Competency Needs of Senior Secondary School Agricultural Science Teachers in Cucumber (Cucumis Sativus L.) Production in Abia State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed the Competency needs of senior secondary school Agricultural Science teachers in Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) production in Abia State, Nigeria. The study addressed practical issues in Agricultural Education; the gap between the theoretical teaching and practical competencies in crop production. Focusing on cucumber production is timely, given its growing commercial importance in Nigeria. The study was guided by four objectives, research questions and corresponding hypotheses which are well aligned. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design with a population of 326 Agricultural Science teachers in the 250 public secondary schools in the three educational zones in Abia state. The sample of the study was 163 teachers of Agricultural Science obtained through random sampling techniques based on the educational zones in Abia State. Cucumber production competencies questionnaire was used for data collection, validated by experts, and the reliability of the instrument was established through the Cronbach alpha method, and it yielded an overall internal consistency of 0.82. Data for the study was collected by the researchers and three research assistants. The researchers collected the questionnaire from the respondents in a week interval and obtained a 100% return rate. The data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation and t-test. It was revealed that 8 competencies in pre-planting, 7 competencies in planting, 7 competencies in post-planting, 6 competencies in harvesting and 9 competencies in marketing were needed for cucumber production. It was recommended that the identified competencies be used by the Agricultural Science teachers in teaching cucumber production, among others.