ABSTRACT
This
study investigated teachers’ challenges as correlate of
their job performance in public secondary schools in North Senatorial District
of Edo State. Two research questions were analyzed and six hypotheses were
tested in the study respectively. Specifically, the study was undertaken to
determine the challenges confronting public secondary school teachers as well
as their level of job performance. The relative and joint influence of the job
challenges (availability of physical resources, access to instructional
materials for teaching, access to training and development programmes,
involvement of teachers in school’s decision making processes and access to
compensation packages) on teachers’job performance was also determined in the
district.
The correlational design was adopted for
the study. Two questionnaires titled: “Teacher job Challenges Questionnaire
(TEJOCAQ) and principals’ Rating of Teachers’ Job performance Questionnaire”
(PROJOPAQ) were administered to teachers and principals drawn from a population
of three hundred and seventy (370) Junior and Senior Secondary Schools teachers
and 206 principals in the Senatorial District respectively. The test-retest
reliability was used to determine the reliability of the instruments (TEJOQ and
PROJOPAQ). Ther-value of the six (6) sub-scales in TEJOCAQ are: .73 for teachers job challenges, .78 for
instructional materials, .82 for school physical resources, .86 for teachers
training and development programme, .71 for involvement in decision making, and
.76 for access to compensation packages while an r-value of .83 was obtained
for Teachers Job Performance from the second instrument (PROJOPAQ).The data
collected for research questions one and two were descriptively analyzed with
mean (
)and standard deviation (S.D), while
correlation matrix, bi-variate Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient
and linear multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses at
0.05 level of significance.
The results showed that theteachers
identified: availability of physical resources; access to instructional
materials for teaching; access to
compensation packages as at when due; work overload; role conflict occurring
due to ill-defined teacher duties; and managing disciplinary problems of
students, as the factors that constitute job challenges to them in secondary
schools in Edo North Senatorial District. The findings further showed that the
level of public secondary school teachers’ job performance in Edo North
Senatorial District was low. Based on the findings, it was concluded that job
performance of teachers was significantly predicted by instructional materials
for teaching, availability of physical resources and teachers’ access to
compensation packages in North Senatorial District of Edo State (p<0.05).
Hence it was recommended that instructional materials and teaching resources
should be provided in secondary schools by the government amongst others.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTIONBackground to the Study
Secondary education is the type or level
of education the learners receive after successful completion of primary
education. It comes before the tertiary education for those who wish to further
their studies. The Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN, 2013) stated succinctly
that the broad goals of secondary education shall be to prepare the individual
for useful living within the society and for higher education. In order to
achieve these goals, schools are established as a formal agency of education
where students learn about the custom, attitude and ways of doing things in the
society. Secondary schools are educational institutions where the customs, values,
norms and ways of doing things in a society are taught and learnt. They are
institutions where the culture of the people is transmitted from one generation
to another.
In order to ensure that customs, values
and norms are successfully taught and learnt in schools,the Federal Government
of Nigeria under the National Policy of Education (NPE) (Federal Republic of
Nigeria, 2013) recognizeseducation as “an instrument per excellence for
effecting national development”. The NPE also acknowledges the fact that “no
educational system may rise above the quality of its teachers” (FRN, 2013:2).
This implies that teachers have a very crucial role to play in the achievement
of the broad goals of secondary education. Hence, the quality of teachers
dictates the level of educational advancement in a country and their job
performance,can be greatly affected if they (teachers) are confronted with
challenges at work.
Teachers’ challenges refer to factors, -physical
or abstract, material or non-material, affecting teachers in the course of carrying
out their instructional and administrative duties at school. They are factors
that hinder teachers from carrying out their instructional and administrative
duties effectively on a daily basis. Some of these challenges as identified by Obineli (2013)include: low access to
instructional materials for teaching, unsuitable work conditions, inadequate training
and development programmes, non-involvement of teachers in school’s decision
making processes and low access to promotion and other compensation packages.Adejumobi and Ojikutu (2013) addedthat
teachers’ challenges are multi-faceted and vary with school type and size. They
identified some of these multi-faceted challenges as: availability of physical
resources for teaching staff; work
climate in school with co-staff, principals, students and their parents, class size and work overload,
leadership style of principals/school heads and motivational strategies. As identified above, access to instructional
materials for teaching, availability of physical resources for teaching staff,
access to training and development programmes, involvement of teachers in
school’s decision making processes and access to compensation packages, among
others constitute challenges to teachers.
