TEACHERS’ AWARENESS AND APPLICATION OF WALDORF EDUCATION MODEL IN TEACHING PUPILS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated teachers’ awareness and application of Waldorf Education Model in teaching pupils in Anambra State. The study was guided by three research questions and three null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 7,151 teachers in the 752 public primary schools in Anambra State. The sample for this study was 702 teachers drawn using multistage sampling procedure. The researcher-developed two sets of instruments titled “Teachers Awareness of Waldorf Education Model Scale (TAWEMS) and “Teachers’ Application of Waldorf Education Model Questionnaire (TAWEMQ)” were used for data collection. The instruments were validated by three experts, a lecturer from the Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education, another lecturer from the Department of Science Education, both in the Faculty of Education, Nnamdi Azikiwe University; and a primary school teacher of San Francisco Waldorf School in United States of America.  Cronbach alpha was used for a test of internal consistency of the instrument and it yielded overall reliability co-efficients of 0.76 for TAWEMS and 0.79 for TAWEMQ. Percentage was used to answer research question 1, mean and standard deviation to answer research questions 2 and 3, while chi-square was used to test hypothesis 1 and t-test to test null hypotheses 2 and 3. The findings of the study revealed among others that majority of the male (76 percent) and female (71 percent) teachers are not aware of Waldorf education model in teaching primary school pupils in Anambra State. It was also found out that Waldorf education model training of the head, heart and hands are not applied by male and female teachers in teaching primary school pupils in Anambra State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that Anambra State Ministry of Education should develop, integrate and use mass media to create awareness on the benefits of Waldorf education model in primary schools.