ABSTRACT
The study sought to examine the issues of community based resources and instructional delivery in Agricultural Education in Universities in South East, Nigeria. Five (5) specific purposes guided the study, five (5) research questions were answered, and five (5) null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted survey research design. The population for the study was 68 lecturers of Agricultural Education from the public Universities consisting of Federal and State owned universities in the area. The entire population was used because they were manageable and accessible. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled Issues of Community Based Resources and Instructional Delivery in Agricultural Education Questionnaire (ICBRIDAEQ), consisted of 133 items. The questionnaire was subjected to face validation by three experts, two from the Department of Agricultural and Vocational Education and one from the Department of Science Education (Measurement and Evaluation Unit) of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. The reliability of the instrument was established by a pilot study carried out on 15 Agricultural Education lecturers in University of Uyo and Akwa-Ibom State University and the result was analyzed using Cronbach Alpha reliability method to obtain a reliability coefficient of 0.78. Data were collected with the help of three Research Assistants. 68 copies of the questionnaire were administered and 64 copies (94%) were retrieved and analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer research questions and t-test was used to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. It was found from the analysis that there is high level of availability of community based resources and low level of utilization of community based resources in instructional delivery in Agricultural Education in Universities in South East, Nigeria; there are 13 criteria for selection of community based resources. There are 12 problems associated with the availability and utilization of community based resources for effective instructional delivery in Agricultural Education in Universities in South East, Nigeria. There are 10 solutions to the problems identified, among the solutions are provision of adequate fund for agricultural education practical and giving adequate time to Agricultural Educators to explore the community for community based instructional resources. Among the recommendations are that: University management and the community leaders should build a stronger relationship in order to enable the lecturers have access to use the community resources in instructional delivery in Universities community leaders and development unions should build more educational resources around their communities while maintaining already existing ones to enable them to be available for utilization by universities around them when needed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page i
Declaration ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgements v
Table of contents vi
List of Tables viii
Abstract ix
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 8
1.3 Purpose of the Study 10
1.4 Research Questions 10
1.5 Hypotheses 10
1.6 Significance of the Study 11
1.7 Scope of the Study 14
CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Conceptual Framework 15
2.1.1
Concept of effective instructional
delivery 15
2.1.2
The university community 26
2.1.3
Community based resources 33
2.1.4. Criteria
for selection of community based instructional resources 46
2.1.5
Issues of community based instructional
resources 52
2.1.6 Constraints
to the utilization of community based instructional resources 61
2.1.7 Solution to
the challenges of utilization of community based resources 66
2.2 Theoretical Framework 69
2.2.1
Situated cognition theory 69
2.2.2 Behaviourism
(connectionism) 70
2.2.3 Discovery-based
learning 70
2.3 Review of Related Empirical Studies 71
2.4 Summary of Review of Related Literature 82
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Design of
the Study 85
3.2 Area of
the Study 85
3.3 Population
of the Study 86
3.4 Sample and
Sampling Techniques 86
3.5 Instrument
for Data Collection 87
3.6 Validation
of the Instrument 89
3.7 Reliability
of the Instrument 89
3.8 Method of
Data Collection 90
3.9 Method of
Data Analysis 90
CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Result 92
4.2.
