Evaluation of the Christian religious studies curriculum: a convergent study of senior high schools in the cape coast metropolis

Abstract

The intention of this study is to improve the Christian Religious Studies curriculum. It presented difficulties encountered in order to support implementers with findings from the field. Many of such research have used traditional models for evaluation: Objective based models, Goal free evaluation models, experimental evaluation models and many more. The Context Input Process Product (CIPP) evaluation model was used in this study to evaluate the Christian Religious Studies curriculum in the Cape Coast metropolis. The study used the Convergent design of the Mixed methods paradigm. It employed the use of interview and questionnaire. Three hundred and thirty three students and all sixteen teacher respondents were randomly and conveniently selected to provide data. The typological analysis and descriptive analysis techniques were used to analyse data. The descriptive analysis used descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, percentages and mode. The study found out that teachers of the subject may have forgotten the aim of the subject’s implementation. Data also shows societal activities do not help implementation. Again, the teaching and learning at later periods of the day do not also get students involvement in classroom activities. It is recommended that teachers revisit the syllabus to implement the subject, based on their developed aims. There is also the call to bring forward the teaching and learning of the subject to early hours in order to increase students’ involvement.