CLOSING GENDER GAPS IN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN AGRICULTURE AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS USING CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING APPROACH.

In the Sub-Saharan Africa, gender differences in academic achievement have been of concern. The male students tend to score better grades in most of the subjects offered including agriculture. The purpose of this study was to see whether a change in the teaching approach used to teach agriculture can narrow the academic achievement gap between secondary school male and female students. This study aimed at investigating whether there are gender differences in academic achievement among secondary school agriculture students when taught through Co-operative Learning Approach (CLA). A non-equivalent control group design under quasi-experimental research was used. Four schools were randomly selected from the sub-county?s co-education schools in Kenya. A Form one class was selected from each school for the study. A total of 154 students were involved. Random assignment was done to place two of the selected schools in the experimental group and two schools in the control group. The instrument used was the Agriculture Achievement Test (AAT) which was pilot-tested and validated before use. The instrument had a reliability coefficient of 0.762. All the selected four classes were taught the topic ?Factors Influencing Agriculture? for four weeks. The teachers who used CLA went through an induction workshop prior to the treatment. The instrument (AAT) was then administered to all. After treatment, the data collected were analyzed using t-test of independent samples. The null hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of this study indicate that there is no significant gender difference in academic achievement among agriculture students when cooperative learning approach is used.