IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING OF COMMERCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ENUGU EDUCATION ZONE OF ENUGU STATE

Abstract

The major purpose of this study is to find out the strategies for improving the teaching of commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State. Four research questions were answered and four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population for the study consisted of 64 commerce teachers in Enugu Education  Zone  of  Enugu  State.  Survey  research  design  was  used  for  the  study. Structured questionnaire which is a researcher designed titled Improvement Strategies for Teachers of Commerce Questionnaire (ISTCQ) were used to generate data for the study. The instrument was subjected to face validation by three experts, two from the Department of Business Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka and one from the Department of Science Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka. The questionnaire was pilot tested on a sample of 20 commerce teachers in Agbani Education Zone of Enugu State which is a different zone from the zone study. Cronbach Alpha reliability test was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and this yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.74. Sixty-four(64) copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents by the researcher. The data were collected and analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test was used to test hypothesis

1, 2 and 4 while analysis of variance was used to test hypothesis 3.  The findings of the study revealed that selecting of appropriate objectives, teaching resources, instructional strategies, engaging students in active learning, using various instructional activities and providing opportunities for recall on the part of the students will promote effective teaching and ensures students active participation and learning of commerce. Based on the findings, it was concluded that planning instruction will result in effective teaching, selecting and organizing teaching resources ensures students participation in the lesson, moreover using various instructional delivery will go a long way in meeting the students need and maximize their knowledge and skill acquisition and value judgment will be made based  on  the  outcome of  evaluation. It  was recommended that seminars and workshops should be organized for teachers of commerce, teachers should also engage students on excursion and field trips to improve the teaching and learning of commerce in the secondary schools.

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The development of every society depends on the quality and functionality of its educational system. The educational system of any nation is the mirror through which the image of the nation can be seen, and also likely to be shaped. In Nigeria’s philosophy of education,  it  is  believed  that  education  is  an  instrument  for  national  development (National Policy on Education 2014). Obaji (2006) pointed out that any nation that is striving  for  development  must  first  of  all  develop  its  educational  system,  through primary, secondary and tertiary education. However this work is delimited to secondary education.

Secondary education is the type of education that is provided to individuals who have graduated from primary schools in Nigeria before enrolment into  tertiary institution (National policy on education, 2014). The general objectives of secondary education, according to the National policy on education (2014) are as follows: Preparation for useful living within the society and preparation for higher education. Furthermore, secondary education provides trained manpower in applied science, technology, and commerce at sub professional level, (National policy on education, 2014). Commerce is one of the subjects taught at the senior secondary school level.

1

Commerce is  one of  the vocational subjects offered by secondary schools in Nigeria and commerce imparts knowledge of business to students. Ahukanna, Ndinechi and Arukwe (2007) described commerce as that part of business which is concerned with exchange of goods and services and includes all those activities which directly or indirectly facilitate that exchange. Obi (2005) viewed commerce as the distribution and exchange of all the surplus goods produced in the fields, mines, seas, forest  and factories so that they reach the final consumer in the right place, in the right condition, at the right time, in the right quantity and at the right place. Obiora (2014) in his own contribution stated that commerce is a component of business that includes all the activities, functions and institutions involved in transferring goods from producers to consumers. Hans and James  (2013)  also  described  commerce  as  the  whole  system  of  an  economy  that constitute the environment of business.

The objectives of teaching commerce in senior secondary schools, according to Federal Ministry of Education (2007) include the following: to enable students have a broader understanding of the importance of commercial activities; enable students cultivate the right attitude to  commercial activities, develop a  habit of  wise use  of services offered by commercial activities, provide useful general notion and commercial skills necessary for students who will immediately enter into the world of work either as employee or employers of labour and of course as a challenge for further education; develop a habit of wise use of services offered by commercial institutions. Commerce provides  students  with  knowledge,  skills,  values,  attitudes,  competence,  facts  and

understanding of human activities in the ever changing business environment. Commerce equips students with useful skills necessary to enter into world of work. Commerce is indispensible in the society due to the vital role commerce plays in the society in the area of distribution and exchange of goods (Osuala, 2010). Commerce is aimed at teaching students how to identify business opportunities, choose occupations, manage or combine occupations, manage or combine other factors of production for optimal result, take leadership roles, become employers of labour, marketing executives, consultants professionals (Federal Ministry of Education 2007).     In order to achieve the above objectives in respect of commerce, commerce should be taught with strategies that will improve the teaching to be effective.

