INFLUENCE OF COMPETENCY LEVEL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE TEACHERS ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN EXTERNAL EXAMINATION
Abstract
Despite the importance of computer to society and students it is evident that students perform poorly in computer science external examination in secondary school. This study investigated the influence of competency level of computer science teachers on the academic performance of students in external examination. Three research questions and two hypotheses were generated and several literatures were reviewed.
Descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population of this study comprised of all computer science teachers and students in all junior secondary schools in Akoko South West local government area of Ondo state. The sample of the study consisted of twenty(20) teachers and two hundred secondary school students randomly selected in Akoko South-West Local Government Area of Ondo State which were randomly selected using purposive random sampling method see.. The instrument was given to the researcher’s supervisor who assessed the face and content validity. The research instrument was proven reliable after subjected to test-retest method of reliability. A correlation coefficients of 0.82 and 0.86 were obtained. Data collected from respondents were statistically analyzed using frequency counts and percentage was used to test the respondents’ social-demographic characteristics. The research questions raised in the study were analyzed using frequency count, grand mean and standard deviation.The research hypotheses was tested using independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test.
Findings from the study revealed that there is moderate level of proficiency in competency level of computer science teachers in secondary schools. The study also revealed that poor funding and lack of computer laboratory is the major challenges to the acquisition of computer skills by computer science teachers. Furthermore, there is a significant difference between the competency level of computer science teachers and students' performance in computer science in external examinations[t (19) =32.323, p0.05].
Based on the findings of the study, it is evident that the competency level of computer science teachers significantly impacts students' academic performance in external examinations. The study recommended among others that; school management should implement targeted training programs to improve the competency levels of computer science teachers; school authorities should allocate sufficient funding and provide adequate computer laboratory facilities in secondary schools to support effective teaching and learning of computer science.
Keywords: Competency level, computer science, academic performance
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