Influence of Teacher Characteristics on Physics Students’ Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools in Khana and Gokana Local Government Areas of Rivers State

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of teacher characteristics on physics students’ achievement in secondary schools in Khana and Gokana local government Area. Five research questions were formulated to guide the study and five hypotheses were tested for the study. The descriptive survey research design was adopted with a population 0f 1887. A sample of 553 was drawn with the aid of Krejcie and Morgan, out of which 20 were principal, 291 khana students, and 242 Gokana students. The instrument titled Influence of Teachers Characteristics on Physics Students Academic Achievement was used to elicit information from the respondents. The questionnaire was coded using 4 point rating scale of Strongly Agreed, Agreed, Disagreed and Strongly Disagreed. The instrument was duly validated by experts, while the Cronbach Alpha method of reliability was employed and it yielded the following indices: cluster one 0.75, cluster two 0.81, cluster three 0.67, cluster four 0.79, and cluster five 0.87.The research questions were answered using means and standard deviation, while the hypotheses were tested using z-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that; Teachers’ qualification promotes academic achievement among physics students; teachers’ attitude do not really influence academic achievement among physics students; teacher’s experience actually influenced academic achievement among physics; teacher’s gender also influences academic achievement among physics students, and that teacher’s age has no significant effect on academic performance of physics students in Khana and Gokana local government area. And recommended that: teachers should be given the opportunity to further their studies in order to increase their knowledge in physics; all teachers are role models and as such, expected to put up the best behaviour in the classroom; experience as usually said, is the best teacher, therefore teachers should explore themselves base on life experiences; every teacher should ad held to the morals operandi of the teaching profession both in dressing and in speech, and that aging is never a barrier in teaching. Meanwhile, both old and young should be given a chance to exhibit their hidden potentials.