Teachers’ Professional Development and Curriculum Awareness as Predictors of Lower Primary School Pupils’ Learning Outcomes in Social Studies

The study examined primary school pupils learning outcomes in Social Studies and determined predictive ability of teacher’s professional development and curriculum awareness on lower primary school pupils’ learning outcomes in Social Studies. The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study consisted of lower primary school pupils in Oyo State. Multistage sampling procedure was employed for the study. The sample size consisted of 6oo pupils and 6o teachers. Three research instruments were developed, validated and administered on the participants. A research question was answered and one hypothesis tested. The data obtained were analyzed using frequency, percentage and multiple regression analysis. The results revealed that cognitive aspect of learning outcomes of primary school pupils in Social studies was excellent at 28.5% also the highest percentage (88.3%) of pupils displayed positive attitudes towards learning of Social Studies. The results further revealed that the combination of independent variables proved to be significantly adequate in predicting pupil’s affective (attitude) learning outcomes in Social Studies measured by attitude towards Social Studies. The results yielded a coefficient of multiple regression (R) of .396 and a multiple correlation square (R2) of .157. These values were statistically significant at o.o5 probability level. Teachers’ pedagogical skills had the highest contribution (B=.4o3; t = 2.122; p<.o5) in the prediction of pupils’ affective learning outcomes in Social Studies. The finding has provided awareness on how the new curriculum content and teacher’s professional development programmes will assist the teachers to contribute immensely to the pupils’ learning outcomes in Social Studies.

Keywords: Professional development, Curriculum Awareness, Pupils, Learning outcomes, Knowledge.