Effect of General and Specific Behavioural Objectives on Students’ Achievement Prior to Instruction in Social Studies

Abstract

A study of general and specific behaviourial objectives on students’ achievement prior to instruction in social studies was carried out to determine their relative effectiveness in improving the performance of students in both internal and external examinations in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. A total of 270 junior secondary two students were used for the study. The instrument consisted of thirty multiple choice objective questions and a questionnaire. The research design adopted for the study was pretest-post test control group experimental design. Three Social Studies topics were taught within the eight weeks of the field work. The results indicated that students presented with specific behavioural objectives prior to instruction in social studies had a significantly higher academic achievement than those presented with general objectives, who in turn had a significantly higher academic achievement than those presented with no objective.