Research Paper
Year: 2020 | Month: November | Volume: 7 | Issue: 11 | Pages: 190-215
Teachers’ Academic Qualification as a Predictor of Attitude and Academic Achievement in Geography of Senior Secondary School Students in Adamawa State, Nigeria
Jacob Filgona1, John Sakiyo2
1Ph.D Research Scholar, Department of Environmental and Life Sciences Education, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria.
2Dr. (Associate Prof.), Supervisor, Department of Environmental and Life Sciences Education, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria.
Corresponding Author: Jacob Filgona
ABSTRACT
The recruitment of unqualified teachers to teach in Nigeria’s institutions of learning has been a persistent and age-long problem affecting students’ learning. However, it is perplexing to know that the government who made the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) the minimum requirement for entry into the teaching profession has been guilty of recruiting the said unqualified teachers into the educational system. As this problem persist, without a deliberate effort made by the government to address it, this study determines the degree to which teachers’ academic qualification predicts students’ attitude and academic achievement in Geography in senior secondary schools of Adamawa State. The research design employed was the predictive correlational design. The study, which sampled 400 teachers and 400 students from senior secondary schools in Adamawa State, employed the multistage sampling technique to actualize this. The participating teachers’ and students’ responses were gathered using the Geography Teachers' Qualification Checklist (GTQC), Students' Attitudinal Scale in Geography (SASIG) and Geography Achievement Test (GAT). Two of the instruments (SASIG, GAT) were validated and trial-tested to obtain the reliability coefficients using Cronbach’s Alpha statistic. The SASIG instrument had a reliability coefficient of 0.78 while the GAT instrument indicated a coefficient of 0.77. Frequency count and percentages were used to answer the lone question in the study while the null hypotheses were tested using simple linear regression statistic. The regression statistic showed that teachers' qualifications did predict students’ academic achievement and the predictive value was significant. However, students’ attitude to Geography was not predicted by teachers’ qualification. These results emphasized the need for authorities concerned to strictly recruit qualified graduate teachers of Geography to teach in senior secondary schools in Adamawa State.
Keywords: Teachers qualification, students’ attitude and academic achievement, geography.
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