Challenges, Attitudes and Academic Performance of Agricultural Science Students in Public Secondary Schools of Ibadan North, Nigeria

the study and the literature searches. supervised the for the statistical ABSTRACT In this study, we considered challenges facing effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science. Also, we examined whether there were differences in the mean achievement test scores of students in the subject in selected schools. Furthermore, we studied students’ attitude to the subject and examined the relationship between their academic performance in Agricultural Science and their attitudes to the subject. The study was a descriptive survey design carried out at Ibadan North Local Government Area (INLGA) of Oyo State, Nigeria. Three public secondary schools were randomly selected from all the public secondary schools in INLGA in 2014. A total of thirty teachers and one hundred Senior Secondary School II (SSS II) students from the selected schools participated in the study. Agricultural Science Achievement Test (ASAT), Constraints facing Agricultural Science in Public Secondary Schools Questionnaire (CASPSSQ) and Students’ Attitude towards Agricultural Science Questionnaire (SAASQ) were used for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test of independence, one-Original way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and multiple comparison techniques. The major challenges confronting the teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in INLGA and their solutions were identified. The ANOVA test was significant (P=.00) . Least Significant Difference, a multiple comparison technique, on the ANOVA showed that School 1 and School 2 ASAT mean scores; School 1 and School 3 ASAT mean scores were different from each other at 5% significance level respectively. A significant relationship was found between scores obtained by the students in the ASAT and the attitudinal variable of sustained students’ interests in Agricultural Science (P=.02) . The study therefore recommended innovative methods of teaching the subject so as to be able to sustain students’ interest in the subject and obtain better academic performance.


INTRODUCTION
The agricultural sector was once the major backbone of the Nigerian economy accounting for more than half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the 1960s [1]. A steady decline in the revenue accruable from agriculture was however noticed with the emergence of the oil boom era in the 1970s. Since then, educational and economic experts have been devoting a lot of attention to how best to bring agriculture back to its lost enviable position. This led to the formulation of various policies. One of these policies from the educational standpoint is the inclusion of Agriculture as a pre-vocational subject at the primary and junior secondary schools and as a vocational subject in the senior secondary school level [2]. Also, Agricultural Science acquired the status of a vocational subject and it is one of the elective subjects students can choose at senior secondary school levels. This is to enable interested students to acquire practical agricultural skills that would make them selfreliant in future. Moreover, this would boost Nigeria's food productivity. The specific objectives of introducing Agricultural Science in secondary schools as listed in [3] are as follows: a) to stimulate and sustain students' interest in agriculture; b) to provide students the interest to advance in farming; c) to advance food production through improvement of agricultural production techniques in students; d) to provide occupational entry level skills in agriculture to the interested students; e) to prepare students adequately for producing and marketing farm commodities efficiently and profitably; and, f) to enable students to acquire basic knowledge and practical skills required for future studies in agricultural field.
In spite of all these policies and programmes, records of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), a major examination body in the West African sub-region, showed that Agricultural Science results are generally poor in Nigeria [4].   Continuous poor performance of students in Agricultural Science implies that a majority of them will not be able to take courses in agriculture in the higher institutions of learning. The ripple effect of this is that many young people will not have interest in taking up a career in agriculture which will eventually lead to the problem of food insecurity in the country. Thus, researchers in Agricultural Science education have been conducting a series of research to ascertain the causes of poor performance in the subject and proffer solutions to these challenges. For instance, [5] listed students' background, students' negative attitude towards Agriculture, poor teaching techniques among others as causes of poor performance in the subject. The problem, according to [6], can be attributed to poor perception and lack of interest in the subject on the part of the students. Moreover, [7] affirmed that students' self-perception of academic ability will affect their performance in school. The "perceived self" influences an individual's perception of the world and his or her behaviour which in turn influences his or her academic achievement [8].
In this study, therefore, we examined the challenges facing the teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in INLGA of Oyo State, Nigeria. Also, we examined whether there were significant differences in the average scores obtained by the students in ASAT in the three schools. Furthermore, we examined whether there was any relationship between scores obtained by the students in ASAT and their attitudes to the subject.

Statement of the Problem
Poor performance of students in Agricultural Science examinations has been a major source of concern for decision makers on the Nigerian economy and stakeholders in the Agricultural education sector. This poor performance has been attributed to several factors. These included students' poor attitude to the subject, lack of innovative teaching techniques, inadequate funding and inadequate farmlands to practice Agriculture Science. Also, a huge percentage of those that studied Agricultural Science in schools are either unemployed or are not practicing what they learnt in school. This study, therefore, shed more light on these issues in INLGA so as to be able to make appropriate recommendations to the relevant stakeholders. f. H 0 : There is no association between students' scores and teachers giving copious notes. H 1 : There is association between students' scores and teachers giving copious notes.