Findings of the Study 108
4.3 Discussion of the Findings 110
CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 113
5.2 Conclusion
114
5.3 Recommendations
115
5.4 Educational
implications of the study 116
5.5 Limitations of the study 117
5.6 Suggestions for further studies 117
References 119
Appendices 126
LIST OF TABLES
2.1: List of some materials that can be improvised 24
3.1: Real
limit of four points for measuring extent 82
4.1: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of
Agricultural
Education Lecturers on the Extent of
Availability of
Community Based Instructional Resources for
Instructional
Delivery in Agricultural Education 83
4.2: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of
Agricultural
Education Lecturers
on the Extent of Utilization of Community
Based Resources and
Instructional Delivery in
Agricultural
Education 86
4.3: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of Agricultural
Education Lecturers
on the Criteria for Selection and
Utilization of
Community Based Resources and
Instructional
Delivery in Agricultural Education 88
4.4: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of Agricultural
Education Lecturers
on the Problems Associated with the use
of Community Based
Instructional Resources in Teaching and
Learning of
Agricultural Education 89
4.5: Mean Rating and Standard Deviation of Agricultural
Education Lecturers
on the Ways of Promoting Community
Based Resources
Utilization for Effective Instructional
Delivery in
Agricultural Education 90
4.6: t-Test Analysis of Male and Female Agricultural Education
Lecturers on the Extent of Availability of Community
Based Instructional Resources for Instructional Delivery
in Agricultural Education 91
4.7: t-Test
Analysis of Male and Female Agricultural Education
Lecturers on the
Extent of utilization of Community Based
Instructional
Resources and Instructional Delivery
in Agricultural
Education 93
4.8: t-Test Analysis of Male and Female
Agricultural Education
Lecturers on the
Criteria for Selection and Utilization of Community
Based Resources and
Instructional Delivery in Agricultural
Education 95
4.9: t-Test Analysis of Male and Female
Agricultural Education
Lecturers on the
Problems Associated with the use of Community
Based Instructional
Resources in Teaching and Learning of
Agricultural
Education 96
4.10: t-Test Analysis of Male and Female
Agricultural Education
Lecturers on the Ways
of Promoting Community Based Resources
Utilization for
Effective Instructional Delivery in Agricultural
Education 98
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE
STUDY
Agricultural
education is a process of imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes in
agriculture to the learners at any level. It is an education from primary
school through secondary and special schools, to the university. Agricultural
education is therefore an important school programme that is offered from home
to the school and the community, implying that it can be formal, informal and
non-formal. This type of education provides learners with sound academic
knowledge and skill as well as ample opportunity to apply this knowledge
through classroom activities, laboratory experiments, project participation and
supervised agricultural experience (Okorie, 2016). It emphasizes skill
development in all aspects of agribusiness such as planning, management,
safety, finances and leadership. It also furnishes learners with the necessary
communication and interpersonal skills as well as knowledge of technical agriculture
to would be lecturers at all levels. It equips learners to be self-employed or
work in agricultural extension services, foreign services, in business or
industry and as agricultural educators. The scope of agricultural education
covers the area of teaching, research and public outreach programmes. These
programmes are designed to prepare students for employment in various
occupations such as horticulture, agribusiness, natural resources management,
agricultural mechanization, crop production, animal husbandry and landscaping.
Agricultural education and its development play a very central role in the overall
economic development of Nigeria. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria
(2014), the agricultural sector offered employment to more than 60 per cent of the
working population and accounted for more than 70 per cent of the non-oil
exports and provided raw materials for the industrial sector. Hence, the first
step towards quality agricultural education and development should therefore be
effective utilization of instructional resources in teaching of the practical
subject.
Unfortunately,
these required resources were always in short fall. Bioguleye (2019) indicated
that there was gross inadequate resources for the teaching of vocational
subjects in public schools in Nigeria. Alonge (2013) further stated that where there
were little resources at all, they were not usually in good condition, while
the few ones that were in good condition were not enough to go round those that
needed them and are usually imported. This poses a great challenge to
government on the need to raise the funding needs of schools where vocational
subjects are being offered. Licueshak (2015) observed that many of the school
authorities were lukewarm over the provision of needed tools, equipment and
farm inputs required for effective agricultural education practices in tertiary
institutions.
Due
to poor financial allocation to the education sector, resources for teaching
are always in short supply, necessitating that some good lecturers have to
source for alternatives within the environment which is the university
community (Biogunleye, 2019).
University
community is the totality of the internal or external environment of the
university. The word community is a broad term for fellowship or organized
society. The term community has two distinct connotative meanings: community
can refers to a usually small social unit of any size that shares common values
and secondly it is a group of interacting living organism sharing a populated
environment (Knight, 2013). University Community means all students and employees of the University,
persons officially associated with the University, former students and alumni
at the University, as well as invitees, visitors and guests. University community in the context of this
study include all the students and staff of the university and the external
environment which is the university host community.
Community
based instructional resources on the other hand refers to those resources that
can be obtained within community or society, or which can be utilized for
effective teaching and learning of agricultural education in South East
Nigeria. The concept of university–community relationship is crucial in any
discussion of community resources. For a university to assess resources
belonging to the community, there must be a reasonable synergy between the two
institutions. Nicholls and Nicholls (2013) noted that these collaborations
unfold different types of engagement, modes of operation, scope of activities
and levels of commitments which will at the end enhance the quality of
instruction delivered to students by the lecturers.
