ABSTRACT
This study on teachers’ variables and students’ performance in accounting in Uyo Senatorial District sought to determine the extent to which teachers’ variables like qualification, teaching experience, gender, attitudes and communication style could affect students’ performance in accounting. The study adopted the ex-post facto research design. Five research questions and hypotheses were formulated for the study. The conceptual and empirical review of related studies indicated that teachers’ variables are capable of affecting the performance of students. A researcher-made instrument called Accounting Teachers’ Personal Scale (ATPS) and Accounting Achievement Test (ACAT) with overall reliability of .68 on Kuder Richardson 21 coefficient alpha scales were used to collect data from 360 subjects selected from a population of 1905 using the cluster systematic and random sampling technique. Data collection on 99% response rate were analyzed using simple percentages, mean score analysis, ANOVA and independent t-test statistics. The results showed that accounting students’ performance differ significantly based on teachers’ variables (qualification teaching experience, attitude, and communication styles). While teachers’ gender was observed as accounting students’ performance friendly. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that state government and stakeholders in education should promote training of teachers through scholarship, in-service training, workshops, seminars and symposia to up-grade teachers’ personal traits and improve students’ performance in accounting to ensure accountability in education.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the Study
Teachers are the implementers of curricular activities. They are important in setting the pace of any nation’s development. No nation is greater than the calibre of her teachers. They are the managers of students’ behaviour, attitude, skills, interest and patriotism needed for national development. Teachers’ development through training to gain the needed competencies is receiving global attention.Teachers’ variables has been identifies as capable of influence on effective teaching of school subjects withaccounting inclusive. This is because if teachers’ variables are appropriately adjusted, it can elicit greater learning gains in the learners. If it is poorly developed; it can affect achievement motivation of students adversely and jeopardize the goals of accounting education (Denga, 2007). It is therefore, rational to examine the influence of teachers’ variables on students’ performance in Accounting. This is because accounting is not a compulsory school subject but is one of the professional skills highly needed for economic development of the nation. It is the place of the teacher to make the subject attractive and of interest to students to affect students’ preference and choice of career in accounting profession.Teachers are expected to drill the students in the classroom to develop skills, knowledge an d competencies and subsequently enhance their performance during internal and external examinations. Diverse instructional skills development programmes are used in different countries to train teachers for effective instructional task performance.
In Nigeria, lesson study is an integral component of the teacher training programme while total quality management is adopted in schoolsthrough the assessment of the efficiency of teachers’ task performance. These strategic quality assurance techniques are applied in the teaching of accounting as one of the relevant subjects taught in Nigerian secondary schools. The demand for professional accountants, the esteem and incentives accorded to them in Nigeria is relatively high compared to other professional areas. Facility provision for accounting education has improved considerably in addition to information and communication technology (ICT) innovation that has ushered in accounting knowledge and media boom (Ebong, 2009).
Students who come to school are of different backgrounds. They have different ideas and goal. These make a teacher’s role more challenging. A teacher should have good skills and characteristics in order to succeed. One of the duties of a teacher is to manage the human (students), materials (instructional media and facilities), temporal (time-table or school schedule) and spatial (classroom space) resources of the classroom to guarantee effective teaching and learning. The teacher brings together in a careful manner those elements which help to create good teaching-learning conditions in a classroom. The teacher’s instructional effort is to increase gains and performance of students in school subjects.
Factors such as student’s variables (sex, attitude, age, locality, parental background), school variables (climate, hash environment, large class size) and teacher variables (qualification, experience, gender, attitude, communication pattern) have been identified to impede effective classroom management and students learning performance. A teacher must possess traits that enable him or her to use appropriate instructional methods to stimulate learning to ensure accountability in education. The relevance of accounting in education lies in the priority given to accounting as a profession. The channel and level of flow of funds within and out of an enterprise is shown through accounting (Ebong, 2009). Odetoyo (2009) identified one of the major objectives of accounting as the provision of financial information necessary for decision-making as it affects sources and application of funds. Accounting in education serves as a tool in the development of an understanding and appreciation of the values and possibilities of accounting for personal needs and for vocational preparation of students for further study. It assists to develop a clear and definite understanding of assets, liabilities and proprietorship, so that business situations and changes may be correctly interpreted. This indicates the need for proper instruction in accounting to increase students’ performance in the school subject.
The teaching of Accounting in senior secondary schools is not receiving the level of enthusiasms and popularity it deserves among teachers and learners (Otu, 2003). Accounting is one of the school subjects thought by teachers to SS 3 students who are preparing for their final year examinations. It is one of the core subjects relevant to all the organizations both business and public that are interested in keeping accounting records of their organizations. However, the number of accounting students produced yearly is comparatively low in relation to the products in other subject’s areas.
- Statement of the Problem
Accounting remains the rudiments of management and the basic skills and knowledge in this subject is taught in school. It is therefore the responsibility of teachers to properly teach this important subject. This expectation does not seem to be true despite the advocacy that students’ performance in accounting should be excellent. The increasing poor performance of student in internal and external examinations makes it rational to ask whether teachers are competent in handling the classroom or are performing their teaching role effectively. This is because teacher characteristics are like to affect their teaching effectiveness as well as students’ performance in school subjects. Many studies have been carried out on teachers teaching strategies, evaluation abilities, teachers’ welfare but little or no studies have been recorded in professional development of teachers’ personal characteristics and classroom management abilities. The important question here is whether teachers’personal traits in performing classroom management functions could influence academic performance of accounting students. This study is therefore set to find out if teachers’variables could affect academic performance of accounting students in secondary schools.
