Scientific Skills and Concept Learning by Rural Women for Personal and National Development

Abstract

This paper examined scientific skills and concept learning by rural women for personal and national development. The research design employed was a quasi-experimental one-group pretest and posttest design. A non-formal science programme package to enhance and empower the rural women's knowledge and skills in their daily activities (nutrition, sanitation, health, agriculture, and water use) was designed and validated by three experts from the Science Education Department of a University. The reliability coefficient was 0.80 and the programme was taught for six weeks to the rural women in order to determine its effect on the rural women's skills and knowledge in the five variables considered. The results showed that there was appreciable improvement on their skills and knowledge in health, water use, nutrition, sanitation, and agriculture. This supports the study of Nnachi (2008) who was of the opinion that training and practice increased rural women's skills. Based on these findings the researchers recommended that rural women should be empowered by science education for maximum productivity, self and national development.