Influence of In-Service Teacher Training on the Implementation of the Integrated Science Curriculum in Public Junior Secondary Schools in Western Region, Kenya

The transition from the 8-4-4 system to Competency-Based Education has made teacher preparedness a decisive condition for curriculum reform in Kenya. This paper examines the influence of in-service teacher training on the implementation of the Integrated Science curriculum in public junior secondary schools in the Western Region of Kenya. Anchored on the social constructivist theory of Lev Vygotsky, the study adopted a descriptive survey design within a mixed methods approach. From a universe of 113,237, a sample of 1,087 respondents was drawn using stratified, simple random, systematic and purposive techniques, and 844 (77.6%) responded. Data were collected through questionnaires for students, teachers, heads of department and head teachers, and through interviews with one Regional and four County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers, and were analysed using descriptive statistics and the Chi-square goodness-of-fit test at the 0.05 level of significance. In-service training returned the highest preparedness mean among the four dimensions examined (M = 2.11, SD = 0.77). Five of the six training items departed significantly from an even spread of responses, the strongest being the learners’ perception that training had varied teaching methods (χ² = 245.951, p < .001), while the single exception was the effect of training on lesson planning (χ² = 2.218, p = .330). The null hypothesis was therefore rejected, and in-service training was found to have a statistically significant influence on implementation. The qualitative evidence attributed the shallow effect on planning to the one-off delivery of training and the dilution of content through the cascade model. The paper concludes that in-service training shaped visible teaching technique more than the planning that should precede it, and recommends a shift from one-off cascade workshops to sustained, school-embedded and planning-centred professional development.