Teacher Pedagogical Competence and Learners’ Perceptions of History and Citizenship in Junior School Learners in Etago Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Competency Based Education (CBE) in Kenya is skill oriented and work oriented with the learner being the central focus. The key requirement for teachers is to have a good depth of knowledge and pedagogical competence in History, Citizenship and to develop critical thinking, meaningful engagement and apply knowledge to real life scenarios. There is, however, little empirical work which has directed its attention towards the relationship between the pedagogical competence of teachers and the perceptions of History and Citizenship by the learners in the Junior School, particularly in the rural areas. The study investigated the relationship between the pedagogical competence of teachers and the perceptions of History and Citizenship among the learners in the Junior School of Etago Sub-County in the County of Kisii in Kenya. The study was designed with a cross sectional correlational mixed methods approach with a convergent parallel procedure. The total number of respondents was 1240 which comprised of 1160 grade 9 learners, 40 social studies teachers and 40 heads of institutions. A sample of 327 respondents was selected, 297 of which were learners, 15 teachers and 15 heads of institutions. Information gathered from questionnaires, interview schedules and non-participant classroom observations. Descriptive statistics and Pearson product-moment correlation were used to analyze the quantitative data while the qualitative data were analyzed thematically and used for triangulation. Lastly, the study 280 learner questionnaires was used to obtain a 93.3% response rate. The results indicated that, in general, the pedagogical competence of teachers was evaluated in a positive way. In relation to teachers' practices, the highest mean score (M = 4.12, SD = 0.92) was received for encouraging critical thinking, and discussing historical issues, while the second was received for the ability to explain the subject knowledge (M = 4.08). Pearson correlation analysis also found that there was a significant and positive correlation between teacher's pedagogical competence and History and Citizenship perceptions of the learners (r = .681, p < .001). There was evidence of subject mastery and clear explanation in 80% of the lessons observed, questioning was observed in 73.3% of the lessons and feedback, clarification and guidance for learners was observed in 66.7% of the lessons. The study findings indicate that the pedagogical competence of teachers is positively related with the positive perception of learners in terms of History and Citizenship. The study suggests that there is a need to emphasize the continuous professional development of the teachers on CBE pedagogy, critical thinking, questioning, feedback and creative teaching practices.