TEACHER QUALITIES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION AMONG STUDENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN AKWA IBOM STATE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The study determined the relationship between teacher qualities and sustainable development in education among students in Secondary Schools in Uyo Education Zone of Akwa Ibom State. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to select from 8 schools. Two Research Questions and two Hypotheses were postulated that provided direction for this study. A single measure researcher-developed instrument, called Teachers’ Quality and Sustainable Development Scale (TEQSUDS) with reliability index of .87 on Cronbach Alpha was used to elicit data from 909 subjects of which 780 was suitable for data analyses; randomly selected from the study population of 6,532 SS2 students in the study area. The two Research Questions were answered and two Null Hypotheses were tested at .05 levels of significance using Linear Regression Statistics. The results for the research question 1 and 2 showed high degree of linear relationships, while the hypotheses 1 and 2 respectively indicated significant linear relationships. The study concluded that teachers train the mind, personality, behaviours, thought and these components of human beings seem to execute any form of development to affect the social structure of environment, interpersonal, technological and their economic well-being of the nation. It was recommended among others that teachers should be treated as professionals, so that their unique qualities can be tapped by their employers towards the articulation of education for sustainable development to revive social change, environmental change and economic emancipation of the citizens.
Key Words: Teachers’ quality, Education, Sustainable development, Secondary school students.
Introduction
Teachers’ quality seems to be widely known or inferred by all including non-school professionals in the society. Teacher qualities in the context of this study may be referred to as the characteristics of individual found in the classroom situation, performing the teaching activities in schools. These teaching activities include communication, instructions, conditioning, assessment and evaluation at the learning environment for proper sustainable societal development of students. These teaching activities in the learning situation may be effectively or ineffectively performed by teachers who have students’ well-being at the centre of their hearts. That is why, the characteristics of teachers who performed creditably are perhaps, recognised as effective, while those who perform poorly may be termed ineffective. The effective teacher may be the one who is a mentor, creative, thoughtful, emotionally stable, intelligent, objective in their approach among many others in the practice of teaching the students in schools.
However, a teacher is someone who possesses good and societal acceptable qualities that may promote environmental, social and economic development of children in the society. Such an individual can create, administer, control, assess and evaluates the potentials of students regarding learning outcome for future sustainability. To a great extent, a teacher should also be an educational psychologist and a researcher, who seems to use psychological knowledge to implement learning strategy that would benefit the learner. Notwithstanding, teachers are the pivot of the educational process, and the key team member in the entire education programme who can make or mar the best educational programme in the world (Arinde, 2010).
It appears that the needs of teachers are always felt in every aspect of the society. All other professionals and workers within the society have at one time or the other passed through the tutelage of a teacher and thus whatever they now become seems to be a direct outcome of what teachers have passed on to them (Effiong, 2012). Hence, teachers’ qualities may be impinged by their length of experience, intelligent quotients, professional training, speaking ability, attitudes, physical and mental fitness or health, coupled with other personal, social, and intellectual characteristics. Thus, teachers’ quality may likely determine the level of teaching effectiveness and standards of education. Hence, Federal Republic of Nigeria (2004) offered that no education system can rise above the quality of its teachers. This implies that the level of knowledge, intellectual capacities, educational exposures, qualifications and experiences acquired by teachers seem to ascertain how much learning competence they can deliver to influence sustainable development of the learner.
Teachers are human engineers and their engineering activities perhaps, seem to center on the development of human in the holistic perspectives, which may affects environment, social and economic spheres of life. These developments tend to help the students’ sustainable living standards they taught and sustainability could be achieved if there is an iota of effective modelling, the design of effective instructional aid and proper implementation of curriculum in school. Teachers’ qualities identified in this study may include architectural and modelling qualities. Architectural quality of teachers involves their ability to plan, create and design learning environment to be conducive for learners, originate achievable curriculum, construct instructional aid and initiate discipline tone that may make the learner to benefit maximally in learning.
