Instructional Skills Possessed by In-Service Teachers in SouthWestern Nigeria

Abstract

Parents, practitioners and policymakers agree that the key to improving public education in Nigeria is placing highly skilled teachers in all classrooms. However, studies reported that the challenges confronting Nigeria education system is attributed to some deficiencies in the structuring of teacher education, one of which is lack of needed instructional skills. It is in view of this that the study evaluated the instructional skills of in-service teachers in South West, Nigeria. The study further examined the extent to which teacher - factors such as teaching experience and academic qualifications influence possession of instructional   skills.

The study adopted a survey research design. Five hundred and twenty five (525) teachers in seven (7) local government areas in the Southwestern   Nigeria constituted the sample.  An adapted and validated instrument “Teachers’ Instructional Skills Utilization Scale†(r = 0.74), was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using percentages, t-    test and analysis of variance at 0.05 level of significance.

The study found that higher percentage of the participants possessed high instructional skills. The study found no significant difference in instructional skills possessed by experienced and less - experienced teachers. In terms of academic qualifications, there was no significant difference in analytical, design, development and evaluation skills possessed by the teachers. However, there was significant difference in the implementation skills among teachers with different teaching qualifications. (F (2, 522) = 3.408, p < 0.05).

Amongst others, it was recommended that Education Degree Programmes in Nigeria should emphisis acquisition of instructional skills for teaching effectiveness. It was also recommended that workshop and in-service training should be provided for the less experienced teachers because it was found that experienced teachers recorded higher mean scores in the skill areas.

Keywords: Instructional Skills, In-Service Teacher, Teacher Education, Systems Approach to Instruction, Educational Technology.