STUDENT AND TEACHER RELATIONSHIP IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN THE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL IN APA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF BENUE STATE

TOPIC IS SUITABLE FOR:
1. Department of Education

2. Department of Agricultural Education

3. Department of Guidance and Counselling

4. Department of Educational Psychology

TOPIC: STUDENT AND TEACHER RELATIONSHIP IN TEACHING AND LEARNING OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE IN THE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL IN APA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF BENUE STATE

TABLE OF CONTENT

Abstract

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

1.2 Statement of the Problem

1.3 Purpose of the Study

1.4 Research Question/Hypotheses

1.5 Significance of the Study

1.6 Scope and Delimitation of the Study

1.7 Operational Definition of Terms

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Conceptual Review

2.3 Theoretical Framework

2.4 Empirical Review

2.5 Summary/Appraisal of Literature Review

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLGY

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Population of the Study

3.3 Sample Size

3.4 Sampling Technique(s)

3.5 Instrument(s) for Data Collection

3.6 Validation of the Instrument(s)

3.7 Reliability of the Instrument(s)

3.8 Procedures of Data Collection

3.9 Method of Data Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Presentation of Results

4.3 Discussion of Results

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Summary

5.2 Conclusion

5.3 Recommendations

References

Appendices

ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to relationship between student and teacher relationship and teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in the senior secondary school in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. The study specifically was carried out to identify the impact of the components of student–teacher relationship on academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, assess the impact of contribution of student– teacher relationships on academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, find out the impact of challenges encountered by students who miss the teacher - students relationship on academic performance in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, and ascertain the possible measures for enhancing the student– teacher relationship and academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. The study was anchored on the constructivist learning theory, the social development theory and the formal theory of teaching. The study employed the survey descriptive research design. Hence, the questionnaire was used for data collection. A total of 211 respondents were selected as sample size using the Yamane sampling technique. The participants consists of Selected  Agricultural Science teachers and students in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. The data collected were analyzed using frequency tables, and mean scores.  From the responses obtained and analyzed, the findings reveals that there is a relationship between components of teachers-students relationship and the academic performance of students in economics in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. Likewise the study also shows that the contributions of teachers students relationship has a significant impact on academic performance of students in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. similarly, the study also shows that there is a significant impact between challenges encountered in teachers-students relationship and the academic performance of students in economics in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State.  Lastly, the study also shows that the possible measures for enhancing teachers-students relationship has a significant impact on academic performance of students in economics in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. The study therefore recommends that since the academic performance of students is not solely dependent on teaching, teachers should create an enabling environment which will give students an opportunity of understanding the concepts being taught. Such enabling environment is to be achieved by developing a good relationship with students. Also, teacher must acknowledge the impact they have on their students and take into consideration the perceptions of the students towards them. The teacher must ensure that they meet the academic and emotional needs of the learners.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION (Preview)

1.1 Background of the Study

Education, in its most imaginative conception, has been portrayed frequently as humanity's scripted conversation between the generations, a gradual but thoughtful passing on of values, skills, and dispositions, by which societies can recreate themselves (Green et al, 2017). Classrooms, in this continuous conversation, are mini‑communities in which identities are experimented with and negotiated, allowing students to read larger cultural scripts while, reciprocally, writing new ones (Hansen, 2022). This interpretive space positions pedagogy not as the transmission of cognitive substance but rather as a project of relations saturated with affective entanglements and mutual acknowledgments. Consequently, the quality of interpersonal contact among those who teach and those who learn becomes a decisive currency within the education market, determining motivation, involvement, and ultimately the social bond that underpins democratic life in communities, economies, and globalising spaces.

From such a relational standpoint, recent research coalesces around the thesis that the student–teacher relationship is the center around which genuine learning thrives (Tolsdorf et al, 2018). By building trust, conveying high but reachable expectations, and exhibiting adaptive expertise, students internalize a sense of academic safety that liberates experimentation and creative risk-taking (Pakarinen et al, 2017). These affective exchanges, while in most cases tacit and fleeting, generate what sociologists have referred to as the “instructional climate,” an empirically supported mediator of cognitive progress in achievement as powerfully as the content of curriculum itself. Pedagogy thus becomes a choreography of intersubjective focus in which the richness of tone, gesture, and feedback organizes intellectual tempo, elevating students to swing productively between stages of guided learning and self-directed exploration. Such processes thus strengthen students’ epistemic agency and sustain durable scholarly identities over time.

