ABSTRACT

The study investigated the extent to which school mapping variables relate to teacher productivity in public secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. The need to determine the relationship of school mapping with\ teacher productivity in public Secondary Schools, in order to address the concern of parents, government, stakeholders and the general public on the recurrent poor performance of students (as manifested in the senior school certificate results) over the last ten years necessitated this study. To guide the study, seven research questions and seven null hypotheses were raised. The correlation research design was adopted for the study. The population in the study is 29835, consisting of: 1,398 principals, 27,039 teachers and 1,398 senior secondary class two (SS2) senior prefects, drawn from 1,398 public secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. The study samples were 280 principals, 2,703 teachers and 280 SS2 senior prefects,  selected  via  multi stage and simple random sampling techniques.  Five instruments were used to collect data for the study: school mapping and teacher productivity questionnaire (SMTPQ), secondary education system coverage checklist (SESCC), School Accessibility checklist (SAC), school mapping and teacher productivity checklist (SMTPC) and secondary school teachers’ characteristics checklist (SSTCC). The instruments were validated by three experts in the College of Education, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, to ascertain their relevance in the   study. One of the Validates was from Educational management, while the other two were from Measurement/Evaluation and Psychology departments. The test-retest method was used to establish the stability and internal consistency of the instrument via Cronbach alpha and the values of 0.84 and 0.82 were obtained respectively. This method was further used to determine the reliability indices of the four checklists with the following results-0.73, 0.74, 0.83 and 0.85 respectively. The research instruments were administered by the researcher and research Assistants, who were properly-briefed. They also retrieved the duly filled instruments at a return rate of 88%, while a total of 12% were either not filled or discarded by some uncooperative respondents. The data collected were analyzed, using Pearson product moment correlation, to answer the research questions, while Pearson R² (coefficient of determination), ANOVA and multiple regressions were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. The responses were rated based on real limits of numbers. The null hypotheses of no significant relationship, with the calculated values less than the table values, at 0.05 level of significance, were not rejected, while those that were higher than the table values (only one in this study), were rejected. The findings showed that there was a high extent of correlation between teacher productivity and the following variables of school mapping: equitable location of schools in the communities, accessibility of schools to students, school community population, class size, infrastructures and teaching facilities. On the other hand, the study revealed that there is a low extent of correlation between siting of schools in the catchment areas and teacher productivity in public secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. From the findings of the study, it was concluded that School Mapping Variables relate with Teacher Productivity in Public Secondary Schools, giving the high academic performance of South East public secondary schools students in the senior secondary school certificate examinations, across the ten years under reference (2007/2008 to 2016/2017).