Teachers’ Skills and Job Performance in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State

Abstract

This study examined teachers’ communication, motivational and pedagogical skills, professional experience, and job performance in public senior secondary schools in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State. A descriptive survey of the correlational type was adopted. The population comprised 4,381 teachers, while 357 respondents were selected through a multistage sampling procedure. Data were collected with the Teachers’ Skills Questionnaire and the Teachers’ Job Performance Questionnaire. Both instruments were validated by experts, and the test-retest procedure produced an overall reliability coefficient of 0.82. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer two research questions, while Pearson product-moment correlation was used to test five hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated a high level of teachers’ skills (weighted mean = 3.42) and a high level of job performance (weighted mean = 3.40). Pedagogical skills recorded the highest mean (M = 3.46), while classroom management was the stronger job-performance dimension (M = 3.44). Teachers’ overall skills were strongly and positively related to job performance (r = .890, p = .001). Communication skills (r = .820), motivational skills (r = .832), pedagogical skills (r = .837), and professional experience (r = .890) also had significant positive relationships with job performance, with p = .001 in each case. The study concluded that stronger teacher skills and professional experience were associated with more effective instructional delivery and classroom management. It was recommended that education authorities and school leaders sustain the high skill and performance levels through periodic refresher activities, recognition of effective practice, and structured sharing of professional experience.