In science education, the relational paradigm takes on added dimensions in that conceptual abstractions need to be translated into embodied experience, a process requiring stringent scaffolding from teachers (Eze and Agbomma, 2018). Evidence shows that when scientific concepts are embedded by teachers in everyday events known to learners, they are placed in culturally situated stories that serve as anchors for retention and transfer (Sabutoke, 2019). Contextualisation therefore deepens dialogue, encouraging learners to overlay indigenous knowledge onto formal disciplinary language, co‑producing in the process a hybrid epistemology that authenticates local wisdom while developing scientific literacy. In the process, the student–teacher dyad becomes an inquiry pair, constructing understanding in concert through demonstrations, Socratic questioning, and reflective debriefs that elicit the unseen forces driving observable reality. The classroom culture that emerges respects curiosity, encourages experiment, and makes evidence‑based argument the language of discourse.

Nigerian agricultural education is a strategic fulcrum in national food security and youth empowerment policy and therefore the pedagogic relationship within this discipline takes on particular importance (Adipere, 2015). The integration within the curriculum of theoretical agronomy, environmental management, and practical vocational ability demands long‑term mentorship where teachers are both scientists and agripreneurs, demonstrating economic viability of knowledge‑informed practice (Green et al, 2017). If students are exposed to such double professionalism, they internalize agriculture as a dynamic knowledge‑driven enterprise mediating biotechnology, climate resilience, and global supply chains. Such an awareness, built through respectful relational modelling, facilitates learner ambition and mobilizes a sense of agency to innovate in rural and peri‑urban agro‑ecosystems. Agricultural science classrooms therefore become incubators of entrepreneurial imagination, linking scholastic attainment to concrete community transformation in the immediate hinterland.

At senior secondary level, developmental psychology places heightened sensitivity to relational authenticity at the centre of adolescents' sociality, making the teacher's interpersonal stance a determinative influence on subjectuptake (Pakarinen et al, 2017). In these contexts, the agricultural science teacher navigates a delicate tightrope between authority and familiarity, exposing students to quasi-professional roles in supervised land-laboratory activities, farm excursions, and data-logging explorations (Tolsdorf et al, 2018). By attributing real responsibility for seed trials, livestock integrity, or agribusiness budgeting, teachers communicate trust, hence eliciting reciprocal accountability and active participation. The collaborative arrangement reorients assessment from evaluative monitoring to mutual reflective practice, with the feedback sessions taking the tone of performance appraisals in industry, cultivating meta-cognitive responsiveness and career-ready attitude. Such immersive frames thus bridge abstruse syllabus aims and embodied realities of agrarian livelihoods that permeate many Nigerian rural enclaves and emerging peri-urban ventures today.

These empirical and theoretical observations come together powerfully in Apa Local Government Area of Benue state, a farming belt where senior secondary schools engage daily with cycles of yam, cassava, and rice crops that underpin local household economies (Eze and Agbomma, 2018). Here, the teacher–student relationship overflows from classroom walls to demonstration plots in communities and seasonal outreach extension, allowing teachers to synchronize syllabus indicators with the phenology of local crop cycles (Sabutoke, 2019). As pedagogic mediators between scientific agronomy and local practices like shifting cultivation or communal exchanges of labor, teachers are cultural brokers whose relational credibility legitimates innovation without delegitimating tradition. It is precisely for this reason that a comprehension of how these relational processes play out in Apa provides a rich baseline for scaling transformative, context‑sensitive agricultural science programs across Nigeria and similar ecologies (Hansen, 2022) under conditions of climate uncertainty and rural youth migration.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

This convergence of disciplinary knowledge and relational pedagogy has been a specific issue of concern for scholars of education who contend that the affective climate of classrooms tends to mediate learning outcomes as consistently as subject matter itself (Green et al, 2017). Science education scholars contend that when teachers frame lessons as collaborative research, students develop stronger epistemic agency and more secure commitment to the scientific project (Hansen, 2022). In agricultural science, where abstract ideas have to be re‑anchored repeatedly to practical demonstrations, this interpersonal dimension complicates the scenario, suggesting the need for context‑specific investigation of how relationships shape vocational identity formation amongst adolescents in agrarian cultures.

Despite the observed importance of productive student–teacher relationships, preliminary findings from senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area record a pattern of unstable relational practices concurrent with declining enrollment in optional agricultural science courses and sub-par performance in external exams (Eze and Agbomma, 2018). Observation diaries reveal that fewer than 35 percent of classes contain dialogic feedback circuits or field work guided by mentors, standards that are widely used as proxies for relational quality (Pakarinen et al, 2017). The persistence of such instructional thinness raises questions about the capacity of prevailing pedagogic routines to develop the competencies required for contemporary, knowledge-driven agribusiness engagement.

