Abstract:
The goal of teaching agriculture using practical methods is to give students the general and
specialized abilities they need to carry out practical scientific tasks and to improve their practical
instrument handling proficiency. These provide students a sense of self-worth, which inspires
them to work hard. Therefore, the goal of this study was to ascertain how academic performance
in secondary schools, specifically in Kisii County, was influenced by practical agricultural
teaching approaches. The study's specific goals were to: establish methods other schools use to
teach practicals in agriculture subject; to determine contraints encountered in implemention of
various practical methods of teaching the subject and also to found out the relationship between
practical approaches of teaching agriculture and academic perfomance. Before beginning the
fieldwork, piloting was conducted in a few chosen schools to determine the accuracy and
dependability of the research tool. A sample of 304 respondents was chosen from a target
population of 756 people using multi-stage stratified random sampling and purposive sampling
procedures. Both primary and secondary data were intended to be gathered using questionnaires
with a five-point Likert scale. The reliability of the research instruments was determined using
the test-retest coefficient using the Cronbach Alpha Coefficient, and the validity of the
questionnaires was determined using the Content Valid Index coefficient. Descriptive and
inferential analyses of the data were performed. The associations between the investigated
variables (indipendants) and the subject's academic performance were determine using ANOVA.
Bar graphs and tabular tables were used to display the results. The results showed that there was
no statistically significant difference between students' average scores in agriculture and the
application of display as a useful teaching strategy. Project methodologies and experimentation,
however, revealed a favorable but shaky relationship. The R
2
of 0.235 explained the proportion
of the variability. Accordingly, the factors like the project methods, field trips, experiments and
demonstrations may dictate only 23.5percent of academic success in the subject under study,
whereas the other factors not included in the model can command 76.5percent of the
performance. Based on ANOVA analysis, the regression model significantly predicts academic
achievement in the subject with 23.324 F-ratio and a p≥ 0.000. This suggested that using a
practical approach to teach agriculture is important and, to a certain extent, enhances academic
performance. According to the study's recommendations, the study's findings should help people
better understand how various do-it-yourself approaches might boost agricultural students'
academic achievement. This would make it easier for the school's administration and other
stakeholders to plan and distribute the resources that instructors and students need to improve
their academic performance.
