Resourcefulness in Science Teaching and Learning in the Colleges of Education in Ghana: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Purpose: The focus of the study was to review existing literature on the resourcefulness of science teaching and learning in the colleges of education in Ghana and to make recommendations to the government of Ghana and the science tutors on the teaching and learning of science in the colleges of education. The study strived to ascertain the right state of resourcefulness in science teaching and learning, nature of preparation given to pre-service science teachers and the kind of in-service training programmes science tutors receive. Methodology: Systematic literature search approach was adopted in selecting, screening and extraction of important and related documents. These processes included defining the question(s) that the review aimed to answer, establishing inclusion and exclusion criteria, carrying out the search for literature, reviewing the process and evaluating the studies, extracting relevant documents or data and then synthesizing, analyzing and presenting data. The criteria involved identifying journals, articles, policy documents, official reports, training modules, scholarly work from both print and electronic media; identifying goal, scope and focus of the review; presenting outline of procedure for selecting journals; deciding on source selection process; selecting sources; calibration of the content extraction process and picking relevant content materials. Results: From the analysis of the contents of the various documents gathered, it was revealed that a lot of colleges of education in Ghana have inadequate infrastructure, well-equipped science and ICT laboratories, human resource capacities and material resources that befit their status as tertiary institutions for effective delivery of science lessons by the tutors. Recommendation: It was recommended that the government of Ghana should adequately resource the colleges of education and the science tutors should take advantage of the Professional Development Sessions to sharpen their knowledge and skills for effective delivery of science concepts to learners.