January 2015 Vol. 3 No.1

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Chelangat RJ
Yungungu AM

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Original Research Article

Perception of teachers towards the social studies curriculum in public primary schools in Kakamega Municipality, Kakamega County, Kenya

Rotich Joan Chelangat and *Dr. Alice M. Yungungu

Lecturer in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Media, MOI University

*Corresponding Author’s E-mail: aliceyungungu@yahoo.com

Accepted January 05, 2015

Abstract

The Social Studies Curriculum helps learners to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an independent world. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of teachers towards the Social Studies Curriculum in Public Primary Schools in Kakamega Municipality in Kakamega County, Kenya. To achieve this purpose, five objectives were addressed and these are; to find out the perception of teachers towards the teaching methods in Social Studies curriculum, to find out the attitudes of teachers towards the scope of Social Studies Curriculum, the availability and use of teaching and learning resources, the time allocation for teaching of Social Studies and the evaluation techniques used in Social Studies curriculum in Kakamega Municipality, Kakamega County. The study was guided by the theory of perception by Burns (1982). The theory explains how an individual put personal meanings to a psychological environment. The research design was descriptive survey. Stratified sampling and simple sampling method were used to obtain the study sample. The research method that was adopted was mixed method approach. The target population was all the teachers teaching Social Studies Curriculum and head teachers in Kakamega Public Primary Schools in Kakamega Municipality. The data collection instruments were questionnaires for teachers and interview schedules for head teachers. Piloting was done in two schools in Vihiga District to help the researcher in identifying any deficiencies in the data collection instruments. Validity of data collection instruments was ascertained by use of research experts at the department of curriculum, instruction and educational media at Moi University. The test-retest method was employed to ascertain reliability of data collection instruments. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as percentage and frequencies with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Computer Programme. The study established that teachers of Social Studies in public primary schools in Kakamega municipality use more than one teaching method. The perception of teachers towards the Social Studies Curriculum was that they prefer using more than one teaching method and that most of the teachers had positive perception. It was also found that the scope of Social Studies curriculum was wide. Further the study found that teaching and learning resources in public primary schools in Kakamega municipality were few and that some schools with a few resources did not put them into use. The findings indicated that teachers are not comfortable with the time allocated to the Social Studies curriculum for they found it inadequate in covering the content. Most of the teachers use question and answer method, continuous assessment and diagnostic evaluation in assessing learners’ retention. A rising from the study, the study recommend that teachers should attend in-service education courses on the appropriate teaching methods to be used, teachers should take part in Social Studies Curriculum planning, they should be updated on the new approaches, be involved in time allocation for various taught subjects, curriculum planners should either reduce the content or increase the time allocation and teachers be consulted in Social Studies curriculum evaluation. The findings are useful to policy makers, curriculum developers and curriculum implementers for improvement of the perception of teachers towards the Social Studies curriculum. The study revealed other areas that might require further studies.

Keywords: Perception, Social studies, Curriculum, Education, Teachers.