Influence of culture and gender on secondary school students’ level of scientific creativity in biology education in Turkana County, Kenya

Abstract

The world and the global economy are changing very fast. Collectively, we are faced with very significant economic, environmental and social challenges. Creativity and ingenuity will be keys to addressing the challenges. To be able to achieve Kenyan Vision 2030 (economic and social pillars), learners should be equipped with scientific creativity skills to enable them participate in nation building and take on present and future challenges in the world. Studies carried out in Kenya show that scientific creativity skills are very low amongst secondary school students. This means that there are factors that are hindering the acquisition of creativity skills among learners. Therefore there is need to find out whether culture and gender are among these factors. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of students’ culture and gender on the level of scientific creativity in Biology Education among Form Three students in Turkana County. Descriptive research design was used. Cross sectional survey method was used. The target population comprised all form three students in sub county coeducational secondary schools and Turkana men and women of 55 years and above. A sample of 320 students (160 girls and 160 boys) from 4 sub county coeducational secondary schools and 10 adults (5 men and 5 women) were involved in the study. Selection of participating schools was by stratified random sampling and purposive sampling for the sub county coeducational secondary schools. Purposive sampling was used in selecting adults of Turkana tribe. Three instruments, namely; Students’ Culture Evaluation Questionnaire (SCEQ), Biology Scientific Creativity Test (BSCT) and an Interview Schedule (IS) for the adults were used to collect data. Reliabilities of SCEQ and BSCT were measured using Cronbach coefficient alpha. The hypotheses were tested at α=0.05 significance level. The reliability coefficient for SCEQ was 0.74 while that of BSCT was 0.7. Validation of the instruments was done by seeking the opinion of experts from the Faculty of Education and Community studies of Egerton University. The test items were pilot tested in one sub county coeducational secondary school in Turkana County. The inferential statistics used were the chisquare and t-test. Data from the interview schedule was analyzed quantitatively. The findings of this study show that there was a low level of scientific creativity in Biology education in Turkana County. Culture was also found to influence the level of scientific creativity however, scientific creativity was not gender dependent. The findings of this study may provide valuable information to policy makers, curriculum developers and implementers which could be helpful in fostering positive cultural practices by restructuring the curriculum to eliminate cultural blocks to scientific creativity among the students.