A teacher, just like an architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the learning process, activities and learning environments. A teacher is an architectural designer who can draw, create artistic designs, label the designs, sketch, measure, model and use professional terms to provide meanings to the concept created, which could perhaps, be useful for development of knowledge and learning. Consequently, teachers provide services in connection with the design of curriculum, design and planning of lessons, and aesthetic design of the classroom space with the principal purposes of having that is conducive for learning experience. Besides, teaching is an art in the sense that teachers, like creative painters, composers, actors or actresses and dancers, make judgment which may be based largely on qualities that unfold during the course of action at the display of professionalism. The teacher determine the qualitative forms of intelligence, which might be used to select, control and organize classroom behaviours such as tempo, tone, climate, and pace which may facilitate discussions and conducive movement. This entails that the architectural displays of this particular learning environment may possibly influence the learning patterns, and the atmospheres conducive for effect learning gains amongst students.
It has been observed that classroom design features impact on teaching and learning (Brown & Long, 2006; Chism & Bickford, 2002; Chism, 2006; Lomas & Oblinger, 2006; Oblinger, 2006). However, teachers’ creative or effective classroom designs may likely foster general purpose benefits that allow for student-centred, flexible and active learning spaces. Whiteside and Fitzgerald (2005) reported that table settings, furniture layout, display of class marker-boards, aesthetics educational decoration with informative academic displays make the learning environment flexible and the space would attracts students for sustainable learning attention.
A teacher as an architect is a resourceful individual, who may have the ability to approach problems in different and creative ways. Such an individual possess the ability to create and pursue solutions from more than one direction. This is because resourcefulness seems not to be a built-in ability, but may be learned overtime through a variety of experiences. To a great extent, one gives out what one has. It is observed that high quality students, no doubt, might pass through an equally high quality group of teachers in their corresponding high quality supporting instructional materials (Arinde, 2010). Etiubon (2015) offered that a resourceful teacher finds ways to overcome difficulties in teaching and also knows how to devise means of approaching a problem in different ways, even in difficult situations. For example, instead of photocopying large bulky instructional materials, a resourceful teacher seems to create an enabling education classroom environment where all learning activities are performed with ease. The quality of teachers thus exerts great influence on the quality of educational output (Etiubon, 2015). The quality of the teachers such as capacity for approaching things in a novel manner, initiative, originality, creativeness and enterprise seems to be an essential indicator in the measurement of the efficiency of the sustained school system, which may actually model students’ personality.
Modelling as teacher’s quality seems to involve the act of teaching students pattern of behaviours or conditioning them to be in tune with the acceptable norms imbibed with values expected of them in the society. It is an important component or quality of a teacher. A teacher who is recognized as a model may possess characteristics such as initiative, foresight, patience, respect, sympathy, flexibility, firmness, honesty, intellectual curiosity and keenness (Effiong, 2012). Modelling is described as the practice of intentionally displaying certain teaching behaviour with the aim of promoting student/teacher professional learning (Gallimore & Tharp, 1992). Teachers’ quality as a role model may have impact on the children’s healthy living standards in the society. Lunenberg, Korthagen and Swennen (2007) asserted that teachers can transfer development of flexible, decontextualised expertise and dimensions of new learning paradigm through modelling. Bandura (2001) iterated that new patterns of behaviours such as hatred, love and compromise are sustained among individuals in their culture through the instrument of modelling. Hence, it is postulated that a creative teacher trains creative and innovative minds that may become inventors in the next future.
Besides, teachers with ethical virtue such as honesty, trustworthy, humble are morally and socially valued. Such teachers tend to display good characters; they are expected to teach and discipline their students to be respectful of authority, honour their leaders and responsible in completing their lessons. A person of character who has the wisdom to know right from wrong: is honest, trustworthy, fair, respectful and responsible, admit and learns from mistakes; and commits to living according to these principles (Lumpkin, 2008). Perhaps, the translation of new methods of learning may be impossible if there is no teacher who seems not to model such behavioural personality trait in children. According to Lomas and Oblinger (2006), the teachers’ qualitative evaluation is exercised in the interest of achieving a qualitative educational end. These qualities are great qualities and they may be associated with complete development of individuals for sustainable life endeavours in the society. Effiong (2012) offered that teachers who possess great qualities are those that are warmth, friendly, orderly, stimulating and imaginative, while teachers with low qualities are always aloof, appears unplanned, dull and appears egocentric in speaking. Teacher with remarkable qualities may likely be democratic in their relationships with students and design stimulating classroom situations that could promote outstanding learning gains, while those teachers with low qualities may hinder effective educational processes, through their selfish and unapproachable behaviours with the students in schools.
