AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL FACILITIES FOR LEARNING OF BUSINESS STUDIES IN JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN DELTA STATE.

Abstract

The study assessed the availability and utilization of instructional facilities for learning of business studies in technical schools in Delta State. Four research questions were raised to guide the study and two null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance for the study. The descriptive survey research design was used for this study. The population of the study comprised of 55 teachers and 200 students of business studies, located in the six (6) Technical Schools in Delta State. There was no sampling as the entire population was used for the study. The instruments used for data collection were checklist and structured questionnaire. The instrument used was validated by three experts. Cronbach Alpha method was used to compute reliability of the instrument which yielded correlation coefficient of 0.89 and 0.72 for teachers and students respectively. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. The t-test was used to test the hypotheses. From the results of the analysis, it was discovered that learning facilities are scarcely available: however, the available facilities are adequate and greatly utilized even as some factors such as unqualified and inexperienced teachers affect the utilization of facilities for learning business studies in technical schools in Delta State. Business studies teachers with respect to experienced and less experienced did not differ significantly in their rating on the availability, adequacy and utilization of business studies facilities, however rural and urban school respondents differ significantly in their rating availability, adequacy and utilization of business studies facilities in technical schools in Delta State. Consequently, it was recommended that government school administrators, corporate organizations, philanthropists as well as spirited individuals should ensure that there is adequate and regular provision of learning facilities for business studies programme. There should be consistent in-service training for business studies teachers and school leaders so as to give them cutting edge strategies for instructional delivery and facilities utilization. Furthermore, recruitment, promotion and retention business studies teachers should be free from favoritisms so as to attract the best brains and retain them as well. Finally, recommendations were made for further studies.