Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
Abstract
This study examines the relationship between classroom supervision and students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Etim Ekpo local government area of Akwa Ibom State. The population of the study comprised all the secondary school students in Etim Ekpo Local Government Area. The target population was 2,340 Senior Secondary two (SS2) students in the area.
A sample size of 120 Senior Secondary two (SS2) students was used for the study. The design used was descriptive research method. Two research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The instrument used for data collection was Economics Achievement Test (EAT). The data collected was analyzed using independent t-test.
The findings revealed that: there is a significant relationship in the academic performance of students in economics taught with classroom supervision and those taught without and there is a significant with regular instructional supervision and their counterparts taught without regular instructional supervision.
It was recommended that, All the stakeholders in the education sector should collaborate to organize annual education summit for comprehensive review and assessment of the degree of success in producing the desired output and achieving the overall educational objectives to ensure sustainable improvement in resource inputs, institutional management, curriculum delivery and quality learning, and the school principals should provide constant and adequate feedback to teachers on their instructional task performance, and ensure periodic review by comparing students’ academic performance with the set goals in order to improve the teaching and learning process in secondary schools.
Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
The educational delivery system in Nigeria is fraught with myriad of challenges. These challenges include teacher deficit, inadequate infrastructure, wobbling educational policies and high cost of quality education. In the midst of some of these challenges, a lot of stakeholders have always focused more on the academic performance of students, failing to have a spot on the other processes through which excellent students’ academic performance is achieved.
Other processes that are usually overlooked are school-community relationship, stakeholders’ commitment, leadership and supervision styles of school managers. Researchers have always maintained that leadership and supervision styles as a rule reflect the academic performance in schools. classroom supervision is not only sensitive but also, a very broad subject. According to Bamroongraks (2006), supervision, is understood as “the instructional improvement of schools and teachers”.
History of education in Nigeria points it clear that supervision existed in our schools before independence. Supervision in Senior secondary Schools (SHS)has become topical as people have attempted to draw strong relationships between effective supervision of heads and the academic performance of students. Discourse in the supervisory roles of heads in SHS must not be treated lightly due to its consequences on academic performance.
Many studies have been conducted on supervision in schools but , none of them touched on the role of its effectiveness on Academic performance of secondary Schools in Etim Ekpo. It is against this background and its associated consequences that this study was undertaken. Supervision is an intervention that is provided by a senior member of a profession to a junior member or members of that same profession.
This relationship is evaluative, extends over time, and has the simultaneous purposes of enhancing the professional functioning of the junior professional(s), monitoring the quality of professional services offered to the clients she, he, or they see, and serving as a gatekeeper of those who are to enter the particular profession (Bernard & Goodyear, 2004). The heads in the secondary Schools do not only serve as senior professionals providing intervention to their teachers. They are also mandated to superintend over all other activities of the school but academic work being the central activity.
Supervision is viewed as a means or process to an end. This is supported by Brinker (2003; Landers & Myers, 2007) who opined that supervisors are expected to assess the extent to which educational objectives are actually being realized, to collect some data in terms of previously stated objectives in which some judgment can be assessed. Research shows that often times in Etim Ekpo, parents have worked hard to get their wards into certain particular schools such as mission and private schools because of their sterling academic performance which is an outcome of vigorous and effective supervision.
Even though the fact remains that effective supervision is arbitrary, its end effect affects society. Neagley and Evans (2000) conceived that effective supervision requires a high level of leadership. It is, therefore, worth to undertake such a study. For the purpose of this study, heads include Headmasters, deputy Headmasters/ Mistress and Principal / vice Principal both academic and administration of secondary Schools in Abak Local Government.
Similarly, In many developed countries, such as United Kingdom (UK) and United States, much more attention has been given to inspection than school supervision (Lee, Dig & Song, 2008). The Inspectorate of Education had originated from France under Napoleon’s Regime at the end of the 18th century, and other European counties followed the idea in the 19th century (Grauwe, 2007). For example, in UK, the first two inspectors of schools were appointed in 1883 (Shaw, Newton, Aitkin & Darnell, 2003) and in the Netherlands it was started in 1801 (Dutch Education Inspectorate, 2008).
Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
The terms “inspector’’ and “inspection” are still being used in various developed and developing countries , including United Kingdom (UK), United States, European countries and some African countries such as Lesotho, Senegal, Tanzania and Nigeria (Grauwe,2007). A lot of transformations are taking place in education throughout the world, which does not yet appear to have received the attention it deserves is the changing role of the inspector, supervisor or advisor as is now widely called.
Where formerly the emphasis was on authoritarian control, prescription and enforcement, it is now on persuasion, leadership, consultation and guidance. Education in Nigeria is on the exclusive list of the constitution meaning that the Federal Government or the State Government has absolute right to determine the policy implementation and ensure strict quality control through the Federal Ministry of Education and its collaborative agencies.
What is supervision? Supervision is a formally designated behavior systems that interact with the teacher behaviours system in order to improve the probability that the goals of teaching will be achieved .This statement suggests that cooperative attitudes and behaviours must be established between the teachers and education supervisors for achieving positive results as an individual, group and organizational goals.
