Students’ Knowledge of Political Education Concepts in Social Studies Curriculum as a Determinant of their Attitude Towards Political Participation in Edo State

Abstract

This study investigated the knowledge of concepts of political education in the Social Studies curriculum on students’ knowledge and attitude to political participation in Edo State. Over time, there has been expressed dissatisfaction by the Edo people that the government officials and representatives do not reflect public choice. There are also situations where individuals show up for voters’ registration and still fail to vote when the time comes. Nigeria has continuously been plagued by election malpractices and a whole lot of electoral misconducts which gives the impression that Social Studies education has not made a remarkable impact. The purpose of this study is to examine if the knowledge of the concepts of political education in the Social Studies curriculum can influence students’ knowledge and attitude to political participation in Edo State. Four research questions were raised to guide the study and two hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design while the population comprised all JSS I-III students from the public Junior Secondary Schools in the seven (7) local government areas in Edo South senatorial district. The Edo South senatorial district has a total of one hundred and thirty-eight (138) public Junior Secondary Schools with a population of seventy-four thousand, four hundred and forty (74,440) Junior Secondary School students. The multi-stage sampling procedure was used to draw a sample size of eight hundred and forty (840) students used for the study. The instrument for data collection was an achievement test titled, “Knowledge of Political Education Test (KPET). Its reliability was ascertained using the Kuder- Richardson 20 and it gave a value of 0.95. The data obtained were analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation. The findings from the study indicated that political education has the capacity of influencing students’ attitude toward voters’ registration and the voting exercises. It also revealed that political education can significantly influence the attitude of students towards the rule of law, electoral process and political participation. Based on the above findings, it was recommended that Social Studies curriculum content be broadened to address the issues of political education.