LECTURER JOB CADRE AND EXPERIENCE AS PREDICTORS OF QUALITY OF INSTRUCTION IN COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN OYO AND OSUN

Abstract

The level of instructional quality at the College of Education in Oyo and Osun States is abysmally poor. The results of past studies on the lecturers’ job cadre and experience and quality of instruction were full of contradictions. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which the lecturers’ job cadre and experience predicted the quality of instruction in the public COEs in Oyo and Osun States, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design of the ex-post facto type was adopted for the study, while multi-stage sampling frame was adopted. Simple random technique was used to select one COE per state. Two Schools (Arts/Social Sciences and Sciences) were purposively selected per sampled COE. One hundred and twenty-four lecturers were sampled from the four schools using total enumeration method. Six principal lecturers from non-participating COEs and 15 students in the relevant areas of specialisation were purposively selected to rate the lecturers. Each lecturer was observed thrice by non-participant observers. Each lecturer was also rated once, by a set of 15 students. Key Informant Interview was conducted on ten Deans from the sampled COEs. Quality of Instruction Rating Scale (r=0.86) was used for data collection. Multiple regression and Pearson product moment correlation were used to analyse the data at 0.05 level of significance. Qualitative data were content analysed. There were significant relationships between lecturers’ job cadre (r=.29) and work experience (r=.12) and quality of instruction. The lecturer factors significantly predicted quality of instruction (F _{(5, 2231)} = 66.92; R² =.151) and explained 15.1% of its total variance. Lecturers’ Job Cadre (B = -3.01; t = 14.66) and work experience (B=.78; t= 4.02) predicted quality of instruction positively. Lecturer cadre and work experience predicted the quality of instruction in the public Colleges of Education in Osun and Oyo States. This study recommended that education stakeholders in College of Education should place more emphasis on these two factors.