Barriers to Geography Teachers’ Engagement with Research in Selected Secondary Schools of Serenje District in Central Zambia
- March 7, 2021
- Posted by: RSIS
- Categories: Education, IJRISS
International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue II, February 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186
Patricia Lako and Kaiko Mubita
Department of Language and Social Sciences Education, University of Zambia
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to establish the barriers to geography teachers’ engagement with research in selected secondary schools of Serenje district. Interviews were conducted with fourteen geography teachers, two heads of social sciences departments, and one official each from Provincial Resource Centre (PRC) and District Resource centre (DRC) respectively. Purposeful sampling was used to select the participants. Two focus group discussions were also conducted with teachers of geography. Data was analysed thematically. Findings showed that teacher engagement with research was constrained by barriers such as lack of time, lack of support from administrators, financial constraints, lack of access to relevant research literature, and societal and organizational culture. Therefore, to establish and sustain research engagements of geography teachers in the district attention is needed in the following areas: policy, job description and schedules of the teachers, school culture, libraries, and funding for research.
Key Words: Reading culture, Engagement with research, Barriers
I. INTRODUCTION
The nation’s overall vision for education enshrined in vision 2030 is “innovative and productive lifelong education and training for all by 2030” (Government of the Republic of Zambia, Ministry of National Development and Planning, 2006: 38). To have quality education, we need teachers who are critical and have high order thinking skills necessary in the creation of knowledge, problem solving and dealing with information bombardment (United Nation Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), 2005). In line with this, Mayne (2014:48), states “improving all aspects of quality of education is dependent on preparing teachers to become critical citizens.” The Zambian curriculum has shifted from content based to competency-based so that learners can develop higher order thinking skills such as application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Mulenga and Kabombwe,2019) hence the need for teachers to have high order thinking skills.
