By Ellah, Boniface Ishibe
This study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of quality assurance frame factors
on the implementation of agricultural education programme of Colleges of Education in
Eastern Nigeria. Seven research questions were developed and four hypotheses
formulated to guide the study. Survey and evaluation designs were adopted for the
study. Three sets of structured questionnaire and competency multiple choice test
(COMCTI) were used to obtain data from a sample of 693 respondents comprising 63
lecturers of agricultural education, 450 NCE graduate teachers of agriculture and 180
supervisors/employers of NCE graduate teachers. The research instruments were face
validated by experts and tested for reliability using Cronbach alpha technique. The
reliability coefficients were: frame factor availability questionnaire (0.80), frame factor
suitability questionnaire (0.8B), competency multiple-choice test (0.83), and
improvement-required questionnaire (0.81). The data collected were analyzed using
percentage, mean and improvement required index (IN) to answer the research
questions. The t-test statistic and Spearman Rank Order Correlation were used to test
the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study were: (i) the
quality assurance frame factors for implementing agricultural education programme
were averagely available and those available were averagely suitable. This indicated
that the quality assurance frame factors were averagely effective; (ii) lecturers of
agricultural education in Colleges of Education were average in competence in teaching
skills and in the instructional content areas of agricultural education. This implied that
they were average in effectiveness in the implementation of agricultural education
programme; (iii) NCE graduate teachers of agriculture acquired low competence in the
instructional content areas of agricultural education while in training; hence, their
effectiveness in teaching agriculture in primary or JSS was low; (iv) both the lecturers
and NCE graduate teachers of agriculture indicated need for improvement in the
instructional content areas of agricultural education of colleges of education in order to
enhance their effectiveness. The hypotheses tested revealed that: (v) there was a fairly
high and significant correlation between the percentage scores of the lecturers and NCE
graduate teachers on availability of frame factors for implementing agricultural
education programme. This indicated that lecturers and NCE graduate teachers were
similar in their judgement on availability of quality assurance frame factors; (vi) there
was no significant difference in the mean ratings of the responses of lecturers of
agricultural education and NCE graduate teachers on 13 out of 22 frame factors; (vii)
there was an average and significant correlation between the percentage scores of the
lecturers in the competency multiple choice test on the instructional content areas of
agricultural education and those of NCE graduate teachers in primary and JSS in
Eastern Nigeria. This implied that the average competence of the lecturers was partly
linked with the low competence of the NCE graduate teachers; and (viii) the highly
experienced and less experienced NCE teachers of agriculture differed significantly in
their mean ratings on 9 of the 17 items on improvements required by NCE graduate
teachers of agriculture. The study recommended that stakeholders in Colleges of
Education and primary and JSS should: upgrade required facilities and equipment for
teaching agricultural education in the Colleges of Education to a level where they are
adequate, current and suitable and improve the competence of both the lecturers and
NCE graduate teachers of agriculture to enhance their effectiveness