Agricultural science education at its best provides teenagers protracted, apprenticeship‑style engagement between classroom theory and on‑site experimentation and, through so doing, precipitating intellectual achievement and career desire (Tolsorf et al, 2018). In comparison districts where this trend has been realized, West African Senior School Certificate Examination pass rates are over 75 percent and student participation in co‑curricular school farms approaches universal participation (Adipere, 2015). The dismal gap between such ideal indicators and current conditions in Apa reflects a systemic deficiency, with relational dimensions of instruction still under‑leveraged as sources of academic rigor and rural growth.

A review of Nigerian scholarship also shows that studies in agricultural education have touched on curriculum content and resource availability but not much on relational variables that influence the efficacy of instruction (Sabutoke, 2019). There are no peer-reviewed previous studies providing disaggregated evidence on the prediction of learning paths by teacher empathy, trust, and feedback specificity in the Apa Local Government Area agricultural science classrooms (Green et al, 2017). By exploring these under-examined relationships, the present study seeks to generate empirically grounded knowledge that can inform relationally focused professional-development practices and evidence-based policy interventions to bridge the aforementioned performance gap.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The main objective of this study is to examine student and teacher relationship in teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in the senior secondary school in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. Other objectives of this study are:

1.Identify the impact of the components of student– teacher relationship on academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State.

2.Assess the impact of contribution of  student– teacher relationships on academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State.

3.Find out the impact of challenges encountered by students who miss the teacher - students relationship on academic performance in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State.

4.Ascertain the possible measures for enhancing the student– teacher relationship and academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State.

Other parts of chapter one include:
1.4 Research Question/Hypotheses

1.5 Significance of the Study

1.6 Scope and Delimitation of the Study

1.7 Operational Definition of Terms

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW (Preview)
This chapter critically examines relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and, furthermore, recognizes the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps. This chapter therefore, focuses on the concept of agricultural science, need for teaching agricultural science in secondary schools, concept of academic performance, concept of student-teacher  relationship, essential components of the student-teacher relationship to teaching, etc. The chapter covers the following subheadings:

2.1 Conceptual Framework

2.2 Theoretical Framework

2.3 Empirical Studies

2.5 Summary/Appraisal of Literature Review

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY (Preview)
Research Design: The study adopted a descriptive research design.

Population of the Study: The population of the study comprises Agricultural Science teachers and senior secondary school students (SS1–SS3) across four selected public secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area, Benue State.

Sample Size Determination: The study adopted the Taro Yamane formula to determine a sample size of 215 participants.

Sampling Technique: The study employed a multi-stage sampling technique involving stratified and simple random sampling methods to select the individual respondents.

Research Instrument: The study utilized a self-developed structured questionnaire as the instrument for data collection.

Methods of Data Analysis: The collected data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations to summarize and present the demographic characteristics of the respondents and their opinions. Inferential statistics, such as ANOVA, were used to test the hypotheses.

CHAPTER FOUR; DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

MAJOR FINDINGS (Preview)

The analysis results were presented in tables. Based on the results obtained from the analysis, the following findings are made:

i. The study found that the components of student–teacher relationships have a positive impact on the teaching and learning of Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, as evidenced by mean scores ranging from 3.2 to 3.4, which are above the acceptance benchmark of 2.50. This implies that building a sense of togetherness, creating trust, assigning student tasks to promote ownership, and establishing constructive classroom routines are important components of student–teacher relationships that support effective teaching and learning of Agricultural Science.

ii. The study found that the contributions of student–teacher relationships positively influence the academic performance of students in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, as evidenced by four accepted items with mean scores ranging from 3.0 to 3.2, which are above the acceptance benchmark of 2.50, while two items were rejected with mean scores of 2.0. This implies that student–teacher relationships help students develop strong connections with teachers, feel cared for, build trust and responsibility, and develop a sense of ownership and belonging in the classroom, thereby supporting academic performance.

iii. The study found that challenges associated with poor student–teacher relationships negatively affect students’ academic performance in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, as evidenced by five accepted items with mean scores ranging from 3.1 to 3.2, which are above the acceptance benchmark of 2.50, while one item was rejected with a mean score of 2.3. This implies that poor student–teacher relationships may contribute to poor academic performance, immoral behaviour, truancy, stress, and lack of confidence and professional support among students.

iv. The study found that several measures can enhance student–teacher relationships and improve students’ academic performance in Agricultural Science in senior secondary schools in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, as evidenced by four accepted items with mean scores ranging from 3.0 to 3.4, which are above the acceptance benchmark of 2.50, while two items were rejected with mean scores of 2.4 and 2.0. This implies that guidance and counselling, caring for students, maintaining discipline, and providing professional support are important measures for strengthening student–teacher relationships and improving academic performance in Agricultural Science.

CHAPTER FIVE:  SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter covers the following outline:
5.1 Summary Of The Findings

5.2 Conclusions

5.3 Recommendation

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