Adul-Kareem (2001) noted that education is an inevitable tool for sustainable development and a vehicle for advancing the frontier of knowledge. Often times, education are being portrayed as a process of imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes to the learners, and may be arranged in schools for purpose of total development of the children (Okoro & Effiong, 2015). Ogunwuyi (2010) argued that education should be globally adopted as an agent of change and stability to promote probity, equity and equality of opportunities and a launching pad for sustainable human development. Hence, the concept of sustainable development is an arrangement of responsible thinking concerning the future stability that may positively affect the environment, social and economic position of healthy living of individuals in a particular society. UNESCO (2012) defined sustainable development as a paradigm for thinking about a future in which environmental, social and economic considerations are balanced in the pursuit of development and an improved quality of life. The environment, social and economic standing of a place may not be balanced except there is a functional education that help to create awareness towards the initiation of good mindsets.
Tillbury (2011) posited that education for sustainable development involves the changing of mindsets and active engagement of the learner in matters relating to more sustainable future. Hence, education for sustainable development portrays the exploration of economic, political, social and environment to gain knowledge, and values that would emancipate the quality of life of the learner for sustainability. Many researchers observed that sustainable development in education is necessary when the current education standard, learning processes and practices are not generally in conformity with the expected transformative view of education (Lotz Sisitka, 2006; Fien, Maclean & Park, 2009). Education for sustainable development (ESD) must explore the economic, political and social implications of sustainability by encouraging learners to reflect critically on their own areas of the world, to identify non-viable elements in their own lives and to explore the tensions among conflicting aims. (UNESC, 2002 p.12).
Thus ESD supports the processes, which stimulate innovation within curricula as well as through teaching and learning experiences. No other individual may be capable of stimulating curricula with innovation most than teachers, whose responsibilities are to nurture, train, condition and impart ideas, values and discipline into the life of the learner for a wealthy sustainable development. Hence, teachers’ qualities may influence education for sustainable development in many perspectives as far as teaching-learning is concerned. Teachers are architects and models that can create opportunity for change of attitudes to affect social behaviours, perception of the environment; nurture the learners to accept gender equality, peaceful living and tolerance, preserve environment and restore social justice in the society, which all features of sustainable development. This is because teachers themselves are peacemakers, humble, reserved, promoters of equity and fostering of desirable behaviours in the society are characters of teachers. To a large extent, learning theories of Bandura (1971) can best explain how the process of teachers’ modelling and architectural qualities would benefit the learners in the pursuit of education for sustainable development in the study area; and Bronfenbrenner (1974) theory explained further how a pattern of activities and social roles in interpersonal interactions, experienced by the developing person in a given face-to-face interactive settings with physical, social and symbolic features of relationships tend to invite, permit, or inhibit engagement in sustained, progressively more complex interaction with activity in the immediate environment for sustainable living.
Statement of the Problem
It seems that the values of teachers are always needed in every aspect of the society. To an extent that all other professionals and workers within the society may have at one time or the other passed through the tutelage of a teacher, and whatever they now become seems to be a direct outcome of what teachers have passed on to them. Teachers themselves appear to be an important element for the successful implementation of education curriculum and impartation of knowledge to students towards sustainable future. It is postulated in this study that teachers job is more than just teaching, but designs, planning, modelling, labelling, instructing among others. Lack of recruitment of qualified teachers from government and organizations directly or indirectly makes educational system in Akwa Ibom State in particular and Nigeria at large a quantum leap of business with unqualified personnel who teach without the architectural and moelling skills. The problem of this study is that teachers’ quality have not been considered and valued, hence the experiences of running the education system with quarks never made the education system to be aligned with the transformative view of educational expectations that would foster environmental, social, technological and economic sustainability for healthy living. Hence, the researcher inquires whether teachers’ quality may have influence on sustainable development of secondary schools students in the study area.
