DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING SCHEME TO IMPROVE TEACHERS’ COMPETENCE AND STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS IN ABEOKUTA, OGUN STATE

Abstract

Over the years, examination bodies have observed low achievement in demanding mathematical questions such as mensuration, trigonometric-graph and construction. Past studies investigating the effect of teaching strategies on enhancing students’ achievement in mMathematics suggest that teaching competence is low among teachers. This study therefore developed a Professional Learning Scheme (PLS)into two packages: the Professional Learning Scheme with Enhanced Supportive Skill (PLS+ESS) and Professional Learning Scheme Only (PLS ONLY).The packages were tried on teachers after assessing the level of their teaching competence. Moderating effects of teachers’ dispositionand yearsand years of teaching were also examined. The study wasanchored to Social Cognitive Theory. It adopted descriptive and pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental designs. Thirty schools from two Local Government Areasin Abeokuta metropolis were randomly selected with 15 schools from each from each LGA,with 15schools from each LGA. Ten selected selected schools were assigned to each of the two experimentalgroups and one control group. All the SSS1teachers (33) and their students (1552) participated in the study. The PLS was administered on teachers who used it to teach students concurrently for eight weeks.The instruments used were the The instrumentsedwere the Professional Learning Scheme Content Essential Scale (CVI=0.91), Teachers’ Competence Observational Tool (π=0.73), Teacher Disposition Scale (r=0.61) and Student Mathematics Achievement Test (KR-20=0.83). DData were subjected to descriptive statisticsand analysis of covariance at 0.05 level of significance. Content validity indices of the components of the PLS ranged between 0.53 and 0.99. There was a significant main effect of treatment on teachers’ competence (F(2, 26)=32.51, partial η2=0.71) and students’ mathematics achievement (F(2,1535)=51.52, partialη2=0.63). Teachers in PLS ONLY had the highest mean competence score (82.19), followed by PLS+ESS (81.80) and the control (39.60) groups. Students in PLS ONLY had the highest mean achievement score (21.26), followed by PLS+ESS (18.32) and the control (16.02).There was a significant main effect of the theteachers’years of teaching (F(2,1535)=7.60,partial η2=0.01)and disposition (F(2,1535)=2.21,partial η2=0.001) on students’ mathematics achievement.Teachers with high years of teaching had the highest students’ achievement score (20.09), followed by moderate (18.15) and low years of teachingyears of teaching (18.01). The students taught by teachers with “high” disposition had higher achievement score (18.83) relative to those taught by teachers with “low” disposition (18.58). Teachers’ disposition and years of teaching had no significant effect on teachers’ competence. The two-way interaction effects of treatment and years of teaching (F(4,1535)=6.02, partial η2=0.02), treatment and disposition (F(2, 1535)=5.85, partial η2=0.01) as well as years of teaching and disposition (F(2,1535)=9.82,partial η2=0.01) were significant on students’ mathematics achievement. Apparently, Tthe provision of ESS became a distraction tolimited teachers’s input, explaining why PLS ONLY recorded the highest achievement score. The three-way interaction effect of treatment, years of teaching and disposition was significant on students’mathematics achievement (F(2,1535)=25.40, partial η2=0.03). The Professional Learning Scheme package designed improved the teachers’ competence and students’ achievement in Mmathematics. Mathematics teachersare,therefore, encouraged to adoptthe Professional Learning Scheme Only to improve their competence in order to produce students with better achievement in Mmathematics.