Instructional materials are objects or
devices which help the teacher to make learning meaningful to the learners.
According to Aduwa-Ogiegbaen and Imogie (2005), these materials include but are
not limited to audio tape recorders, video tape recorders, slide projectors,
opaque projectors, overhead projectors, still pictures, programmed instruction,
filmstrips, maps, chart, and graphs. These materialsoffer a variety of learning
experiences individually or incombination to meet different teaching and
learning experiences. On the other hand, physical resources are material items
that enhance teachers’ job performance; making their duties easier to be
carried out on a day-to-day basis at school. They include suitable staff room
for teaching staff, fans, class registers, log books, stationery, clocks,
tables, chairs, computers and its other associated devices. These resources are
often found in the staffroom or kept in special rooms like laboratories and used
by teachers from time to time while carrying out their instructional and
administrative duties. Some of these duties include writing reports, preparing
lesson notes and marking of students’ scripts in the general staffroom, science
laboratory, Home Economics laboratory or library.
Instructional materials provide teachers
with interesting and compelling platforms for conveying information since they
motivate learners to learn more. Furthermore, the teacher is assisted in
overcoming physical difficulties that could have hindered his/her effective
presentation of a given topic in the classroom. To support these materials,
tables, chairs, stationery, and fans among other physical resources are also needed
in a well-ventilated staffroom to help teachers to prepare their lesson notes,
mark students’ scripts, relax and study before or after lesson period. When
these resources are not available or inadequate in a school, work becomes
burdensome for teachers irrespective of their willingness to carry out their duties
or quality of training they could have received.
Access to
training and development programme and involvement of teachers in decision making
process of the schools are other forms of challenges confronting teachers in
schools. Training and development programmesimply means on-the-job professional
development. They are programmes that are aimed at enhancing
the capacity of teachers to be effective and efficient in their ability to
accomplish the predetermined objectives of the school system. For instance,
in-service programme represents a veritable medium which aim at correcting
certain deficiencies in order to accelerate technological advancement through
the educational system. In addition, workshops, conferences, seminars serve as
effective measures of dissemination of information concerning academic practice
(Amadi & Anaemeotu, 2013). Unfortunately, not every teacher has access to these
programmes in their schools and this constitutes another challenge to teachers
that seek on the job professional development. This problem is further
compounded by teachers’ work load and lack of financial support from schools.
Involvement of teachers in school’s
decision making processes and access to compensation packages have also been
identified as teachers’ challenges. According to Duze (2011), teachers’
involvement in decision making in the school system has attracted major
advocacy in modern day school management and planning. He noted that decision
making in schools, usually border on curricular/instructional programmes,
transportation/communication systems, staffing, students/staff welfare,
students/staff discipline, school plant maintenance, accommodation/health
facilities, admission policy, budgeting, purchasing, gaming, and
extra-curricular activities, among others. These decisions are often discussed
among set of school leaders in the school.
On the other hand, compensation packages
entails some basic features that tend to make employees satisfied on their job
amongst which include salaries, bonuses, incentives, allowances, promotion, and
recognition.According to the American Compensation Association (ACA)(2005), “compensation
is the cash and non-cash remuneration provided by an employer for services
rendered.” It could be financial rewards which refer to any monetary rewards
that go above and beyond basic pay. These rewards are separate and not added
into basic salary. Examples of these include financial incentives, bonuses, and
recognition. Compensation can be described as direct and indirect compensation
received by employees in an organization that serves to achieve employee
satisfaction and retention as well as improve performance. Direct compensation
includes wages, salaries, bonuses or commission. Indirect compensation includes
incentives, medical benefits, reward employees receive in exchange for
performing organizational tasks. Compensation is direct and indirect wages.