Strategies are planned series of actions, and allocation of resources necessary for achieving  something  (Agu,  2016).  Strategy  is  a  plan  that  is  intended  to  achieve  a particular purpose or the process of planning something or carrying out a plan in a skillful way, (Hornby, 2010).   Falex (2009) defined strategy as a actions resulting from intended plan  to  accomplish  a  specific  goal.  However  strategies  in  this  study  refer  to  the techniques used by the teacher in the classroom which includes teachers activities and behaviour, actions, among others. Nwachukwu (2001) stated that Instructional strategies are decisions about organizing people, materials and ideas to provide learning. Nwachukwu further stated that strategies are ways of approaching the students to get them interested and understand the subject they are learning better. Strategies are the procedure  or  established  guidelines  through  which  an  organization  achieves  its

objectives. Strategies of teaching includes all those techniques, procedures, manipulations and  facilitations of  content and  learning environment which  are  carried out  by  the teacher.   The commerce teacher has to employ many strategies for effectiveness, efficiency and improvement.

Improvement means the act of  making something better. Improvement is  the ability or condition for becoming better, adding value, upgrading and enhancing something to a better condition (Hornby, 2010). Improvement strategies give teachers confidence  in  the  skills  and  specific  approach  used  for  in  enhancing  teaching  and learning. Improvement strategies in this study include the strategies for planning instruction, selecting and organizing teaching resources, effective teaching, instructional delivery, and evaluating learning experiences.

The planning of instruction refers to the process of formulating specific future goals  or  objectives  to  be  achieved,  and  specifying  the  means  of  achieving  those objectives (Ogwo and Oranu, 2006). The ability to plan instruction in vocational and technical subjects  of  which  commerce is  one,  is  the  major  function of  the  teacher irrespective of method/technique of instruction. Ogwo and Oranu noted the following as process of planning instruction: selection, organization, adaptation, articulation of activities and content before learning activities are pursued. The planning of instruction involves careful preparation for specific lessons, as well as long planning to ensure coverage of the curriculum. Planning is a deliberate process that results in teachers being well-prepared prior to walking, through the classroom door for the day.  According to

Patel (2010) the teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross- disciplinary skills and pedagogy. In planning instruction, teachers have to ensure not only that the content is appropriately covered, but also that there will be balanced development of knowledge, understanding and skills. Lawrence (2011) equally noted that instructional planning involves a teacher stating a clear understanding of the learning objectives of the lesson and carefully specifying students outcome in  relation to  the desired learning objectives and expected performance of each student.

In addition to the planning of instructions, the teacher has to select and organize the teaching resources suitable for each topic. Ogwo and Oranu (2006) defined teaching resources as any device employed by the teacher or instructor to transmit facts facilitates skills/knowledge acquisition and improve on attitudes, understanding of the learners. Teaching resources include models, objects, drawings, graphs, charts, pictures, films and specimen. Instructional resources are those equipment and materials that a teacher uses to illustrate, emphasize and explain a lesson in order to make it clearer to the students. According to Okobia  (2011) teaching resources are objects or devices which help the teacher convey intended message effectively so that the learner receive, understand, retains and apply the experiences gained to reach overall educational goals. Teaching resources are used to aid the transfer of information from the teacher to the learner. Commerce being a vocational subject requires a lot of teaching resources which includes journals, charts, diagrams, pictures, Newspapers, video tapes, radio, cheques, bank teller,

ATM cards, etc. Commerce teachers can improve the teaching of commerce by using various teaching resources. Teaching resources helps to promote efficiency of education and  improve  the  quality  of  teaching  and  learning.  Incorporating teaching  resources presents support and reinforces teaching. Teaching resources promote the effectiveness of instruction and help the teacher to communicate more effectively. The use of teaching resources is very important in the teaching of commerce because commerce is a subject which is close to the student’s real life, so it is necessary for a teacher to use maximum number of teaching resources in teaching commerce. Okobia (2011) noted that teaching resources promotes the efficiency of education by improving the quality of teaching and learning.  Commerce  knowledge  and  skills  cannot  be  effectively  acquired  without students being exposed to the resources that can aid the learning of the subject. Teaching resources enable the students to obtain permanent knowledge on the subject matter. The availability of resources enhance learning.

Moreover teaching of commerce can be made effective by adopting various instructional delivery strategies. Instructional delivery is a process in which the teachers apply a repertoire of instructional strategies to communicate and interact with students around academic contents and to support student engagement (Cohen, Raudenbush and Ball 2003).  Students learn in a variety of ways and a variety of rates.  The commerce teacher uses multiple instructional strategies, materials, activities and assessment techniques to meet student’s need and maximize the learning of all students.   Osuala (2010)  observed  that  the  practical  way  of  improving  students  understanding  and

performance in commerce is by carefully selecting instructional delivery with which to pass knowledge, instruction or training to  the students. The commerce teacher uses various instructional delivery techniques that is suitable to the topic since the topics vary. Strong, Ward, Turker and Hindman (2008) opined that instructional delivery is fundamentally the manner and method in which teachers deliver their knowledge and skills while interacting with the students. The teacher is supportive and persistent in keeping students on task and encouraging them to actively integrate new information with prior learning. The teacher recognizes the schema or pattern in student learning and makes  inferences  about  the  situation,  learning  materials,  learning  activities  and assessment techniques to maximize student learning. In instructional delivery, the teacher should encourage student’s participation. This means that the teacher should provide opportunity for students to ask questions, answer questions in a meaningful way, often challenges and thought provoking ideas, plan interactive activities, show approval for student’s ideas to incorporate students ideas into lessons and ask students whether they have understood the concept before proceeding.

