Effectiveness of Methods of Teaching Christian Religious Education in Instilling The Virtue Of Respect in Public Secondary School Students in Rachuonyo North Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

There are rising cases of disrespect in Kenyan society amid efforts by Christian Religious Education (CRE) in secondary schools to make the learner appreciate and respect their own, and other people‟s cultural beliefs and practices. The morals of the secondary school graduates enrolled in colleges and society do not reflect the acquisition of values learnt through CRE. Despite the exposure of students to the Christian Religious Education curriculum, cases of disrespect, for instance, drug abuse, abortion, arson in schools, hate speech, religious and ethnic hatred continue being witnessed in Rachuonyo North Sub-County. This study evaluated the effectiveness of methods of teaching CRE in instilling the virtue of respect in public secondary school students in Rachuonyo North Sub-County, Kenya. Specifically, the study examined the link between teacher-centred, learner-centred, and eclectic methods of teaching and instilling the virtue of respect in students. The study was guided by the Piaget cognitive theory. A descriptive survey design was adopted. The study population comprised 50 CRE teachers and 1,615 Form Four students taking CRE in 49 public secondary schools in Rachuonyo Sub-County. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 15 teachers, and 485 Form Four students from the accessible population. Interviews were used to collect data from teachers while questionnaires were used to collect data from students. The instruments were critiqued and corrected by experts at Maseno University to determine their face validity. Piloting of the instruments was done to ensure their usefulness in collecting data and reliability coefficient of 0.74 was recorded. Quantitative data from questionnaire were analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0 using descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics and presented in tabular form. Data from interviews was analyzed qualitatively and presentation was done in narrative form. The study found that teacher-centered method, learner-centered method, and eclectic method of teaching CRE were all very effective in instilling the virtue of respect in public secondary school students. The latter method was, however, established to be the most critical with regard to instilling the virtue of respect in the aforestated students. It was concluded that adoption of eclectic method played a crucial role in improving the level of the virtue of respect instilled in students. Though important, embracing teacher-centred method when teaching CRE in these schools was inferred not to have as much effect as either learner-centred or eclectic teaching methods on instilling the virtue of respect in public secondary school students. The study recommended that teachers should be assisted to acquire competence in correct C.R.E syllabus interpretation. This would enable them to adapt varied methods of teaching, each time varying learning stimuli so that the experience remains attractive to the learners. Teachers should also encourage more group work, class discussions and other applications that are student centered. More importantly, teachers need to emphasize approaches such as role playing, mental modeling, and student conversation when teaching C.R.E to the learners. Teachers should be conversant with eclectic/ or various approaches of teaching and for those who may find it difficult in applying the method should be helped in terms of organizing workshops and seminars on pedagogical practices in teaching.