Impact of teachers' pedagogical skills on teaching and learning of practical agriculture in Senior High Schools in the Sagnerigu district of Northern Ghana

Abstract

This paper examined the effects of teachers' pedagogical skills on the teaching and learning of practical agriculture in Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the Sagnerigu Municipality of the Northern region of Ghana. Through a multi-stage sampling technique 120 students, 15 teachers and 3 heads of departments of agriculture were sampled and interviewed with semi-structure questionnaire. From the analysis of data collected from the sampled respondents, five teaching methods namely demonstrations (78.5%), discussion (78.6%), questions and answers (71.4%),project work (50.0%) and experiments (50.0%) were the main methods used in teaching practical agriculture. The analysis of the surveyed data also reveals significant relationship between students' interest in agriculture and the attitudes of teachers during lessons (µ= 69.21, SD = 9.65). Inadequate funds, insufficient tools/equipment, short duration of practical lessons in addition to poor community-school relationship were the problems encountered in organizing agricultural science practical in schools. It is recommended for teachers to adopt positive attitude and use varying methods in teaching practical lessons in order to arouse students' interest and skills competency. It is also recommended to the Ghana Education Service to help in equipping SHSs running agriculture science programmes with needed tools and equipment for effective teaching and learning of agricultural practices.