Teachers’ Competence on the use of Science Instructional Resources in Teaching Science Activities among Pre-Primary Children in Ndhiwa Sub-County, Homa Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

Studies and practices have shown that pre-school science is a play based learning activity and in science lessons it may be easy to find materials and equipment for teaching science in schools not used or inadequate. This study aimed at assessing teachers’ competence on the use of science instructional resources in Teaching Science Activities among Pre-primary children in Ndhiwa Sub-County, Homa Bay County, Kenya. The study adopted descriptive survey design. Targeting 14 public pre- schools 42 pre-school teachers, 14 head teachers and 700 preschool children. Simple random sampling was used to sample 38 pre-school teachers, 248 pre-school children and 14 head teachers. The study was quantitative in nature where questionnaires were used to collect data from teachers. Research validity of the instrument was established by content validity technique where the instrument or tools were given to experts from the departments and the supervisors to assess and give their expertise advice, while the reliability of the instrument was also tested using the test-retest technique and reliability co-efficient computed to indicate how reliable data collection tools were. Qualitative data was analyzed based on the themes while quantitative data was analyzed using numeric measures from the scores of various responses, i.e. the correlation analysis used Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient, r. where ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The study found that the instructional resources in teaching science activities were available but not adequate. Most of the teachers had an average competence having been given specific training on how to use instructional resources in teaching science activities in their training. The study recommends that the county government should ensure that all the pre-schools are provided with adequate instructional resources through adequate funding. The ministry of education under the county government should take an initiative to provide sufficient in – service training programmes on the use of instructional resources in teaching science activities to prepare teachers with skills to be involved in pre-school science to improve the performance and mastery of content. The management should provide more instructional resources and train teachers on how to use the resources to enhance their competency and delivery.