Direct compensation includes wages, salaries, bonuses or commission based on
performances, overtime work, holiday premium, while indirect compensation is
paid as medical benefits, housing allowance, meal allowance, utility
allowances, incentive bonus, shift allowances, hospitalization expenses, out of
station allowance, vehicle loan benefits, annual leave allowances, car basic
allowances, and so on. Thus, one can rightly refer to compensation as atype of
reward that a teacher receives or is given in exchange for his job performance.
Job performance is something a single
person does. It refers to an act of accomplishing or executing a given task. It
refers to how the various duties associated with an employee’s job description
is accomplished or carried out at a given time. Adeyemi (2009) sees teachers’
job performance as something measured through a rating of teacher’s activities
in terms of performance in teaching, lesson preparation, lesson presentation,
actual teaching and teacher commitment to job, extra-curricular activities,
supervision, effective leadership, motivation and morale among others.
Within the school context, Kant (2014)
clearly noted that job performance of a teacher covers: effective teaching,
lesson note preparation, effective use of scheme of work, effective
supervision, monitoring of students’ work and disciplinary ability. He noted
that teachers’ job performance could be measured through the annual performance/evaluation
report of teachers. The report measures teachers’ activities in terms of
performance in teaching, lesson preparation, and lesson presentation, mastery
of subject matter, competence, teachers’ commitment to job and extra-curricular
activities. Kant (2014) further classified the duties of a teacher into two (2)
major sub-groups namely - instructional and administrative duties. The instructional
and administrative duties are the tasks a teacher is expected to perform
inclass or in school, on behalf of the school authority respectively. The
former (instructional duties) include: class teaching, lesson note preparation,
students’ note supervision, syllabus interpretation, and classmanagement among
others while the latter dimension (administrative duties) include: conducting ofstudents
on the assembly ground, managing the school laboratory and workshop, planning
the programme for the year; financial management; project development;
organization of school co-curricular activities, taking staff meeting agenda and
so on. More often than not, decisions on these duties are often taken by principals
and selected teachers or the principal only.
Ndu and Anogbov (2007) noted that where
teachers are not involved in governance or decision making matter of the
school, it results in teachers behaving as if they are strangers within the
school environment. Thus, most teachers do not put in their best in giving full
sense of dedication to the school activities. They further asserted that where
teachers are adequately involved in decision making process, there would be commitment
and adequate support for the principal, dedication to the realization of school
goal would be easy, apathy and opposition within the school would be minimized
and teachers’ job performance would be influenced.
It
has been observed that in most schools where instructional and physical
resources are inadequate or not provided compensation and support for capacity
building through training and development is usually poor. Teachers’ salaries
are usually delayed while their allowances and fringe benefits remain unpaid.
Such schools employ a few teaching staff and neither give financial or
administrative support for teacher seminars, workshops, conferences nor even
provide on-job training to enhance teachers’ skills and proficiency.
Consequently, teachers that are victims of these challenges do their job
haphazardly and poorly carry out their duties at school.
When an employee enjoys the work
environment and the various tasks that characterized his/her job situation, it
is expected that such a worker would have a strong desire to come to work and
perform assigned duties diligently. But the contrary is the case with some
teachers on a daily basis in public secondary schools in Edo State as a lot of
negative work behaviour such as lateness, absenteeism, lack of zeal in carrying
out assigned tasks, sneaking out of school to run private businesses, trading
in the school premises are exhibited by them on a daily basis. Observation has
shown that many of them avoid classes and stay in the staffroom during their
lesson period. They only give their lesson notes (prepared from home) to the
class representative to write or dictate for other students to copy in class.