The teacher of commerce will make instruction relevant to real world problems, and this allows students to explore, inquire and meaningfully construct knowledge of real problems that are relevant to their life. Moreover students are motivated and engaged when their learning is authentic, especially when the real-world tasks have personalized result. Teachers of commerce also give clear explanations for the concepts by using

concrete real life and relevant materials. Explanations of commerce topics can also be enriched by using appropriate illustrations, graphs and diagrams.

However teachers of commerce will always determine the learning outcome of the student’s effort through varying evaluation strategies. Evaluation is the systematic determination of merit, worth and significance of learning or training process by comparing criteria against a set of standards (Nwogu, 2006). Evaluation determines value of learning and training programmes and acts as blue prints for judgment and improvement.  Evaluation means finding out what the students have learnt or what gaps remain in their learning endeavours. Obi (2005) asserts that evaluation provides a basis for location of errors resulting from learning. The author further emphasized that since no teacher or student is perfect, it is important to locate errors during the teaching process and correct them. Evaluation provides the students’ opportunities to recall what they have been learnt. The learner frequently thinks he knows a topic, but when he tries to recall he realizes that he has inadequate knowledge. Evaluation is mainly conducted to find out areas that require improvement and identify specific aspects of an instructional process that requires to change for the better. Anderson (2007) pointed out that evaluation focuses mainly on detailed analysis of performance of the instructional process so as to ascertain the behavioral changes that manifested in course of reactions of the learner. The author further stated that evaluation is mainly conducted to find out areas that require improvement  and  also  to  identify  the  specific  aspects  of  instructional  process  that requires to change.  Ogwo and Oranu (2006) noted that evaluation can be formative or

summative.   Ogwo and Oranu pointed out that formative evaluation is used to assess students performance within the various stages of the course or during the process of developing a programme. In the teaching of commerce, formative assessment helps to clarify  and  improve  instructional  method/technique  by  showing  areas  of  student weakness. Moreover, formative evaluation serves as corrective and motivational purposes for students and teachers. Summative evaluation is conducted at the completion of a programme to show the quality of performance of students who have completed the programme. Examples of  summative evaluation are  west  African  School Certificate Examination (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB). Bunson (2012) postulated that evaluation is done using valid and reliable tests to determine student’s performance and weakness. The author is of the opinion that since no teacher or student is perfect, it is important to locate errors during the teaching/learning process and correct them.

Teaching according to Mark (2011) is one of the instruments of education and its special function is to impart understands and skill and the main function of teaching is to make  learning  effective.  Teaching  is  interpersonal influence  aimed  at  changing  the behaviour potential of another person. Ogwo and Oranu (2006) stated that teaching is the science and art of assisting a person to learn which involves the use of creative and demonstrative skills on aiding the delivery of instruction. Ogwo et al equally noted that teaching is a partnership enterprise between the teacher and the student of which ultimately leads to permanent change in behaviour of the student. Moreover, teaching is

the creation or provision of experiences and guidance of activities designed to promote learning on the part of those engaged in the activities. Teaching refers to activities that are designed and performed to produce desired behaviour in student. Similarly Igbo (2007)  noted  that  teaching  is  a  systematic  presentation  of  facts,  ideas,  skills  and techniques to the students, which involves employing the most effective strategies to enable students make progress in their academic endeavour. Teaching is much more than presenting information or ideas it involves guiding students to learn by means of discovery, probing examining and analyzing activities (Obi, 2005).

In the teaching of commerce, male and female teachers are trained in different higher institutions of learning where various qualifications such as N.C.E, B.Ed, PGDE, M.Ed, Ph.D were obtained. This disparities in the gender and the qualification of teachers can affect skills and strategies for teaching commerce.

The researcher in her art of teaching commerce over the years observed that there is a dwindling interest in the study of commerce in schools.  Researchers have shown that secondary school students exhibit dwindling interest in the subject and their performance in the in ordinary level commerce was generally poor that many students are under achievers (Adetunji and Olajide, 2007). Nwokike (2011) confirmed that there is a general decline in students interest in commerce at the secondary school level in Enugu State. This  ugly  development has  been  blamed  on  commerce teachers inability to  deliver effectively.  Against  this  backdrop,  it  becomes  expedient  to  undertake  an  empirical

research in order to determine the strategies that can improve the teaching of commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State.

