AN APPRAISAL OF PERCEIVED DIFFICULT TOPICS TO TEACH IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN ILORIN METROPOLIS, KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Teachers are expected to be versatile and able to teach all topics in their respective discipline. However, teachers sometimes face difficulties in teaching some topics in their field of specialization. Hence, this study investigated an appraisal of perceived difficult topics to teach in senior secondary school agricultural science in Ilorin metropolis, Kwara state, Nigeria. Six research purposes and questions guided the study. The study adopted survey research design. The population for the study was all agricultural science teachers in Ilorin metropolis, Kwara state, Nigeria. One hundred and ninety-five (195) agricultural science teachers constituted the sample for the study. Researcher designed questionnaire tagged agricultural science teachers perceived difficult topics questionnaire (ASTPDTQ) was used for data collection. Three experts validated the instrument. Cronbach alpha was used to determine the instrument’s reliability and a reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained. Research questions were analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation; hypothesis 1 was tested using t-test while hypotheses 2 and 3 were tested using ANOVA at 0.05 alpha level. The study found all senior secondary school agricultural science topics with the exception of few moderately difficult to teach by agricultural science teachers. The reasons for difficulty of topics were unavailability of instructional materials and poor mastery of the concepts among others. Also, there was no significant influence of teachers’ gender, qualifications and teaching experience on the topics perceived difficult to teach by senior school agricultural science teachers. Recommendations amongst others include organization of regular training and re-training programmes for agricultural science teachers.