Objective of the study
The objective of this study specifically sought to:
- Determine the relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
- Determine the relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
Research Questions
- What is the relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development in education among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
- What is the relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development in education among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
Null Hypothesis
- There is no significant relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
- There is no significant relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development among students in secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State.
Research Method
Research Design
The descriptive survey research design was used for this study. The choice of this design was due to the fact that the researcher sought to determine whether teachers’ qualities can influence sustainable development in education.Akwa Ibom State is the research area of this study; created 23rd September 1987. Uyo Education Zone is one of the three education zones in Akwa Ibom State. Uyo Education Zone has 9 Local Education Committees and 86 public secondary schools. The choice of the Uyo Education Zone is because the researcher easily assessed the schools sampled for convenient sampling, taking cognizance of the period of this conference. The population for this study was all the 18,197 Senior Secondary two (SS2) students (8007 male and 10,190 female) (State Secondary Education Board, School Admission Record Unit, University of Uyo, Uyo – 2014/2015 Session). The total sample for this study consisted of 909 students (410 males and 499 females) representing 5 percent of the study population. The Stratified random sampling technique was adopted to select a representative sample. SS2 students formed the strata that were drawn from senior secondary school classes using hat and draw method.
The instrument for the data collection in this study was a well-structured questionnaire. A researcher-developed instrument called Teacher Qualities and Sustainable Development Scale (TEQSUDS) was used for data collection. The instrument appeared in sections, A and B. Section A (part 1) obtained personal information from the respondents, while section B elicited information from the variables of teacher qualities such as architectural quality and a role model with four items each. Architectural quality for example, My teacher always teach us with artistic drawings, and as a role model “My teachers always educate morals before the topic of the day commences” and. Part two described the scale of sustainable development in education, for example “I will love to maintain my social status in life like my teacher”, “I should be resourceful as my teacher”. The instrument was measured on a 4-points summated scale with the weight of 4 – 1, from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. The instrument was personally administered to the study area, after obtaining the permission from the Principals of Schools by the researcher. Out of 909 copies of the questionnaire administered to the respondents, 810 were received and 780 were valid for data analysis.
The contents and face validities of the researchers’ constructed instrument for this study was ascertained by experts in Educational Psychology, and measurement and evaluation. Two experts in educational psychology and one in measurement and evaluation properly scrutinized, rigorously checked the accuracy and corrected the instrument. An internal consistency with the Cronbach Alpha coefficient of .87 was ascertained, through a pilot test of 20 SS2 students of public secondary schools in Ikot Ekpene Education Zone in Akwa Ibom State. This study used Linear Regression statistics of degree of relationships to answer Research Questions and correlation coefficient for testing of the Hypotheses. The data analysis was done hypothesis by hypothesis. However, all the hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance.
Results
The results of data analyses of this study are presented in tables 1 to 4 below:
Research Question 1
What is the relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable educational development of SS2 Students?
Table 1: Model Summary Linear Regression degree of relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development of SS2 students in Akwa Ibom State
N = 780
| Model | R | R Square | Adjusted R Sq. |
Mean |
SD |
Std. Error of the Estimate |
Rxy |
p-val |
| Architectural Quality | .780a | .608 | .607 | 7.875 | 2.31 | 1.54852 | .73 | .000 |
| Sustainable Development | 8.775 | 2.47 |
**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, df = 788 (2-tailed).
The result of Research Question 1 in Table1 reveales 73 per cent degree of relationship and 60.8 per cent variance of predictor variable explained the dependent variable. The r (1, 778) = .73, Mean = 7.875, SD = 2.31; Mean = 8.775, SD = 2.47; R = 78 per cent and coefficient of determination (R2) = 60.7 per cent; 2-tailed test at .05 level of significance. This result shows high degree of relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development among participant in this study
Research Question 2
What is the relationship between Modelling Quality of teachers and sustainable educational development of SS2 Students?
