“Curriculum experiences and students’ engagement in citizenship education: An evaluation of students’ behavior in some selected secondary school in Yaounde III sub division’

Abstract

This research is titled “curriculum experiences and students’ engagement in citizenship education: An evaluation of students’ behavior in some selected secondary schools in Yaounde III sub division”. The problem is based on students’ disengagement in civic education resulting to deviant behaviors, increase violence in school milieu, increase rate in drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, misuse of internet and media resources. This study aims to examine the relationship between curricular experiences and students’ engagement in citizenship education. The research seeks to answer the question how does curriculum experiences influences students’ engagement in citizenship education. The main research hypothesis states that there exists a relationship between curriculum experiences and students’ engagement in citizenship education. Social constructivism and engagement theory were employed in the study. A mixed method research design was used with simple random sampling technique to sample 390 students. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 390 students while an interview guide was used to collect data from 8 teachers. Data collected through questionnaire was tested using correlation and regression analysis on SPSS. Content analysis was done for data collected through the use of interview guides. The results obtained were as follows: H1: Pedagogic approaches, is significantly related to students’ engagement. H2: Instructional resources, has a significant link to students’ engagement. H3: Learning outcomes significantly influences students’ engagement. H4: There is a significant link between learning content and students’ engagement. The results of the findings reveal that curricular experiences determent students’ engagement in citizenship education. Hence, we recommend that the ministry of secondary education should reinforce the teaching and learning of this subject in order to avert deviants behaviors with related outcomes.