The purpose of the study was to determine the skill improvement needs of lecturers in the utilization of weather instruments for effective teaching of students of agriculture in tertiary institutions in North-East, Nigeria. A survey research design was adopted for the study. Four research questions guided the study. The study was carried out in North-East, Nigeria. The population of the study was 219 respondents comprising of 17 Lecturers of Agricultural Education, 9 Lecturers of Soil Science, 8 Lecturers of Geography in Universities and 185 Lecturers of Agricultural Education in Colleges of Education. The entire population constituted the sample for the study. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire named “Utilization of Weather Instruments Questionnaire” (UWIQ). Five experts validated the instrument and was trial-tested. A Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained indicating that instrument was reliable to elicit information for the work. Two hundred and nineteen copies of the questionnaire were administered to the respondents by six trained research assistants in the six States of North-East, Nigeria. The entire questionnaire was retrieved. The data collected were analyzed using weighted mean and improvement need index (INI) to answer the 4 research questions. It was found that all the 64 skill improvement needs identified in the utilization of weather instruments were needed by Lecturers of Agricultural Education in Colleges of Education. The result revealed that Lecturers of Agricultural Education need skill improvement on the following items: 19 skills on utilizing Stevenson Screen, 16 skills on utilizing Thermo-hygrograph, 20 skills on utilizing Maximum and Minimum Thermometers and 10 skills on utilizing Sunshine Recorder. Based on these findings, it was recommended that: Lecturers of Agricultural Education should seek for ways of improving their skills in utilizing weather instruments; Administrators of Colleges of Education should support and approve study leave for Lecturers of Agricultural Education to attend workshops, seminars and conferences on utilization of weather instruments; Skill acquisition organizations should package the finding of the study into capacity building programmes for re-training both Lecturers of Agricultural Education in Colleges of Education and teachers of Agriculture Science in Secondary Schools in North-East, Nigeria.
Keywords: Improvement, Skills, Tertiary Institutions, Utilization, Weather Instruments
