Public junior high school integrated science teachers’ knowledge, practice and challenges of differentiated instruction in the Akuapem South Municipality

Abstract

This study sought to investigate public Junior High school science teachers’ knowledge, practice and challenges of Differentiated Instruction (DI) in the Akwapem South Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Utilising a pragmatic paradigm and a mixed-methods approach, the research specifically employed a sequential-explanatory mixed-methods research design. The study implemented both census and purposive sampling techniques, selecting 35 science teachers through census sampling technique, while 10 Integrated Science teachers were chosen using purposive sampling. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 35 teachers to collect quantitative data and a sub-sampling purposively 10 teachers were sampled for observation and interview to collect qualitative. The quantitative data were analysed through descriptive statistics with the help of the SPSS version 21 and content analysis. The findings indicated that JHS teachers had low knowledge of DI. Also, the qualitative data indicated the extent to which teachers implement DI was low, and time constraint limits the use of DI. The results showed that, teachers showed minimum evidence of differentiating their lesson in terms of content, process and assessment. The study recommends that the municipal directorate of the Ghana Education Service of Ankwapim South Municipality should organise in-service programmes and workshops on differentiated instructional strategies to give teachers hands-on training on DI as required by the NTS guidelines.