Table 2: Linear Regression analysis degree of relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable educational development of SS2 students in Akwa Ibom State? N = 780
| Model | R | R Square | Adjusted R Sq. |
Mean |
SD |
Std. Error of the Estimate |
rxy |
p-val |
| Architectural Quality | .850a | .705 | .704 | 8.090 | 2.54 | 1.59852 | .84 | .000 |
| Sustainable Development | 8.775 | 2.47 |
**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, df = 1, 778 (2-tailed).
The result of Research Question 2 in Table 2 indicates 84 per cent degree of relationship and 70.4 per cent variance of predictor variable explained in the dependent variable. The r (1, 778) = .84, Mean = 8.090, SD = 2.54; Mean = 8.775, SD = 2.47; R = 85 per cent and coefficient of determination (R2) = 70.5 per cent; 2-tailed test , df = 1, 778 at .05 level of significance. This result shows high percent degree of relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development among participant in this study.
Testing the Null Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1
There is no significant relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable educational development of SS2 Students?
Table 3: Linear Regression test of significant relationship between architectural quality of teachers and sustainable development among SS2 students in Secondary Schools in Akwa Ibom State
N = 780
|
Variable
|
Sustainable Development (log) DV | Architectural Quality |
B |
β |
sr2
(unique) |
| Architectural quality | 0.780a | 0.608 | 0.782 | 0.729 | .000 |
|
t = 27.33 |
R2 = .532a
Adjusted R2 = .531 R = .729a |
||||
a f (1, 778) = 770.17, p < .05. **p < .01
The result of Hypothesis 1 in Table1 reveals calculated r (1, 778) = .73, at < .05 levels of significance; critical t –value of 1.96 with 2-tailed test. The predictor variable of architectural quality of teachers has explained 0.608 variance of predictor variable in the dependent variable. This result shows that the r-calculated value is greater than the critical p-value at .05 level of significance with 1, 778 degree of freedom. The Hypothesis 1 is rejected, implying that there is significant linear relationship between architectural qualities of teachers and sustainable development among secondary schools students in the study area.
Hypothesis 2
What is the relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable educational development of SS2 Students?
Table 4: Linear Regression test of significant relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development among SS2 students in Secondary Schools in Akwa Ibom State N = 780
|
Variable
|
Sustainable Development (log) DV | Modelling Quality |
B |
β |
sr2
(unique) |
| Modelling quality | 0.850a | 0.705 | 0.814 | 0.850 | .000 |
|
t = 32.42 |
R2= .705a
Adjusted R2 = .704 R = .850a |
||||
a f (1, 778) = 80.05, p < .05. **p < .01
The result of Hypothesis 2 in Table1 reveals calculated r (1, 778) = .850, at < .05 levels of significance; critical t –value of 1.96 with 2-tailed test. The predictor variable of modelling quality of teachers has explained 0.705 variance of predictor variable in the dependent variable. This result shows that the r-calculated value is greater than the critical p-value at .05 level of significance with 1, 778 degree of freedom. The Hypothesis 2 is rejected, entails that there is a significant linear relationship between modelling quality of teachers and sustainable development among secondary schools students in the study area.
Discussion of Findings
Hypothesis 1 indicated a significant linear relationship between architectural qualities and sustainable development in education among students in secondary schools in Uyo Education Zone in Akwa Ibom State. Hence, Hypothesis 1 is rejected. The findings exposed that teacher is someone who can plan, design, measure, instructs, interpret the design through the use of professional terms to label teaching aids for effective impartation of knowledge to students, through their resourceful architectural qualities. This study is in agreement with Whiteside and Fitzgerald (2005) who reported that table settings, furniture layout, display of class marker-boards and esthetic design features including the availability, aesthetics educational decoration with informative academic displays make the learning environment flexible and the space would attracts students for sustainable learning attention.
