Community Based Resources as Educational Inputs in the Teaching and Learning of Agricultural Science in Public Secondary Schools in Osun State

Abstract

Educational inputs such as community-based resources are important in the teaching and learning processes because they facilitate the learning of abstract concepts and ideas, keep the learners active and busy thus increasing their participation in the lesson. However, students offering Agricultural Science tends to perform poorly in their academic pursuit in terminal examination not because they do not have the mental ability to do well but because their teachers fail to use effective community-based learning resources to help them build a sense of connection that challenges them to develop intellectual and academic skills. To this end the study examined community-based resources that are available and used as well as determined whether the use of community-based resources for teaching Agricultural Science will improve the academic performance of students in selected public secondary schools in Osun State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 37,740 teachers and students in the 79 public secondary schools in Osun Central Senatorial Districts. The sample consisted of 320 respondents which included 20 high school teachers and 300 high school students selected through multi-stage sampling procedure. One self-designed instrument titled “Community-Based Resources Questionnaire (CBR-Q)” was used for the study. Descriptive statistics of simple percentage and frequency count were used to analyse the data pertaining to the research questions. The study concluded that, community-based resources are available (market places, resources persons, banks and farms) but were not in used for teaching Agricultural Science in selected secondary schools in Osun State.