Teachers’ Classroom Management Abilities and Students’ Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in South-East, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the classroom management abilities of teachers and students’ academic performance in public secondary schools of the South-East, Nigeria. The study sought to determine the impact of classroom management abilities of teachers on students’ academic performance in English Language, Mathematics and Basic Science in public junior secondary schools. The design of the study was a survey, carried out using ex-post-facto. The population of the study comprised of 1,093 Principals and 25,976 teachers from the 21 education zones of the South-East States. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 2,674 (10%) principals and teachers from the educational zones.  Four research questions were posed and answered while three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. A sixty [60] item questionnaire were validated and the reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained. The research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation, while Chi-Square statistic was used to test the hypotheses. Findings revealed that teachers’ classroom management abilities have improved students’ academic performance to a moderate extent. However, there was significant impact of teachers’ classroom management abilities on students’ academic performance in English Language, Mathematics and Basic Science for the periods 2011 to 2013 in the South-East, Nigeria. It was recommended that, teachers who are well qualified should be employed to teach their subject areas to allow for optimal performance.

Keywords: Classroom Management, Teachers, Students, Academic Performance