Statement of the Problem

Commerce is  the  hallmark of  civilization, and  a  nation cannot  exist  without commercial activities. Commerce equips students with powerful tools to understand and change the world. Moreover commerce provides an in-depth knowledge of trade and aids to trade and as well train students to work in different functional areas of business. Commerce is one of the critical elements of the national development due to its vital importance in facilitating trade and industry. Inspite of the importance and usefulness, students performance in commerce has consistently been poor. This ugly situation seems to be associated with commerce teachers’ non usage/improper use of teaching resources, poor planning, shabbily instructional delivery process and inadequate evaluation of instructions.

The need, therefore, arises to undertake an empirical study to explore the strategies for the improvement of instructional planning, instructional delivery, selecting and organizing  teaching  resources  and  evaluating  learning  experiences  to  enhance  the teaching and learning commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone.

Purpose of the Study

The major purpose of the study is to determine the improvement strategies for the teaching of commerce in Public Secondary Schools in Enugu Education Zone of Enugu State. Specifically the study sought to:

1.  Determine the improvement strategies for planning instruction in commerce in public secondary schools.

2.  Determine  the  improvement  strategies  for  selecting  and  organizing  teaching resources in commerce in public secondary schools.

3.  Determine the improvement strategies for instructional delivery in commerce in public secondary schools.

4.  Determine  the  improvement  strategies  for  evaluating  learning  experiences  in commerce in public secondary schools.

Significance of the Study

The  findings of  this  study  would  have  practical significance to  the  teachers, students, government, researchers and the society in general. The findings of this study would update the teachers’ knowledge on how to adopt the following strategies; planning of instructions, effective instructional delivery, selecting and organizing of instructional resources and evaluating of learning experiences.

The findings would enable the students to become more interested in commerce as the teacher will employ various instructional strategies to improve teaching of commerce.

The findings of this study if published, and the right strategies are adopted by the teachers in the teaching of commerce, students, achievement, interest and retention in commerce will improve greatly.

Similarly, findings of this study would provide government with detailed information about the actual picture of some of the factors that contribute to continuous poor  performance  of  students  in  commerce  and  effective  ways  of  improving    the situation. Through the outcome of this study, government would see the need to organize seminars and workshops for commerce teachers with the view to updating their knowledge.

Furthermore, the findings would be of immense benefit to future researchers for it will serve as a good working document and provide the baseline information for future researchers in commerce and other related field of study.

The society will also benefit because when the student posses functional and saleable skills, they will engage themselves with meaningful activities and thus reduce unemployment. The skills of the students will help to reduce unemployment among school leavers as students upon graduation can be engaged in various commercial activities, exchange and distribution of goods and goods service.

Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

1.  What are the improvement strategies for planning instruction in commerce in public secondary schools?

2.  What are the improvement strategies for selecting and organizing teaching resources in commerce in public secondary schools?

3.  What are the improvement strategies for instructional delivery in commerce in public secondary schools?

4.  What  are  the  improvement  strategies  for  evaluating  learning  experiences  in commerce in public secondary schools?

Hypotheses

The following four null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance:

HO1:         There is  no significant difference between the mean ratings of  male and female teachers of commerce on the improvement strategies for planning instruction in commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone.

HO2:         There is no significant difference among the mean ratings of experienced teachers (five years and above) and inexperienced teachers (below five years) of  commerce on  the  improvement strategies for  selecting and  organizing

teaching  resources  in  commerce  in  public  secondary  schools  in  Enugu

Education Zone.

HO3:         There is no significant difference between the mean ratings of teachers of commerce based on their qualifications on the improvement strategies for instructional delivery in commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone.

HO4:         There is  no significant difference between the mean ratings of  male and female teachers of commerce on improvement strategies for evaluating learning  experiences in  commerce in  public  secondary schools  in  Enugu Education Zone.

Scope of the Study

The study was delimited to determining the improvement strategies for teaching of commerce in public secondary schools in Enugu education zone of Enugu State.   The study will cover all the public senior secondary schools in Enugu Education Zone.  The study will specifically focus on improvement strategies for planning instruction, selecting and  organizing teaching resources, instructional delivery, and  evaluating of  learning experience in the teaching of commerce in the secondary schools in the Education zone. The opinions of the commerce teachers were used to accomplish the objectives of the study.

₦5,000.00 – DOWNLOAD FULL PROJECT DOWNLOAD FULL PROJECT Added to cart

---

---

---

---

---

Related Project Topics :