Instructional delivery is the process of
impacting knowledge and skills to the learners or students. It can be referred
to as teaching or lecturing as the case may be, all for the purpose of
impacting skill and knowledge to the students. It is a diverse set of practices
that lecturers can efficiently and effectively use to increase mastery of
content for a variety of curricula. The structured and systematic approach of
explicit instruction emphasizes mastery of the lesson to ensure that students
understand what has been taught, become competent in the new skill developed
and can generalize what they learnt to novel situations they encounter in the
future (Knight, 2013). Instructional competencies are essential practices that
lecturers must master for effectively instructing students to maximize
knowledge and skill acquisition. Research reveals that not all instruction is
equal in producing result. For instructional delivery to be effective in the
context of agricultural education, there must be adequate utilization of instructional
resources or teaching aids.
Instructional resources are teaching
materials which are utilized to make a better understanding of the concept
under study. They are means that a country, an organization or a person has and
can use, especially books and equipment that provide information for
agricultural educators and students. It can be defined as the vehicle carrying
the intended stimulus to be presented to the learners (Ogwo, 2018).
Instructional resources can also mean those facilities, equipment and materials
utilized by a lecturer to illustrate, emphasize and explain a lesson with the
intension of making the lesson clearer to the learner. Instructional resources
involve human and material aids such as equipment, devices, machines and
objects designed to facilitate teaching and learning so as to achieve the
objectives of the instructional process. They are sources of knowledge and
information from which students can expand and enrich their learning
experiences (Mom, 2013). They are the means of generating result and usually
included men, materials, machinery and money (Orekie, 2019). Some of these
instructional materials may be available in the community where the university
is located.
Furthermore, community based instructional
resources on the other hand, are resources such as equipment, machines,
materials and personnel which belong to other organizations or the university
herself in the community but however, can be used by universities for teaching
and learning (Mom, 2013). Community resources also include men and women of a
community with specialized or expert knowledge in a given field such as
Libraries, zoological and botanical gardens, wildlife, games reserves, museums,
lakes, hospitals, factories, science clubs and associations. All constitute
community resources. Therefore, community resources in the context of this
study are those resources within the university community which the
agricultural educators can use to make agricultural education lecturing and
learning not only interesting and stimulating, but relevant in nature. These
resources can be useful in teaching animal and crop production.
In crop aspect of agricultural education, for
instance, pure water sachets, old tins and split bamboo can be used for raising
horticultural crop and nursery seedlings. Also, a mixture of kerosene, wood ash
and Azadirachta indica (neem) leaves
may be utilized as insecticide hence when the above mentioned items obtained
from the community local environment are used to lecture the students, their
interest and curiosity will be aroused and sustained (Orekie, 2019). This will
eventually make the students to see agriculture education as a practical
subject rather than an abstract subject. A lot of local or community materials
are available for utilization in lecturing agricultural education in various
universities, even though the effective use of these community based resources
for lecturing purposes in agricultural education requires much more than the
mere availability of resources in the host community. Availability of the
resources here means those resources that the agricultural educators can easily
get, buy or find within the university community and use for the lecturing and
learning process. One important requirement is resourcefulness on the part of
the lecturer of Agricultural Education. Resourcefulness is used to mean the
quality of a lecturer to involve the learners such that their interest in the
subject may be enlived. It may also be extended to mean the lecturers ability
to think out strategies to improvise resources within the environment (Ekpo,
2014) while improvisation refers to the process of assessing and utilizing
local materials for instructional delivery in the absence of the required
lecturing resources while the process of managing and organizing resources is
called resources utilization.
Utilization according to Bright (2015) is the
process of putting something into purposeful use. The utilization of this
community based instructional resources such as forests, sawmills, commercial
livestock farms, plantations, abattoirs, agro-allied industries will elicit
direct purposeful experience which is fundamental to human resources
development. Where resources abound in large quantities, but not properly
utilized, they make nonsense of the entire lesson; hence whether they are made
or improvised, the ultimate result lies on their utilization. Lewis (2018)
pointed out that all lecturers should be prepared to improvise and use
initiative in utilizing available resources. Students on teaching practice
should realize that improvisation and use of local resources are immensely
valuable learning experience for themselves. Many communities provide a lot of
natural resources for lecturing agricultural education. Learning experiences
should incorporate an activity pack, which should engage students on the spot.
