Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice; Teachers’ Utilization of Instructional Resources in Teaching Social Studies in Basic Schools in West Mamprusi District in Northern Region, Ghana (Published)
This research work examines the extent of teachers’ utilization of instructional resources in teaching Social Studies in Basic Schools. The study also examines the various instructional resources that can be utilized by Social Studies teachers’ for teaching purposes within West Mamprusi District in Northern Region, Ghana. The researcher used qualitative method for data collection and analyzing. The researcher elicited information from respondents using structured interviews. The research focused on Basic Schools within West Mamprusi District. Two research questions were formulated for the research. The descriptive research design was used for the study. The targeted population consisted of head teachers, teachers and pupils in basic schools within West Mamprusi District. Ten (10) Basic Schools were randomly selected for the study. Twenty (20) Social Studies teachers and twenty (20) pupils, two (2) each were selected from the ten (10) schools using purposive sampling. All head teachers from the ten (10) basic schools were also interviewed. The study found out that teachers do not use instructional resources in the teaching of social studies from the interviews conducted. The causal factors for not using instructional resources in teaching from the interviews include; waste of time in preparing and organizing instructional resources to teach a particular topic, difficulty to obtain and expensive to buy by either the teacher or school, financial constraints, teachers lack of identification of materials and human resources, lack of knowledge by the teacher of what type of raw materials and resource persons to rely on for use in order to enhance the learning capacities of his/her students, and teachers basing their lack of instructional resource use to their many years of experience in teaching the subject. Based on the findings, recommendations were made that Social Studies teachers need to be given orientation on the need to always teach the subject using instructional resources through in-service training, workshops, and seminars, Ghana Education Service and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) should support schools in terms of procuring the needed instructional resources to enhance the teaching of Social Studies, Teachers should also be initiative and creative enough to improvise their own instructional resources within the environment to promote effective teaching and learning to enhance students understanding, and internalization and application of lesson content, The government must take the lead in terms of financial and production of these resources for all schools, The education resource centers of the country should also be commissioned to identify, relocate, collect, store and distribute instructional materials and ideas to institutions of learning ,Such resource centers should have a common directorate and research unit, which will help coordinate its activities and seek ways of improving its services.
Keywords: Citizenship Education, Effective teaching of Social Studies, Instructional resources, Resource centers, Social Studies, Utilization, basic schools