This unwholesome attitude to work
suggests that these teachers are greatly confronted withsome challenges
responsible for the manner in which they carry out their duties. Furthermore,
studies have been undertaken on challenges influencing teacher’s job
performance in Nigeria (Okobia, 2011; Adejumobi&
Ojikutu, 2013; Obineli, 2013;Apagu & Wakili, 2015). Okobia
(2011)investigated teachers’ access to instructional materials and found it to
be a significant predictor of teachers’ job performance in Delta State.Adejumobi and Ojikutu (2013) determined the
relationship between school climate and teachers job performance in Lagos State
and found that leadership style and disciplinary problems constitute the most
significant challenges affecting teachers. Apagu and Wakili (2015) and Obineli
(2013) similarly conducted their studies on teacher challenges in Anambra and
Yobe States and identified: access to teaching facilities, administrative
support and compensation as factors affecting teachers’job performance. These
studies were all conducted beyond Edo State region, and only investigated one
or more teacher challenges within selected schools in one local government.
Hence, a knowledge gap exists on teachers’ challenges as correlate of their job
performance in Edo State. Therefore, this study is an attempt to fill this gap by
investigating teachers’ challenges as correlate of their job performance in publicsecondary
schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State.
The purpose of this study is to examine
teachers’ challenges as correlate of their job performance in public secondary
schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State. Specifically, the study
sought to:
1
determine the challenges confronting
public secondary school teachers in Edo North Senatorial District;
2
determine teachers’ level of job
performance in secondary schools in Edo North Senatorial District;
3
find out the relationship between
secondary school teachers’ job challenges and their job performance in Edo
North Senatorial District;
4
examine whether access to instructional
materials for teaching influence the job performance of teachers in public
secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State;
5
find out whether availability of
physical resources in schools influence the job performance of teachers in
public secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State;
6
determine whether access to training and
development programmes influence teachers’ job performance in public secondary
schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State;
7
determine whether involvement of
teachers in school’s decision making processes influence their job performance
in public secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State;
8
examine whether access to compensation
packages influence teachers’ job performance in public secondary schools in
North Senatorial District of Edo State; and
9
determine the challenge(s) that
significantly predict teachers’ job performance in North Senatorial District of
Edo State
This study was guided by the
following research questions:
1) What
are the job challenges confronting public secondary school teachers in Edo
North Senatorial District?
2)
What is the level of public secondary
school teachers’ job performance in Edo North Senatorial District?
3)
Is there relationship between secondary
school teachers’ job challenges and their job performance in Edo North
Senatorial District?
4)
Does access to instructional materials
for teaching influence teachers’ job performance in public secondary schools in
North Senatorial District of Edo State?
5)
Does availability of physical resources
in schools influence job performance of teachers in public secondary schools in
North Senatorial District of Edo State?
6)
What is the influence of teachers’ training
and development programmes on their job performance in public secondary schools
in North Senatorial District of Edo State?
7)
Does involvement of teachers in school’s
decision making processes influence their job performance in public secondary
schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State?
8)
What is the influence of teachers’ access
to compensation packages on their job performance in public secondary schools
in North Senatorial District of Edo State?
9) Which
of these challenge(s) significantly predict teachers’ job performance in North Senatorial
District of Edo State?
Research Hypotheses
The following research hypotheses were tested
in the study:
1) There
is no significant relationship between public secondary school teachers’ job
challenges and their job performance in Edo North Senatorial District
2)
There is no significant relationship
between access to instructional materials and teachers’ job performance in public
secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State
3)
There is no significant relationship
between availability of physical resources in schools and job performance of
teachers in public secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State
4)
There is no significant relationship
between teachers’ training and development programmes and their job performance
in public secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State
5)
There is no significant relationship
between teachers’ involvement in school’s decision making processes and their
job performance in public secondary schools in North Senatorial District of Edo
State
6) There
is no significant relationship between teachers’ access to compensation
packages and their job performance in public secondary schools in North
Senatorial District of Edo State
This study will be of benefit to the Federal
and State governments, principals and school heads, teachers and prospective
researchers. The study was designed to provide useful information on teacher
challenges in secondary schools. Hence,it was hoped that the findings of this
study wouldexpose to the Federal and State governments, some challenges
affecting teachers on their job at school. Identifying these challenges, would
help them develop problem-solving strategies.
