Skills developed through citizenship education

Skills developed through citizenship education.

One way of analyzing the data was to compare which skills the tutors and teacher trainees thought were most important to develop in citizenship education. Since the tutors are the ones who are charged with the teaching of citizenship education, the first analysis ranked the various skills from the highest means to the lowest means, from the perspective of the tutors.

The tutors’ mean ratings of the importance of the skills, ranked by the tutors’ means, ranged from 4.1 to 4.6, whereas that of teacher trainees ranged from 4.1 to 4.5 (See Table 14). Those skills that were ranked highest, or most important, by the tutors, with the means ranging from 4.6 to 4.4, were: “ICT skills to communicate skills to communicate effectively to find and handle information,” “cooperative working skills,” and “ICT skills to make contact with people and organizations across the world.” These three skills according to Banks (2001) are essential to help students to become effective citizens. Ranking such skills to be the highest by the tutors tends to suggest that the tutors may put great emphasis on these skills in their citizenship education classes. On the contrary, the teacher trainees seem to have less supportive of the three skills rated highest by the tutors. Clearly, it can be seen from Table 14 that on the “ICT skills to communicate effectively, to find and handle information,” there was a 0.5 rating less indicating that the teacher trainees did not perceive this skill as important as did tutors. This may be attributed to the fact the trainees have not experienced the usefulness of ICT as compared to the tutors. The findings of this study seem to support a study conducted by Jegede, Dibu-Ojerinde and Ilori (2007), using 467 teachers, which revealed that teachers perceived computers to be useful in their pedagogical enterprise, aroused their interest in teaching and increased their computer skill. From the findings of that study and the current study, it seems evident that teachers perceive that integration of ICT into the school curriculum is worthwhile, particularly in handling citizenship education issues where ideas need to be sought from the other parts of the world.

Interestingly, a review of the effectiveness of the three skills cited above indicates that the means of the two groups are relatively similar, with none of the comparisons between their relative mean scores being greater than 0.5. Clearly, the teacher trainees did not rate the three skills as being as important as the tutors, but they were more in agreement that the skills were effective.

The lowest means for skills, when ranked by the tutors, ranged from 4.1 to 4.2. The skills of “participatory” and “numerical” were two of the skills rated as lower in importance. A review of the effectiveness of the two skills rated lower by the tutors indicates that the means of the two groups are relatively similar, with none of the comparisons between their relative mean scores being equal to or greater than 0.5. Undoubtedly, the teacher trainees did not consider the two skills as important as the tutors, but they were more in agreement that the skills were taught effectively. On the effectiveness of the two skills, the teacher trainees appear to have slightly lower mean scores than the tutors. With the participatory skills, Zhang’s (2010) study confirmed its importance that citizens acquire the ability to reason, argue and express their own views in political discussions, conflict resolution skills, knowing how to influence policies and decisions by petitioning, lobbying, building coalitions and co-operating with partner organizations. Perception drives people’s commitment in the performance of a task, therefore, it is most likely that the teacher trainees will inculcate such skills into their pupils for an atmosphere of nation building.

Given the less perceived importance that respondents attach to the numerical skills, it is most probable that they will not put great emphasis on it when teaching. However, if the teacher trainees make use of and develop these skills when they leave college, they may benefit and have more understanding of the importance of these skills. Steen (1999:1) argues “to develop an informed citizenry and to support a democratic government, schools must graduate students who are numerate as well as literate”.

Three of the skill statements were rated similarly by the tutors, with their means rating of 4.3 indicating their importance. Those three were: “Intellectual skills which help students to understand, explain, compare, and evaluate the principles and practice of government and citizenship”; “decision making skills that help to identify issues, examine alternatives and likely consequences of each choice and to defend one’s choice as a better one” and “problem solving skills in order to identify and frame their own questions and answers.” The teacher trainees mean scores were very similar to tutors, in some cases being equal. For instance, with decision making skills, both tutors and trainees ranked it the same at 4.3. With these three skills, both groups were similar in their views that the classes were teaching the skills effectively. Interestingly, just as the tutors’ mean score on decision making skills, rated at par with the teacher trainees on its importance, they also rated it at par on its teaching effectiveness. Althof and Berkowitz (2006) support these findings on intellectual skills, when they argue that a competent, engaged and effective citizen requires intellectual skills to help them in their ability to understand, analyse and check the reliability of information about government and public policy issues. Both groups having realised the importance of intellectual skills, may be encouraged to teach these skills in their classrooms, especially, the teacher trainees who are supposed to teach at the basic schools in Ghana.

With the decision making skills being rated as important in citizenship education, the respondents seem to be aware of the importance of allowing people to weigh on the alternatives before making decision to curtail jumping into hasty conclusions. The teacher trainees’ and tutors’ responses support Diekar (2003) when he noted that curriculum structures must support and enhance a learner-centered approach which honours students’ voices, develops positive interpersonal relationships, stimulate higher order thinking and caters for individual differences. It has been argued that educators who believe that students should be provided citizenship education in order to transfer those skills and values to life -after- school are of the opinion that they should learn more about decision making, critical thinking, participating in the problem solving activities, developing responsibility and demonstrate respect for others ( Baysal, 2009; Allen, 2000). In a study conducted by Uste (2007), it has become clear that students, who do not feel confident in making decisions, do not express themselves freely, and they cannot solve their problems in a peaceful way. This assertion supports the importance of decision making in citizenship education as revealed by the tutors and teacher trainees.