Abstract

The civic competence of school-age children has become questionable despite the advent of Western education in Nigeria, which brought about the involvement of schools in the maintenance of appropriate leadership values. Studies have suggested that the family structure of a child plays an important role in the maintenance of appropriate values. This study, therefore, using two modes of active learning strategies as treatment packages, determined the moderating effect of family structure on school-age children’s civic competence in leadership value concepts in social studies and civic education in Delta state, Nigeria. The study adopted the pre-test-post-test, control group, quasi-experimental design. Junior secondary students in Delta state made up the population of the study. Mixed methods sampling techniques were employed in arriving at the sample. A total of 265 students made up the study sample. Civic competence scale (r=0.68) was used as the instrument for data collection. The hypothesis raised was tested at a 0.05 level of significance and data were analysed using analysis of covariance. The findings of the study showed that there is no significant main effect of family structure on students’ civic competence in leadership value concepts in social studies and civic education. Based on the finding, it was recommended that development of civic competent citizens requires not only the consideration of family structure by classroom teachers in the process of instruction, but also the appropriate use of active learning strategies that will facilitate learning of leadership value concepts and development of appropriate civic competences.