To principals and school heads, the
findings of this work would help them to ascertain whether or not availability
of physical resources, access to instructional materials for teaching, access
to training and development programmes and involvement of teachers in school’s
decision making processes, affect the job performance of teachers in public secondary
schools in North Senatorial District of Edo State. Consequently, this could
help them to make amends where necessary as it may apply to their schools.
The findings will also afford public secondary
school teachers in North Senatorial District of Edo State, the opportunity of
determining the challenges confronting them on their job at school. Consequently,
the study could sensitizethem to improvise or seek alternatives (where
necessary) for the material and non-material needs affecting their performance,
that are not provided in their schools.
Finally, this study is also vital as it
would contribute to knowledge and add to the existing studies and literature
relating to teacher challenges and their job performance in Edo State. Hence,
the study could be of benefit to prospective researchers in future.
The study covered teachers’
challenges as correlates of their job performance in public secondary schools
in North Senatorial District of Edo State. North Senatorial District of Edo
State consists of six (6) local government areas, namely: Akoko Edo, Etsako
Central, Etsako East, Etsako West, Owan East and Owan West. The study
identified teacher challenges and determined their level of job performance in
the district. The study focused on the following teacher challenges:
availability of physical resources, access to instructional materials for
teaching, access to training and development programmes, involvement of teachers
in school’s decision making processes and access to compensation packages. Their
job performance covered: preparation of lesson note, teaching of students,
marking of student’s subject notes, giving students class exercises and
assignments, organizing students on the assembly ground and preparation of
students’ record. However, in order to determine, whether the findings in the
study were consistent with result from previous studies, the study was
undertaken among public secondary school teachers in North Senatorial District
of Edo State.The study was limited to only teachers in public secondary schools
in the district.
The following terms are operationally
defined in the study
Teacher challenges:
These are factors that affect teachers in the discharge of their duties at
school. The challenges in the study are: limited access to availability of
physical resources, access to instructional materials for teaching, access to
training and development programmes, teachers’ involvement in school’s decision
making processes and access to compensation packages.
Instructional
materials: These are books and non-book materials that help in
the teaching of learners in class. They cover: text books, chalkboard/magnetic
board, maps, charts, laboratory apparatus for science teachers, kitchen
utensils for home Economics teachers and farm implements for agricultural
science teachers.
Physical resources:
These are infrastructural materials that help teachers to perform their school
and class duties on a day-to-day basis. They are namely: tables, chairs, class
registers, teachers’ registers, books, stationery, fans, file cabinet, files
and computer devices such as computers, printers, and other computer storage
devices forteachers use.
Training and
development programmes: These are series of planned programmes
that help to enhance teacher’s skills and expertise on their subject of
specialization. They include: monthly or bi-monthly and in-door discussions for
teachers, bi-annual or annual teachers’ seminars, workshops, conferences,
specialized trainings and other on-job training programmes
Teachers’ involvement
in decision making: Thisis the deliberate involvement of
teachers or set of teachers in discussing matters bordering on: the school programme
for the year, financial management, development projects, organizing schoolfunctions,
co-curricular activities, resource allocation, conflict management, lesson
planning and preparation, teacher supervision, syllabus interpretation, staff
meeting agenda and introduction of new syllabi
Compensation:These
are all forms of monetary and non-monetary rewards that are given to employees
in return for their job performance
Job performance:
This refers to how well a teacher carries out his/her various duties at school.
In this work, teachers’ job performance covers: preparation of lesson note,
teaching of students, marking of students notes, giving students class exercises
and assignment, organizing of students during the assembly and preparation of students’
records
Level of job
performance: This operationally refers to high and
low performance of teacher on the following duties: preparation of lesson note,
teaching of students, marking of students’ subject notes, giving students class
exercises and assignments, conducting of students on the assembly ground and
preparation of students’ record as measured on a four point Likert scale of strongly
agree to strongly disagree stem. A bench mark of 2.50 rating or higher denotes
high job performance while a bench mark below 2.50 represents low performance
among teachers.
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