ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to determine the "Influence of School Farm on the Leaming of Agricultural Science in Secondary Schools in lkwuano Local Government Area of Ahia State. Survey research design was adopted for the study. Four research questions were developed in consonance with what the study sought to find. The null hypotheses were also formulated and tested at the probability of p<0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 2214 made up of 2059 secondary school students and 155 teachers in the area of the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 200 students and 20 teachers. A structured questionnaire was developed in consonance with what the study sought to find and used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts from the Department of Agricultural and Home Economics Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Test-retest techniques was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and reliability co-efficient of 0.84 and 0.87 were obtained for teachers and students respectively. The questionnaire was used for collecting data from 220 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, and t-test statistics for testing the null hypotheses. The findings from the study revealed that the school farm influences level of significance. The population of the study was 2214 made up of 2059 secondary school students and 155 teachers in the area of the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 200 students and 20 teachers. A structured questionnaire was developed in consonance with what the study sought to find and used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts from the Department of Agricultural and Home Economics Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Test-retest techniques was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and reliability co-efficient of 0.84 and 0.87 were obtained for teachers and students respectively. The questionnaire was used for collecting data from 220 respondents. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions, and t-test statistics for testing the null hypotheses. The findings from the study revealed that the school farm influences students' learning of agricultural science in the areas of academic achievement, interest, attitude as well as the skills and safety measures learnt by students from the school farm. The result of the hypotheses tested showed that there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of the responses of teachers and students on the influence of school farm on the learning of Agricultural science in secondary schools in Ikwuano Local Government Area of Abia State. It was recommended that effective use of the school farm for demonstration of agricultural science lessons should be encouraged and appreciated by teachers, students and school administrators in the study area, as well as agricultural policy makers and curriculum planners structuring the curriculum of agricultural science to lay more emphasis on learning- by-doing