.85) and instructional guides. The treatment lasted 12 weeks. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics, Analysis of covariance and Bonferroni post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance.

There were more males (59.2%) and majority (73.5%) had low parental involvement. There was a significant main effect of treatment on pre-primary school children’s cognitive skills (F (2; 46) = 120.90; partial ῆ2 = 0.87). The children in the SSOEA (x ̅= 78.90) improved on their cognitive skills better than those in USOEA (x ̅= 54.41) and control (x ̅= 42.09) groups. There was a significant main effect of treatment on pre-primary school children’s social skills (F (2; 46) = 108.33; partial ῆ2 = 0.85). The SSOEA had the highest mean score (x ̅= 47.89) followed by USOEA (x ̅= 28.97) and control (x ̅= 14.15) groups. There were no significant main effects of parental involvement and gender on the cognitive and social skills. The two and three-way interaction effects were not significant.

Structured and unstructured school-based outdoor educational activities improved cognitive and social skills of pre-primary school children in Ibadan, Nigeria. Pre-primary school teachers in public schools should adopt these strategies for improved cognitive and social skills of pre-primary school children regardless of gender and parental involvement.