For example, a planned visit to a stream, erosion site and Agro-allied industry
should incorporate an activity pack which every student should use to make
observations, record observations and answer question based on their
experiences on the spot in the place of visit. It is disheartening to observe
that agricultural educators are not making judicious use of the abundant
material resources within their immediate university environment for lecturing
and learning processes rather they resort more to theory under the reason that
government has failed to provide necessary instructional facilities (Adebimpe,
2017). Lecturing Agricultural Education in universities involves a lot of
activities and skills and requires a specialist lecturer to be able to impart the
necessary skills.
Lecturers are those trained to impact
knowledge and practical skills to students of tertiary institution. They are
synonymous to teachers as they are called in primary and secondary levels of
education. A lecturer of Agricultural Education is a subject specialist trained
to impart knowledge and skills of agriculture in others (Ojoko, 2013). He is a
professional who prepares his lesson well, presents them in a meaningful and
interesting style, makes applications to real situation for his students and evaluates
student accomplishment. Lecturers of agricultural education can be classified
into various categories depending on the bases for classification. They can be
classified into ranks such as professors of agricultural education, senior
lecturers of agricultural education, assistant lecturers or graduate
assistants. In some universities, agricultural education is studied under
various sub discipline within the agriculture umbrella course. In this regard,
agricultural education lecturers can be grouped into crop science education
lecturers, animal science education lecturers, soil science education lecturers
and so. In the context of this study however, agricultural education lecturers are
classified by gender via male and female. This classification is based on the
fact that universities in South East Nigeria offer agricultural education as
whole not in units. Thus, there are only male and female category of lecturers.
Agricultural education lecturers therefore mean male or female who have
undergone due training in pedagogy and technical agriculture and therefore
possess the requisite pedagogical and technical competencies to deliver the curriculum
contents prepared for students in agricultural education. Both the male and
female lecturers in this context possess the requisite competency to access and
utilize community based resources for effective teaching of agricultural
education in universities in south East, Nigeria. Because the teaching of Agricultural
Education in universities by these lecturers have been hampered by lack of
instructional resources due to inability of government to provide them, this
study becomes worthwhile in order to identify the approaches to curb this
challenge by utilizing community based instructional resources for effective
teaching of Agricultural Education in Universities.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The objectives of the Agricultural Education
include among others to stimulate students’ interest in agriculture; enable
students to acquire basic knowledge, develop basic agricultural skills in
students, to integrate knowledge with skills in agriculture; expose students to
opportunities in the field of agriculture and education; prepare students for
further studies and teaching of agriculture. Based on the stated objectives,
the importance of agricultural education in both our national life and
universities cannot be over-emphasized. This is because under an ideal
situation, graduates of agricultural education programme should be able to
acquire skills capable of sustaining their lives if the required facilities for
instructional delivery are sufficiently in place.
It is rather regrettable that the noble goals
of agricultural education in universities have remained a mirage as the
students graduate without adequate skills and knowledge relevant to
agriculture. The vocational education programme, like any other university
programme needs and require adequate instructional resources to enable the
lecturers and the students to achieve the set objectives. However, many factors
militate against the teaching of agriculture in various universities. These factors
include inadequate resources such as equipment, laboratory and agricultural
textbooks, teaching resources or aids, shortage of lecturers among others. Where
there were little resources at all, they are not usually in good condition,
while the few ones in good condition were not enough to go round those that
needed them and most of them are imported. The situation poses challenges to the
lecturers in delivering instructions effectively to the students.
It therefore requires that lecturers need to think
outside the box for alternatives instead of waiting for government or
university management by improvising resources within the university community.
Community based resources are relevant and necessary in the achievement of the
aforementioned objectives of agricultural education. This is because
agricultural education is practical based and requires that sufficient
practical facilities be utilized. These facilities are most times not available
in the university but can be found within the university community. It
therefore implies that the lecturers need to ascertain the available community
resources that could be utilized for teaching agricultural education.
Unfortunately, no literature abound on the utilization of community resources for
instructional delivery in agricultural education in universities thus creating
a research gap. It is based on this ground that this study seeks to identify
the issues of community based resources and instructional delivery in
agricultural education in universities in South East, Nigeria.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study was to examine the
issues of community based resources in instructional delivery in agricultural
education in universities in South East, Nigeria.
