TEACHER QUALITY AND WORK ENVIRONMENT AS PREDICTORS OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN IJEBU-ODE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OGUN STATE

Abstract

This study examined teacher quality and work environment as predictors of academic performance of senior secondary school students’ in Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area of Ogun State. The study adopted the ex-post facto research design. 100 teachers (representing 21% of the teacher population) were randomly selected from twelve (12) public secondary schools for the study. Student population consists of all the 480 SSS3 students who sat for the May/June WAEC examination during the 2018/2019 academic session. A researcher self-developed questionnaire tagged: ‘Teacher Quality, Work Environment and Academic Performance Questionnaire (TQWEAPQ) was used as the study instrument. Pearson product moment correlation was used for answering research questions 1-4 and regression analysis was used for research questions 5 and 6 at .05 level of significance. The findings indicated that teacher qualification(r=0.195; p<.05), experience(r=0.54; p<.05), pedagogical skills(r=0.813; p<.05) and availability of instructional/educational materials (r=0.322; p<.05) positively related to secondary school students’ academic performance. It was also revealed that about 52% of the variance in secondary school students’ academic performance was accounted for by the linear combination of the independent variables (teacher qualification, experience, pedagogical skills, availability of instructional materials and educational materials). Out of the five variables examined, four were found to be significant and strongly determined secondary school students’ academic performance, while educational facilities’ availability was although positive but not significant enough to determine secondary school students’ academic performance. It was recommended that teachers without teaching qualification should be granted opportunity for in-service training in education to acquire adequate method of passing instruction to students. Government should give immediate recognition to teaching as a profession. This would raise the quality of people coming into the profession.