- Format
- Pages
- Chapters
The Effects Of Qualification Of English Teachers On The Performance Of Secondary School Students In External Examinations (A Case Study Of Selected Schools In Karu Local Government Area)
The Effects Of Qualification Of English Teachers On The Performance Of Secondary School Students In External Examinations (A Case Study Of Selected Schools In Karu Local Government Area)
INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Many factors contribute to a student’s academic performance, including individual characteristics, family and
Neighbourhood experiences. But research such as Jordan, Mend
ro and Weersinge (1997) suggests that among
school related factors, teachers matter most. When it comes to student performance on reading and math tests,
a teacher is estimated to have two or three times the impact of any other school factor, including ser
vices,
facilities and even leadership (Mohammed and Yusuf, 2015).
Effective teachers are best identified by their performance not by their background or experiences. Despite
common perceptions, effective teacher cannot reliably be identified based on whe
re they went to school,
whether they are registered or how long they are taught. The best way to asses teachers’ effectiveness is to
look at their on the
– job performance including what they do in the classroom and how much progress their
students make on
achievement tests. Quality teachers are considered to be those who bring about student
learning. (Harris and Sass, 2006)
The importance of good or quality teachers is no secret or it cannot be overemphasized. Schools have always
sought out the best teachers they could get in the belief that their students’ success depends on it. If teachers
are so important to student learning, how can schools make sure all students receive the benefit of
good/quality teachers?
More than two decades of research findings are unequivocal about the connection between teacher quality and
student learning. The report of the National Commiss
ion on teaching and America’s future (1996) made
teaching the core of its three simple promises in its blueprint for reforming the nation’s schools. They are:
what teachers know and can do is the most important influence on what students learn. Recruiting,
preparing
and retaining good teachers is the central strategy for improving schools. School reform cannot succeed
unless it focuses on creating the conditions under which teachers can teach well.
A highly effective teacher, therefore, is one whose stude
nts show the most gains from one year to the next. By
using this approach, researchers are able to isolate the effect of the teacher from other factors related to
student performance such as students’ prior academic record or school they attended. “
The
eff
ect of teaching
on student learning is greater than student
ethnicity
or family income, school attended by student or class size.
The effect is stronger for poor and or minority students than for their more affluent peers, although all groups
benefit from effective teachers. The effects accumulate over the years. The positive effects associated with
being taught by a highly effective teacher, defined as a teacher whose average student score gain is in the top
25% were stronger for poor and minority students
than for their white and affluent counter parts. The study
found that low income students were more likely to benefit from instruction by a highly effective teacher than
were their more advantaged peers
Van der Bergh and Roos, (2014). Another study found
that the achievement
gain from having a highly effective teacher could be almost three times as large for African American
students as for white students even when comparing students who start with similar achievement levels
(Sanders and Rivers 1996). All
of the foregoing necessitated the need to carry out this study. It against this
background that this study is undertaken to determine the impact of teacher qualification and experience on
students’ performance in Colleges of Education in Kaduna State.
A s
econd important finding from this work was that the positive effects of teacher quality appear to
accumulate over the years. That is, students who were enrolled in succession of classes taught by effective
teachers demonstrated greater learning gains than did students who had the least effective teachers one after
another. For example, 5
th
grade math student who had three consecutive highly effective teachers scored
between 52 and 54% percentile point ahead of students who had three consecutive teachers who
were least
effective even though the math achievement of both groups of students was the same prior to entering second
grade (Sanders and Rivers, 1996).
Review of Related Literature
Rivkin, Hamshek and Kain (2006
) found that teacher quality differences explained the largest portion of the
variation in reading and math achievement.
Jordan, Mendro and Weerasingle (1997) found that the difference between students who had three
consecutive highly effective teachers (again defined as those whose students sh
owed the most improvement
and those who had three consecutive low
-effect teachers (those with the least improvement) in the Dallas
schools was 34 percentile points in reading achievement and 49 percentile points in math.
There is growing interest in th
e professionaldevelopment of educators as the demands, expectations,and
requirements of teacher educationincreasingly come under scrutiny (Louhran2014). What the teacher does,
influences, thewhole process of learning. Effective teacher producesbetter perfo
rming students (Akiri
2013).Van den Bergh and Roos (2014) maintained thatprofessional development of teachers can beeffective
and sustainable, if certain conditionsare met (Curwood 2014). Besides, the analysisof Van den Bergh and
Roos (2014) suggestedthat the implementation of educational reforms,including reforms associated with
technologyintegration and literacy education, is often dependentupon teachers’ skills, values, and
culturalmodels. While hiring of qualified teachersis encouraged for improvement of academic
performance,theories from the study of Firestone(2014) caution that policies to remove ineffectiveteachers