Innovative pedagogy and sustainable development skills in geography: The case of some secondary schools in Mfoundi division

Abstract

This research investigate innovative pedagogic methods in the teaching of geography and its influences on the promotion of sustainable skill development in secondary schools in Mfoundi Division. A good number of researchers have indicated that geography students are not acquiring the necessary skills needed for survival in this 21st century as enshrined in Sustainable Development Goal 4, target 4.7 and law No 98/004 laying down guidelines of education in Cameroon. Although many teachers are aware of innovative pedagogy, its application and skill development in learners is still low. This all indicates a gap between what students learn in school and what they actually practice in the real world. Thus, the challenge to revisit classroom teaching and use innovative pedagogy tilted towards competence-based for sustainable skill development. To find out the extent to which innovative pedagogic methods (project-based-learning, fieldwork, outdoor learning and educational technology) in geography influences the promotion of sustainable development skills in secondary school, four (4) specific hypotheses and research questions based on the four were formulated to guide the study. A cross-sectional survey design was used for this study through a quantitative approach and the sampling was simple random sampling. Eighty (80) geography teachers where randomly selected from some secondary schools in Mfoundi Division for the study. Online Questionnaires (google form) was used as the instrument for data collection. Descriptive and inferential (simple linear regression) statistics were used to analyzed the data with the help of SPSS version 21. The findings revealed that innovative pedagogy significantly influenced sustainable skill development in geography as the tested variables indicated that their p-values were <0.05. That is for project-based learning, P<0.05 with a beta coefficient of 0.602; for fieldwork P<0.05 with a beta coefficient of 0.674; for outdoor learning, P<0,05 with beta coefficient of 0.563 and for educational technology, P<0.05 with a beta coefficient of 0.645. All four indicators of the independent variable were strong predictors of sustainable skill development in geography because they were linearly related to the dependent variable with fieldwork as the strongest predictor. It is worth noting that these results could be of specific interest to all teachers, policy makers, educational establishments and other institutions of higher learning envisaging implementing innovative pedagogy in their teaching learning process.