EFFECTS OF PROJECT AND DEMONSTRATION TEACHING APPROACHES ON STUDENTS’ AGRICULTURAL SKILLS ACQUISITION IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION, PLATEAU, NIGERIA

Abstract

This research was carried out to determine the effects of demonstration and project teaching approaches on the acquisition of agricultural skills among students in colleges of education in Plateau State, Nigeria. The study adopted a Quasi-experimental, pretest-post-test design. The population for the study consists of all the 147-year-two agricultural education students of the two colleges of education in Plateau State. Purposive sampling was used to select the Federal College of Education, Pankshin, and 75 students were selected using a simple random sampling technique. A 25-item multiple-choice Agricultural Skill Acquisition Test (ASAT) was used as an instrument for data collection. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation, while t-test statistics were used to test the null hypotheses at the .05 level of significance (P=0.05). The findings revealed that both project and demonstration teaching approaches have significant effects on students’ acquisition of agricultural skills. The result also showed that, project teaching approach is more effective in teaching agricultural skills than the demonstration teaching approach. The study concluded that the project teaching approach will enhance students’ acquisition of agricultural skills than the demonstration teaching approach, and that the use of project and demonstration teaching approaches to teach agricultural skills will be more effective in facilitating agricultural education students’ acquisition of agricultural skills than the conventional lecture approach. The researcher recommended that curriculum planners and agricultural education teachers should emphasise the importance of using project and demonstration teaching approaches in colleges of education.