Perception of teachers' knowledge, attitude and teaching skills as predictor of academic performance in Nigerian secondary schools

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship/effect of students’ perception of teachers’ knowledge of subject matter, attitude to work and teaching skills on students’ academic performance. The population consisted of senior secondary three (SS.III) students in the South West Nigeria senior secondary schools. The study sample consisted of 1600 purposively selected SSS III students from 15 selected secondary schools. A questionnaire with four sections was developed and administered on the subjects. It is a test battery with section A containing the demographic data and the remaining three sections containing twenty items each. The instrument has a test-retest reliability of 0.64 over a period of two weeks (n = 40, r = 0.64, ρ = < .05) an internal consistency (K - R20) reliability of 0.72 (ρ < .05) and a Cronbach coefficient alpha 0.70. The collected data were analyzed using simple percentages, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and chi-square statistics to test the three hypotheses generated in the study. The result show that students’ perception of teachers’ knowledge of subject matter, attitude to work and teaching skills has a significant relationship on students’ academic performance.   Key words:  Perception, Teachers' knowledge, attitude and teaching skills, Predictors of academic performance.