Specifically, the study sought to;
1.
ascertain the extent of availability of community based resources for
instructional delivery in Agricultural Education,
2.
determine the extent Agricultural Education lecturers utilize community
based resources for instructional delivery,
3.
determine the criteria for the selection of community based resources
for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education,
4.
find out the problems associated with the utilization of community based
resources for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education; and
5.
determine measures for improving the utilization of community based
resource for instructional delivery by Agricultural Education lecturers.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The
following research questions were answered in the study:
1.
to what extent are community based resources available for instructional
delivery in Agricultural Education?
2.
what are the extent of utilization of community based resources by Agricultural
Education lecturers for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education?
3.
what are the criteria for selection of community based resources for
instructional delivery in Agricultural Education?
4.
what are the problems associated with the use of community based
resources for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education and
5.
what are the measures for improving the utilization of community based
resource for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education?
1.5 HYPOTHESES
The following null hypotheses were tested at
0.05 level of significance.
Ho1: There
is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female
lecturers of Agricultural Education on the extent of availability of community
based resources for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education
Ho2: There
is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female
lecturers of Agricultural Education on the extent lecturers of Agricultural
Education utilize community based resources for instructional delivery in
Agricultural Education
Ho3: There
is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female
lecturers of Agricultural Education on the criteria for selection of community
based resources for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education.
Ho4: There
is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female
lecturers of Agricultural Education on the problems associated with the use of
community based resources for instructional delivery in Agricultural Education.
Ho5: There
is no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female
lecturers of Agricultural Education on the measures for improving community
based resource utilization for instructional delivery in Agricultural
Education.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The findings of this study would be useful to
educational administrators, supervisors of education, curriculum planners,
students, agricultural educators, university administrators and other
researchers in terms of knowledge of community based instructional resources in
their community, techniques that could be employed in utilizing them to enrich
classroom instruction and improve lecturer’s effectiveness.
It is also hoped that if the research findings and recommendations are used,
it would help alleviate the problem of insufficient facilities and equipment
for instruction in Agricultural Education.
Many students would understand the lectures.
The outcome of the study would also help Agricultural Educators to
appreciate the need for utilization of community based instructional resources
in Agricultural Education programme in their respective universities. Also
Agricultural Educators based on the findings of the study would be exposed to
the ways and means of looking outwards for those community based instructional
resources that would be used in their everyday classroom and field instruction.
The lecturers would benefit when the information about the utilization of
community based resources provided by this study through conferences, journals
publications, library and others.
Students will also benefit from the result of this study. The use of
community based instructional resources will motivate students to choose
agriculture as a career since the theories they learnt can be related and
tested by empirical observation of the world around as agriculture can no
longer be confined to the classroom or university alone. When these resources
are improvised and utilized, the teaching and learning of agricultural
education becomes interesting and attractive to the students. The students
would also get informed on the approaches for accessing community resources to
be used for instructional delivery in the school. The students would benefit
from this study if the findings are published in journals, textbooks and
university libraries.
The university community would also benefit from this study in that
members will obtain information from the University Agricultural Education
Department for the improvement of their agricultural businesses. With this
university verses community relationship in place, the community members will
learn from the university on how to improve in some of their agricultural
operations. The information about the findings of this study would be accessed
by the community through journal publications, conferences, workshops and
seminars.
Supervisors of education would find the study helpful. The findings
would reveal the state of availability and utilization of instructional
resources in the universities which would enable them make informed and
reliable decision on how to provide more funding for university education.
More so, this study would be significant to researchers as it would
provide them with the basis for identification of available community based
instructional resources. This would enable agricultural education programme to
have relevant data necessary for efficient running of the programme in higher
institutions. The researchers would access the findings of this study through
conferences, seminars, journal publication and library.
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This work was delimited to the universities
in South East geopolitical zone of the Nigeria. The population comprised all
the Agricultural Education lectures. It involves examination of the issues of
community based resources in instructional delivery in terms of extent of
availability, Utilization, criteria for selection, problems associated with the
utilization and measures for improving the utilization of community based
resources for instructional delivery in agricultural education. The scope was
also delimited to all the 68 lecturers of Agricultural Education in government
owned Universities in South East, Nigeria.
Login To Comment