Technical High Schools in Cameroon are agencies that aim at empowering students with vocational skills that will enable them to be self-employed and boost socio-economic development. This study was to look at the influence of teaching method as a component of building construction programme on the development of students’ vocational skills in technical high schools in Cameroon. The study used the cross-sectional descriptive survey research design in a concurrent triangulation mixed-method approach, and targeted five technical high schools in Fako Division and four in the Wouri division. The sample was made up of 83 teachers and 268 students. The data collection instruments were questionnaires for teachers and students and an observation guide for teachers in the flame of classroom activities. Quantitative data were entered using EpiData Version 3.1 and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Standard version, Release 21.0. The questionnaire was made of categorical variables and data were analysed using counting techniques namely frequency and proportions while Multiple-Responses-Analysis was used to aggregate score within conceptual components. Spearman’s Rho correlation test supported by Binary Logistic Regression was used to appraise the predictive power of teaching method on students’ acquisition of vocational skills. The findings unfold that teachers and students had almost the same appreciation of teaching methods (P=0.313), though teachers to a very high extent (78.3%) perceived the adequacy of teaching method more than students (72.7%). Though in their majority they agreed of the proper implementation, this was below the critical cut point for strong lexicography for effective implementation of 80%. However, this deviation was not significant for teachers (?2=0.04; df=1; P=0.849) unlike for students (?2=3.73; df=1; P=0.049). This therefore implies that if teachers perceived an effective implementation of teaching methods, this was the case with the students. With respect to the acquisition of vocational skills, teachers and students had almost the same appreciation (P=0.146). In their majority, they agreed though below the critical cut point for strong lexicography for effective implementation of 80%. However, this deviation was not significant for teachers (?2=1.19; df=1; P=0.276) and for students (?2=0.40; df=1; P=0.526). This therefore implies that teachers and students perceived the acquisition of vocational skills to be effective. There was a significant positive correlation between the practiced of the recommended teaching methods and acquisition of vocational skills by students (R=0.826; P=0.000). This was supported by Binary Logistic Regression that depicted that the overall Explanatory Power for the Integrated Value Mapping (IVM) of the conceptual component ‘teaching method’ was 18.4% and was very significant (P=0.000). Among the four sub-components of teaching methods, namely explicit teaching, interactive demonstration method, cooperative learning and project method, only cooperative teaching had a non-significant contribution (P=0.744). It was recommended that industries should support technical vocational education institutions by providing industrial attachment programmes for students. Secondly, stakeholders, notably parents, industries, government and donors should contribute in providing modern adequate training equipment and teachers. Building construction teachers should use practically-oriented teaching methods like cooperative leaning, simulation and project-based teaching, integrating several teaching methods in a lesson in a conducive-sequential organization and parental collaborations in order to achieve the desired result of developing students’ vocational skills necessary for the world of work.
Technical, Education, Building, Construction, Programme, Teachers, Students, Vocational, Skills, Cameroon
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