The Effect of School Farm Laboratory on the Development of Psycho-Productive Skills in Students in Crop Production in Secondary Schools in Abia State

Abstract

This study focused on the effect of school farm laboratory on the development of psycho-productive skills in students in crop production in secondary schools in Abia State. Three research questions were developed and answered by the study while three hypotheses were formulated and tested at the probability of < 0.05 level of significance. The study was carried out in Abia State. Population for the study comprised 192 senior secondary schools with a population of 9,600 senior secondary one (SS 1) students. Sample for the study was two schools with one intact class of forty (40) students each. A 30 item psycho-productive multiple choice test was developed from the identified skills obtained from the curriculum of senior secondary school Agricultural Science with focus on SS 1 content. The items were validated by three experts. Split-half technique and Kuder-Richardson K-R 21 were involved in determining the internal consistency of the instrument which yielded a reliability co-efficient of 0.95. The test was administered to eighty (80) respondents of two intact classes; 40 students of an intact class (treatment) and another 40 students of an intact class (control). All the eighty copies of the psycho-productive multiple choice test were retrieved and analyzed using frequency counts, percentages and gain scores to answer the research questions. Spearman rank order correlation and t-test were used to test the hypothesis. The result of the study revealed that; teaching students production skills through the school farm is more effective than teaching students the same skills through classroom instructions. Also, students could answer well developed psycho-productive multiple choice test easily if they are exposed to crop production skill practices through the school farm. It was therefore recommended that, teachers of agricultural science should be encouraged and re-trained by the government or its agency to make use of school farm laboratory and develop psycho-productive multiple choice test for measuring performance of their students.