| dc.description.abstract | Christian Religious Education (CRE) is a carrier subject of Life Skills (LS) content in
Kenyan secondary schools. The teaching of CRE is to enable the learner to acquire
and develop a sense of self- respect and respect for others. Despite the exposure of
students’ to CRE curriculum, the general behavior and conduct of students in Ndhiwa
Sub-County is still rated at only 40%. Concept Mapping Teaching Strategy (CMS)
creates a learning environment which inspires students to think deeply about how they
might apply what they have learnt to their daily lives. This study investigated the
influence of Concept Mapping Strategy (CMS) on Secondary School Students’
acquisition of life skills through CRE Curriculum in Ndhiwa Sub-County, Kenya. A
diagrammatical conceptual framework indicating the relationship between
independent and dependent variables was used. The study objectives were to:
establish secondary school CRE syllabus level of life skills content coverage acquired
through CMS, determine the difference in life skills acquisition between students
taught CRE through CMS and those taught using traditional methods and establish the
difference in life skills acquisition between students exposed to CMS when they are
categorized by gender. The study adopted a Quasi Experimental Research Design
involving Solomon Four Non-Equivalent Group Design. Population of the study was
all 1850 Form Four CRE students in public co-educational day secondary schools.
Purposive sampling technique was used to select 169 students and simple random
sampling was used to determine four schools with similar characteristics to participate
in the study. Two instruments namely; Curriculum Content Analysis Matrix (CCAM)
and CRE Students Life Skills Test (CRESLST) were used to gather data. CRE
teachers were provided with CMS guide for the purpose of teaching the experimental
group. The teachers were inducted on the use of the guide and the researcher observed
the implementation of the guide. The selected topic within the CRE syllabus was
taught for two weeks. The face and content validity of the two instruments were
examined by two CRE teachers and a team of experts at Maseno University in the
Department of Education Communication, Technology and Curriculum Studies.
CCAM and CRESLST were piloted for reliability and their coefficients estimated
using Krippendorff’s Alpha and Kuder Richardson’s formula respectively. The
reliability coefficient of CRESLST was .78 and that of CCAM was .73.Data was
analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version
20.0.Qualitative data was summarized and described using frequencies, percentages,
means and standard deviations. The second and third research questions were tested at
α= .05 using the t-test. Data collected through CCAM and CRESLST were analyzed
using SPSS and Excel. The study results indicated that the level of LS content
coverage of the CRE syllabus for the 4 years course was average at 34.56%. The
results also indicated that CMS positively affects secondary school students’ life skills
acquisition. Finally the study revealed that students gender and their life skills
acquisition is not statistically significant. The study results may be used by Kenya
Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to interrogate teachers’ pedagogical
practices and life skills content coverage of the secondary CRE curriculum. The
findings may be used to inform teachers to enhance on their life skills teaching
approaches so as to attain the intended objectives of teaching CRE. Finally, the results
can be used by educators to inform the students on the effects of their gender
difference on life skills acquisition | en_US |