METHODOLOGY
The descriptive survey design was used for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select three public secondary schools from all the secondary schools in INLGA. A total of thirty (30) teachers consisting of Agricultural Science teachers, Vice Principals and Principals and one hundred (100) SSS II students in the selected schools participated in the study.

Research Instruments
Three research instruments were used for data collection. They were:

Agricultural Science Achievement Test (ASAT)
ASAT was used to measure the students' Academic Achievement in Agricultural Science. The test is 25 -item multiple choice questions with duration of 30 minutes. The questions were selected using item analysis technique. The ASAT was administered on 100 students who participated in the study. The performance of the students in the ASAT was categorized using the Standards in Subjects format of the West African Examinations Council. This is presented in Table 2. This questionnaire was designed to assess the teachers' opinion on the challenges facing effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in public secondary schools in INLGA. It was also used to seek the opinions of the teachers on possible ways of managing the challenges. It was divided into two parts namely: A and B. Parts A and B contained items placed on a four-point Likert scale of Strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Strongly Disagree (2) and Disagree (1).
The items in Part A contained questions on the challenges facing Agricultural Science in public secondary schools while Part B contained items on suggested ways of managing the challenges. The content and face validity of the questionnaire was established by two experts on Agricultural Science Education and Educational Management. The instrument was pretested in a school that was not part of the schools used for the study and necessary changes were made to the instrument before it was administered on the teachers. The Reliability Index obtained using Cronbach's Alpha was 0.79. The Questionnaire was administered on 30 teachers comprising the School Principals, Vice-Principals and Agricultural Science teachers from the three schools.

Students' Attitude towards Agricultural
Science Questionnaire (SAASQ) SAASQ was a structured questionnaire designed to assess students' attitudes towards Agricultural Science as a subject. It contained items placed on a four-point Likert scale of Strongly Agree (4), Agree (3), Strongly Disagree (2) and Disagree (1). The content and face validity of the questionnaire was established by two experts on Agricultural Science Education and Educational Management. The instrument was pretested in a school that was not part of the schools used for the study and necessary changes were made to the instrument before it was administered on the one hundred (100) students.

Method of Statistical Data Analysis
Data collected were analysed using frequency counts and percentages. Also, relevant hypotheses were formulated. One-way ANOVA was used to test for significant differences in mean scores of students from the three different schools. Chi-square tests of independence were conducted to ascertain if there exists any relationship between the students' academic achievement in Agricultural Science and their attitudes to the study of Agricultural Science as a subject.

RESULTS
The results of the study are presented in the order of the research questions:

Research Question 1
What are the challenges to effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in secondary schools? Table 3 shows the responses of the teachers to challenges confronting effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in public secondary schools. From these responses, the major challenges confronting effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in public secondary schools of INLGA are traditional methods of teaching, lack of instructional materials, inadequate exposure of the students to practical agriculture and inadequate funds to manage practical-oriented Agricultural Science.

Research Question 2
In what ways could the challenges be managed for effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science?
The responses of the teachers on suggested ways of managing the challenges confronting effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in the schools are presented in Table 4.
All the teachers agreed that better motivation for teachers, adequate funding, provision of farm lands for practical-oriented Agricultural Science and adequate provision of instructional materials are ways of managing the identified challenges.

Research Question 3
What are students' attitudes to the study of Agricultural Science?
The responses of the students to some attitudinal variables captured on Agricultural Science as a subject are presented in Table 5. Seventy-four percent (74%) of the students think that their Agricultural Science teachers give too many notes during lessons while ninety-one percent (91%) of the respondents are of the opinion that practical-oriented Agricultural Science is interesting and fascinating. Also, sixty percent (60%) of the respondents believe that their interest in the subject is sustained throughout the lesson periods while seventy-one percent (71%) of them are of the opinion that the population of students who take Agricultural Science as a subject is very small.

Research Question 4
Are there significant differences in the mean scores obtained by the students in ASAT for the three schools used for the study?
The results of the one-way ANOVA test to determine if there are significant differences in the mean scores of the students in ASAT for the three schools are shown in Table 6. Since P = .00 is less than α = .05, we conclude that there are significant differences in the mean scores of the students in ASAT among the three schools. Multiple comparison tests on the ANOVA using LSD showed the School 1 and School 2 mean scores; School 1 and School 3 mean scores were different from each other at 5% significance level. Fig. 1 shows the mean plots of the ASAT scores of the students for the three schools while the multiple comparison test results are displayed in Table 7.

