Influence Of Practical Approaches Of Teaching Agriculture On Academic Performance In High Schools In Kisii County, Kenya

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.