Relationship between Selected Teacher, Institutional and Curriculum Factors and Teaching Approaches used by Agriculture Teachers in Public Secondary Schools in Nakuru County, Kenya

Abstract

Delivering agriculture content using appropriate teaching approaches is one of the most crucial activities for teachers who have been singled out as a key factor in the implementation of any curriculum. Agriculture teachers in Kenya have largely been using teacher-centred teaching approaches which are not appropriate in imparting agricultural skills to the students. However, there is little information on correlation between selected teacher, institutional and curriculum factors and teaching approaches used by agriculture teachers, making it difficult to have interventions that would encourage teachers to use more appropriate teaching approaches. This study was intended to fill that gap by exploring the relationship between teacher, curriculum, and institutional factors and teaching approaches used by the agriculture teachers. A correlational research design was used to find out the interrelatedness of the selected factors and the teaching approaches used by agriculture teachers. The target population was all agriculture teachers in Nakuru County, and the accessible population was the agriculture teachers in public secondary schools. Stratified random sampling was used to sample 151 out of 242 agriculture teachers in public secondary schools in Nakuru County. The sample included 4, 11, 15 and 121 agriculture teachers from national, extra-county, county and sub-county public secondary schools respectively. Data were collected using the Agriculture Teachers Questionnaire (ATQ), Focus Group discussion Guide (FGG), and Classroom Observation Guide (COG). Experts in the field of education validated the instruments. The ATQ was pilot tested in Subukia sub-county, and the ATQ had a Cronbach’s reliability coefficient of 0.7. Chi-square, Cramer’s V coefficient, multinomial regression and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data collected. The null hypotheses were tested at a significance level of p≤ 0.05. Data collected were analysed with the aid of SPSS. The study findings showed no significant relationship between teacher factors and teaching approaches and also between institutional factors and teaching approaches. However, a significant relationship was found between curriculum factors and teaching approaches. From the research findings, recommendation to the Ministry of Education is that, professional development activities should be provided continuously to refresh the teachers on the need to use appropriate teaching approaches in order to achieve the objectives of teaching agriculture. The mode of assessment of agriculture subject should be reconsidered such that there is more practical oriented assessment. The teaching workload need to be reviewed in light of class size and preparation time required for student-centered teaching approaches. To the curriculum developers, the researcher recommends that there is need to interrogate the secondary school agriculture curriculum vis-à-vis time allocated for the subject and the non-inclusion of double lessons in the teaching timetable.