Effects of Full and Quasi – Participatory Learning Strategies on Nigerian Senior Secondary Students’ Environmental Knowledge: Implications for Classroom Practice

Environmental education is considered an appropriate intervention for creating awareness of, and an
understanding of the challenges of environmental degradation. The introduction of EE into the Nigerian school
curricular creates a challenge of how to teach it. A majority of the teachers still employ the old, traditional “chalk and
talk” method. This study experimented with two modes of participatory strategies, the full and quasi participatory
modes in teaching secondary school students in Nigeria some EE concepts. Three hundred and sixty students were
randomly selected and assigned to the three treatment groups. Five hypotheses were tested at P<.05 and data was
collected using a test instrument measuring students’ understanding of the EE concepts taught. Findings from the
study indicate that generally students taught using the participatory modes performed better than their counterparts
in the conventional lecture group. However, between the two participatory modes examined, it was noted that
students in the quasi participatory mode performed better than their colleagues in the full participatory group. An
explanation of this could be that the quasi mode offers the learners a unique opportunity to work together in a more
flexible way, to read, accept and internalize the basic environmental concepts. The implications of the findings for
classroom practice were discussed in the paper.