Influence of Physics Teachers ' Characteristics on Students ' Physics Performance in Senior Secondary Schools in Ogun and Oyo States, Nigeria

Abstract

In this paper, the author examined the relationships between teacherqualification and teaching experience and teacher teaching skills and theeffects of the relationships on senior secondary school students ' performancein Physics. Teachers who studied Physics and education in university anddemonstrate appropriate teaching skills would encourage students to dowell in Physics. To test these hypotheses, forty senior secondary schoolPhysics teachers and 1560 senior secondary school Physics students wererandomly selected in Ogun and Oyo States in Nigeria. Each teacher wasobserved for 10 lessons and rated using Teacher-students InteractionObservation Schedule (r=0.78). Physics Performance Test was administeredto students after the classroom observation (r=0.88). The result of PearsonProduct Moment Correlation Coefficient among teacher qualifications(r=.29, p<0.05), teaching experience (r=.07, p<0.05) have significantrelation; 74% have a direct causal effect while 26% of the variables havean indirect effect on students ' performance in Physics. Adjusted Goodnessof Fit Index (AGFI), normed fit index (NFI), and comparative Fit Index(CFI) is 1.00. All these are perfect fits that reflect a good model fit. Resultsshowed that there was a significant relationship between teacher factorsand teaching skills on students ' performance in Physics. Therefore, it wasrecommended that the most qualified and experienced teachers shouldteach physics at the senior secondary school level.Keywords: students ' performance, teacher qualification, teaching experience,teaching skills, performance in physics