THE STRATEGIES TO ENHANCE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF ACCOUNTING IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Abstract

The study was conducted to identify strategies for improving the teaching of financial accounting in secondary schools in Kogi East Education zone of Kogi State, Nigeria. This was necessitated to address the continuous poor performance of secondary school students in Financial accounting in the study area. Four research questions and four null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population for the study consisted of 171 respondents which include 69 Teachers of Financial accounting, 51 Principals and 51 Vice Principals. Due to the manageable size of the population, the entire population was studied; therefore, there was no sampling. The instrument for data collection was a structured 49-item questionnaire titled: Enhancing the Teaching of Financial Accounting Questionnaire (ETFAQ). The instrument was validated by three experts. To determine the reliability of the instrument, Cronbach Alpha reliability method was used in which reliability coefficient of 0.78 was obtained for the instrument. The data collected were analyzed using mean for answering the four research question while analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study identified 14 strategies for improving the recruitment of financial accounting teachers, 15 strategies for motivating Financial accounting teachers, 10 strategies for improving the instructional materials and facilities for effective teaching of financial accounting and 10 strategies for improving the capacity of financial accounting teachers for effective teaching in secondary schools. There were no significant differences in the mean ratings of the responses of the respondents on the identified strategies based on their years of working experiences and academic qualification. Based on these findings, the study among others recommended that: only competent and trained teachers of Financial accounting should be allowed to teach students. This is because, by their training and orientation, they are in better positions of stimulating students in developing more career interest and achievement in Financial accounting and that teachers of Financial accounting should be trained in the use of modern and interactive instructional strategies for improved teaching and learning.