Classroom Supervision is the process of overseeing the work of teachers with the aim of assisting them to solve their instructional problems so that students can benefit maximally from classroom activities. This can be effected with the involvement of the principal or any other top management member (vice-principal and head of department) interacting with teachers and students in the classroom regularly to monitor the teaching and learning process.
According to Nwagwu (2004), the supervisor has the responsibility of monitoring and evaluating all staff activities and programmes of their organisation. The major reason for this is to ensure dutiful compliance of all teachers with established laws and declared goals through quality assurance, maintenance of standards and quality control.
This view is in line with the National Policy on Education (2004) which declared that supervision is a device for quality control. The goals of the school can be achieved through the continuous supervision of the teaching staff and the nonteaching staff. According to Nwankwo (1984) as cited by Peretomode (2007). Classroom supervision can be divided into two categories. These are instructional and personnel supervision. Instructional supervision has been defined as a set of activities which are carried out with the purpose of making the teaching and learning purpose better for the learner.
The situation on supervision in schools which reported by Ezekwensili (2007), shows that, there has not been thorough supervision in schools in recent past decades. The lack of supervision in schools has been the bane of educational policies. A system not supervised and evaluated will not yield the desired result.
It is the duty of the school managers to supervise and monitor classroom instructions regularly, thereby reducing inequalities within the horizontal and the vertical instructional delivery system of the school. When supervision is absent, it leads to ineffective curriculum delivery which often cause poor academic performance of students in secondary schools.
Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
Statement of Problem
Since the last ten years of academic achievement results of secondary school students released by the internal and external examination bodies in Nigeria, Akwa Ibom State as well as Etim Ekpo Local Government in particular has not been impressive. This has generated negative comments and poor evaluation on the part of teachers, education inspectors, recruitment agency for teachers and the government for not alive to their responsibility. The state and federal government responded by conceiving and conceding to re-organise the inspectorate department so that education inspectors/external supervisors would be more effective in their duties to improve instructions in secondary schools FGN(2006).
The irregularity and low frequency of visitation to schools by education supervisors because of transportation challenges and low numbers of staff in their department makes the problem unresolved thus form the platform to look inward into the school site to find a connector who will continue from where external supervisors stops and serve as a bridge between education inspectors and teachers hence the reason underlying my resolve to conduct a study on the contributory role of vice-principal in ensuring classroom improvement of teaching workforce in secondary schools.
Orenaiya Solomon Adewale 611 In addition to the above justification, is that the principals are surrounded with administrative and social matters justified their less concentration on academics but vice principals who sits endlessly in the office without any designated duties as some principals exclude their vices or deputies from administrative duties support the need for the principals to concede academic supervision to their vices while counter supervise or demand for daily or weekly report of instructional duties in the schools.
Classroom supervision is less monitored or not done at all in secondary schools because the external supervisors such as the education inspectors, zonal secretaries are not impacting positively over long period of time because their periods of visitations is low or extremely scanty. In addition, the quality of supervision may be doubtful because most external supervisors are highly deficient in most subject mastery and professional competence, thus there is no guarantee for increased performance of teachers.
This is in support of Ogunlabi (2008). Among other reasons for improving instruction in schools is that large percentages of teaching workforce in most states in Nigeria are not professionally certified unlike in the developed countries where no one can teach in secondary schools except you are academically and professionally certified, as such there is another opportunity to learn required teaching methodology while on the job.
Most importantly, there is a missing gap in the implementation of policies, practices , classroom management, and instructional innovations between external supervisors and teachers as such vice principals would play a complimentary role to ensure effectiveness of best practices in the secondary school system.
Classroom Supervision and Students Academic Performance in Secondary Schools in Economics
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between classroom supervision and students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Etim Ekpo local government area. Specifically, the study intend?.
- To measure effectiveness of Classroom supervision by education inspectors and zonal secretaries
- To improve the quality of secondary school education through regular instructional supervision in the classroom.
Research Questions
The following research questions are raised to guide the study.
- How effective is the instructional supervision carried out in Ogun State public secondary schools?
- Will there be any significant relationship between teachers’ supervision and academic performance secondary school students? What is the level of students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Ekiti State?
- To what extent does vice principals monitoring/supervision of classroom teachers’ instruction influence students’ performance?
- What are the effects of instructional supervision and teachers’ quality towards academic achievement of students?
Hypothesis
- There is no significant relationship in the academic performance of students in economics taught with classroom supervision and those taught without
- There is no significant relationship in the academic performance of students in economics taught with regular instructional supervision and their counterparts taught without regular instructional supervision.
Significance of the Study
- To ensure accountability and increased level of teachers instructions in the secondary school.
- To encourage frequency of instructional supervision at the classroom level.
- For achieving increased level of students’ academic performance in school.
- To establish co-operative attitudes in teachers toward academic supervision. And;
- To achieve educational effectiveness and quality improvement.
