Student Centred Learning Challenges Among Lecturers in Four Kenya Medical Training College Campuses Within South Nyanza Region, Kenya

Abstract

Students who are admitted within 68 Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) Campuses for various healthcare programs are highly qualified and they are chosen through a competitive admission criterion. However, their performance in college exams does not reflect the same.For instance, approximately 26% of students sat for supplementary exams in the year 2017.This performance trend implies that there may be challenges in the implementation of studentcentered learning (SCL) approaches among the lecturers. Due to this, the researcher decided to conduct a research study on SCL challenges among lecturers. Cross-sectional descriptive study with researcher-administered questionnaires among 61 lecturers (both internal and external) was employed within KMTC-Campuses within South Nyanza Region namely; Nyamira, Kisii, Homa Bay, and Migori. The study adopted purposeful sampling to select KMTC-Campuses and saturated sampling of the participants. The finding concluded that although the ratio of students to lecturers (1:45) was within the recommended standards, the level of awareness and practice of SCL by the lecturers was low within the KMTC-Campuses.The study indicated that lecturers had little involvement to enhance SCL activities within their various campuses even though their instructional design has an impact on SCL especially on new approaches to tasks, activities and classroom discourse. The study concluded that the inadequacy of SCL resources affects its effective implementation. The researchers recommend that further studies be done on the exposure of students to various participatory learning methodologies and the provision of SCL resources.