COMPETENCY BASED CURRICULUM AND CREATIVITY LEARNING OUTCOMES AMONG GRADE FOUR PUPILS IN MAKUENI COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

21st century is an era of technological advancement, unpredictability and unfamiliar demands. Consequently, it is vital that creativity remains at the heart of learning in order to foster life-long skills such as idea generation, hypothesis making and testing, problem solving and self-efficacy among others. These are sub-skills of the vital competence, “creativity”. Reducing levels of creativity among learners seen for example in their reduced levels of coming up with projects for science fairs and the significance of creativity in successful living motivated the researcher to undertake a study purposed to evaluate the influence of Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) on creativity learning outcomes among grade four learners in Makueni County, Kenya. Objectives of the study were to establish the: extent to which core competencies nurtured in CBC influence creativity, relationship between teaching and learning approaches in CBC and creativity, extent to which teacher induction into CBC contributes to learners’ creativity and to examine the relationship between CBC instructional materials and creativity learning outcomes. The study was informed by constructivism and discovery learning theories. Mixed methods paradigm and triangulation design were employed in the study. The target population for the study was 38,905 individuals comprising 34,847 grade four pupils, 3,180 teachers, 832 Head teachers, 37 Curriculum Support Officers (CSOs) and 9 Quality Assurance and Standards Officers(QASOs). Stratified random sampling was used to select 17 primary schools. The strata were the nine sub-counties constituting the County. Krejcie and Morgan formula was used to determine sample size which was 380 respondents. The pupils, teachers, head teachers, CSOs and QASOs were 323, 31, 17, 6 and 3 respectively. Interview guide, questionnaire, observation schedule and pupil creativity test were the data collection instruments. Interviews were for head teachers, CSOs and QASOs. The questionnaire was for the teachers. Data was collected from pupils using observation schedules and tests. Piloting of the research instruments was done in three schools in the neighboring Machakos County. Validity was established by supervisors and experts in the School of Education, Machakos University. Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was used to establish reliability for quantitative data collecting instruments. It was 0.907 hence they were reliable. Quantitative data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27 programme and presented in tables. Descriptive statistics used were: frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The inferential statistic used was regression. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically and presented in narrative forms. The research established that, 74% of grade four pupils’ creativity can be accounted for by CBC. The study concluded that, core competences, teaching and learning approaches, teacher induction into CBC and CBC instructional materials had statistically significant influence on pupil’s creativity learning outcomes and should be reinforced to maximize their influence to learners’ creativity. The recommendations were that the education stakeholders should ensure that: all the core competencies are properly nurtured, follow-ups are done on teacher training in CBC and motivate teachers to participate in the training, trainers are experienced and do efficient training and schools have enough funds to acquire instructional materials.