This study is in support of Etiubon (2015) who reported that a resourceful teacher finds ways to overcome difficulties in teaching and also knows how to devise means of approaching a problem in different ways, even in difficult situations. Hence, teachers as human engineers with specialty in architecture used their architectural knowledge to explore creativity for effective inculcation of attitude and skills to student. They teach the students how to design, draw, count, measure, and structural designs such as house, pencil, bags, car among others in the classroom. That is why there is always a teacher before an engineer, an architect, a regional planner among others. A teacher sketches the designs as sample in the classroom before an architect model the designs public consumption. Consequently, teachers provide services in connection with the design of curriculum, plan lessons, and decorate the classroom space with the principal purpose of having environment conducive for learning experience.
Hypothesis 2 is rejected. The finding of Hypothesis 2 revealed that there is significant linear relationship between teachers’ modelling quality and sustainable development of education among students in the study area. The result of this study is not unconnected with researches (Gallimore & Tharp, 1992), who found modelling as the practice of intentionally displaying certain teaching behaviour with the aim of promoting student/teacher professional learning and (Lunenberg, Korthagen & Swennen, 2007) who espoused that teachers can transfer development of flexible, decontextualised expertise and dimensions of new learning paradigm through modelling for sustainable living. Teachers model good characters that tend to impact on the children’s healthy living standards in the society. Notwithstanding, a teacher of good character has the wisdom to know right from wrong: is honest, trustworthy, fair, respectful and responsible, admit and learns from mistakes; and commits to living according to these principles (Lumpkin, 2008). This study is in harmony with other researches (Brown & Long, 2006; Chism & Bickford, 2002; Chism, 2006; Lomas & Oblinger, 2006) which claimed that classroom design features impact on teaching and learning.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Teachers’ quality has been recognized as a value and virtue that makes teachers to be someone the society would always sought for. This is because teachers are those individuals that tend to proffer solutions to societal problems through educational process and they have indefatigable contributions that can create opportunities to positively affect our environmentally, socially, technologically and economic well-beings of citizens of Nigeria. However, this study further identified teachers’ quality as one of the important components that can foster unity and drive sustainable development in education of Nigeria. This is based on the fact that education is the foundation for any meaningful development and sustainability since no development can be achieved without the education of human component of the society. Thus, teachers train the mind, personality, behaviours, thought and these components of human beings seem to execute any form of development to affect the societal structure of environment, interpersonal, technological, and their economic well-being. Maybe in other nations, teachers have been carefully handled to have achieved sustainable development. Nonetheless, Nigeria should not be an exception to ensure educational sustainability that would drive other sectors to accomplishment. Based on the foregoing, the study recommends as follows:
- Teachers should be treated as professionals, so that their unique qualities can be tapped by their employers towards the articulation of education for sustainable development to revive social change, environmental change and economic emancipation of the nation.
- Government should be sincere with the activities of education such as sponsorship, subventions, investment through budgetary provisions, and build schools for conducive learning opportunities.
- The government of Nigeria should mount favourable policy to protect teachers’ profession, with the knowledge that education is the bedrock for national and sustainable development. This is because, without the implementation of functional education, the nation strives in vain. Most specifically, government should not allow unprofessional teachers recruited and teach in schools to ensure accountability and integrity in the teaching learning process.
- There should be stringent criteria in the approval of establishment of private schools in the State and Nigeria at large for check and balance of dignity in education as well as the quality of graduate produced for the labour market.
- Opportunity should be created for qualified teachers to teach quality manners, and experiment their architectural characteristics and exhibit good moral etiquette as a role model to the new set of leaders at secondary school level being the foundations in education towards sustainable development in the nation.
- Teachers’ condition of service should be treated with consideration of their input in the society, their enumerations should be provided in the first-line chart of government’s financial disbursement towards the developmental process and education for sustainable development should be articulated as a programme of government to revive social change, environmental change, economical change and change of reasoning.
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