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.
