TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND UTILIZATION OF INNOVATIVE INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVED TEACHING OF ECONOMICS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

In this study, the researchers investigated teachers’ awareness and utilization of innovative instructional strategies for improved teaching of Economics in secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two corresponding hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted the quantitative approach involving the descriptive survey design. The population of the study was 6,566 teachers (2,975 male and 3,591 female) in all the 254 public senior secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Taro Yamane formula was used to determine a sample of 377 respondents (107 male and 270 female) using stratified sampling technique. Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The instrument was tagged “Teachers’ Awareness and Utilization of Innovative Instructional Strategies for Improved Teaching of Economics Questionnaire (TAUIISITEQ)”. Draft copies of the instrument were given to three specialists, 1 specialist from Educational Measurement and Evaluation and two specialists from Department of Social Science Education, all in Imo State University, Owerri for Validation. Reliability coefficient of 0.85 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha statistics. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation statistics while t-test statistic was used to test the hypotheses. The result of the study revealed that there is a high level of teachers’ awareness of innovative instructional strategies for improved teaching of Economics. It was also revealed that out of the eight studied innovative strategies only one strategy was utilized by the teachers in teaching Economics in senior secondary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that teacher training institutions in the state should include the non-utilised strategies found in this study into their curricular packages and make deliberate efforts to get the teachers acquainted with the use of each of the strategies effectively in teaching Economics in schools.