Research Question 5
Is there any relationship between academic performance of students in Agricultural Science and their attitudes to the subject?
The distribution of scores obtained by the students in the ASAT is presented in Table 8. Nineteen (19) students obtained scores below 40%. Also, nineteen (19) students had between 40% and 44%. Seventeen (17) students scored between 60% and 64%. One (1) student had 68% while nine (9) students scored 80% and above. Table 9 shows the Chi-square results of the relationship between academic performance of the students in ASAT and their attitudes to the subject. The result shows that there exists association between scores obtained by the students and sustained students' interest in the subject throughout a lesson period (P = .02 < .05). Also, there is no association between scores obtained by the students and the subject not being a major requirement for admission into higher institutions. Furthermore, there is no relationship between scores obtained by the students and the use of relevant instructional materials by teachers.

DISCUSSION
From the findings of this research, the four (4) major challenges identified to be confronting Agricultural Science education in INLGA are: i. the use of traditional methods of teaching that is lecturing in confines of classroom; ii. inability of students to regularly practice on farms; iii. inadequate farmlands for practical lessons; and iv. inadequate funds to manage practicaloriented Agricultural Science.
These results are in agreement with the works of [9,10,11]. These findings are in line with the works of [12] who recommended the use of innovative teaching methods. [13] recommended that the Agricultural Science teacher must be current in subject matter and its pedagogy. [14] suggested adequate exposure of students to the practice of farming within the provision of available technology.
Ninety-one percent (91%) of the students believed that practical-oriented Agricultural Science is interesting and fascinating. Furthermore, seventy-one percent (71%) believed that the number of students who take Agricultural Science as a subject is very few when compared to other subjects. These results agreed with the work of [15] who reported that the number of students who take vocational subjects (including Agricultural Science) is very few and that vocational subjects are interesting and fascinating when they are put into practice.
Moreover, ninety-one percent (91%) of the student respondents opined that their attitudes to the subject have nothing to do with their gender while eighty-five percent (85%) of the students believed that their attitudes to the subject have nothing to do with their parents' socio-economic status. This result contrasts sharply with the outcome of the research conducted by [16] who reported that students' attitude to vocational subjects are related to their parents' socioeconomic status.
In the ASAT scores, fifty-two percent (52%) of the students scored 50% and above but just 9% had 80% and above scores. This suggests that further encouragement needs to be given to the students to enhance better academic performance in Agricultural Science. [17] stated that highly motivated students in any area of interest perform difficult tasks better than lowly motivated students.
There exist significant differences in the ASAT mean scores obtained by the students for School 1 and School 2; School 1 and School 3 respectively while no significant differences exist between Schools 2 and School 3. School 1(single-sex school; female) performed better than Schools 2 and 3(co-educational schools). This might not be unconnected with the fact that public School 1 is one of the highly rated public schools in INLGA and Oyo State generally with better teaching and infrastructural facilities when compared to most public schools in the State. Also, the result from School 1 corroborates the works of [18,19] that showed that students in single-sex schools perform better than students from co-educational schools.
There is association between the scores obtained by the students and sustained students' interest in Agricultural Science throughout a lesson period. This implies that for better performance, teachers should device innovative methods of teaching to sustain the students' interest throughout the lesson period.
On the other hand, from this study, no association was found between scores obtained by the students and the use of relevant instructional materials by teachers. This might be due to the fact that instructional materials only do not necessarily lead to better performance of the students.

CONCLUSION
The major challenges confronting effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in public schools in the local government area are inadequate farmlands for practical lessons, inadequate funds to manage practical-oriented Agricultural Science, the inability of students to regularly practice on farms and the use of traditional methods of teaching.
The proposed solutions to the challenges included, among others, provision of adequate farm lands, provision of avenues and resources for teachers to update their knowledge and proper motivation of Agricultural Science teachers through improved working conditions. There existed a significant relationship between scores obtained by the students in ASAT and the attitudinal variable of sustained students' interests in Agricultural Science lessons throughout a lesson period.
There were significant differences in the ASAT mean scores obtained by the students in School 1 and School 2 and School 1 and School 3 respectively while no significant differences existed between Schools 2 and School 3. Thus, School 1, (girls' only School) has the best performance among the three schools.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The findings revealed that most of the student respondents found practical oriented Agricultural Science interesting and fascinating. Therefore, we recommend that students should be exposed to the practical aspects of the subject using modern technology. This will highly motivate the students towards making a career in Agriculture.
From the findings, there exists a significant relationship between students' scores in ASAT and the attitudinal variable of sustained students' interest in the subject. Thus, teachers should be creative and innovative while teaching Agricultural Science students in class so as to be able to sustain students' interest in the subject.
Most of the respondents believed that the number of students who take Agricultural Science is few. Therefore, we recommend that awareness campaigns on the socio-economic importance of Agricultural Science as a vocational subject should be intensified. This may lead to better perception of the subject by students at the secondary school level.
Poor funding was one of the challenges identified. Therefore, government should provide adequate human resources, infrastructural facilities and relevant instructional materials for the teaching and learning of Agricultural Science.