Effect of Scaffolding Learning Strategy on Social Studies Pre-Service Teachers’ Achievement in Cybercrime Prevention in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

This study examined the effect of scaffolding learning strategy on social studies pre-service teachers’ achievement in cybercrime prevention in universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The quasi-experimental design was considered appropriate for this study. The participants (213 pre-service teachers) for this study were selected using multistage sampling procedure. The instruments used in this study were Scaffolding Learning Strategy Guide (SLSG), Conventional Method Guide (CMG) and Pre-service Teachers’ Achievement Test (PTAT). The experimental procedures for this study were in three stages: the pre-treatment stage, the treatment stage and the post-treatment. The researcher used eight weeks altogether for the whole study.Inferential statistics such as Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Estimated Marginal Means were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.The findings of the study revealed that there was significant main effect of Scaffolding Learning Strategy (SLS) on Social Studies Pre-service Teachers’ achievement in cybercrime prevention. Pre-service Teachers’ exposed to SLS had higher adjusted mean score than their counterpart in the control group. In addition, there was no significant main effect of Social Studies Pre-service Teachers’ gender on their achievement in cybercrime prevention. The study concluded that the use of Scaffolding Learning Strategy enhanced better performance of Pre-service Teachers’ achievement in cybercrime prevention than the conventional method. It was recommended among others the use of Scaffolding Learning Strategy (SLS) should be encouraged in teaching cybercrime prevention in tertiary institutions so as to enhance better academic performance of pre-service teachers.

Keywords

• scaffolding learning strategy
• social studies
• pre-service teachers
• achievement
• cybercrime prevention