Early Childhood Care and Education Pre-Service Teachers’ Skills in Producing Developmentally and Culturally Appropriate Instructional Materials in Adamawa State

Abstract

This study investigated Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) pre-service teachers’ skills in producing developmentally and culturally appropriate instructional materials in Adamawa State. The study was guided by a research question, which was raised to determine; the level of ECCE pre-service teachers’ skills on the extent to which they can produce instructional materials for ECCE in Adamawa State. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The purposive sampling technique was used to sample all the 149 NCE II and NCE III ECCE students from the Federal College of Education, Yola. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from respondents. The study recorded a 96.0% return rate. The data collected was analyzed descriptively using mean, percentage and standard deviation. The results from data analysis showed that; the pre-services ECCE teachers in Adamawa State were producing culturally appropriate instructional materials suitable for teaching and learning at the pre-school level. The findings showed that the exposure of Pre-service ECCE teachers in Adamawa state to the various concepts and features of local instructional materials such as culturally based, foreign-made, and developmentally appropriate as well as the sources of instructional materials, types of instructional materials are effective and efficient ways of enhancing pre-service teachers’ skills of producing instructional materials sourced from the locally available materials. The study concluded that pre-service ECCE teachers have adequate skill of production of culturally appropriate instructional materials. The study, therefore, gave recommendations on the need for improvement in the skill of production of culturally and developmentally appropriate instructional materials in ECCE.