INFLUENCE OF TEACHER’S MOTIVATION ON BASIC SCIENCE TEACHER’S TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Education is a fundamental human right and the key to sustainable development, peace and stability within and among countries. It is the bedrock of any nation’s development. It is largely a matter of learning process that involves interaction between teacher and a learner. When this process works well, then real learning takes place, but when it fails, it ruins the quality of our educational standard and cause it to be chronically low, affecting the student’s level of achievement which therefore disrupt the nurturing and maintenance of personnel that is require to function in various facets of national life and development process. The National Economic Empowerment and development Strategy (NEEDS) document (2004:35) noted “the goals of wealth creation, employment generation, poverty eradication and value reorientation can be effectively pursued, attained and sustain only through the motivation of teachers to reinforce their teaching efficiency and promote a good and functional educational system (Ibidapo-Obe, 2017). In a country like Nigeria, poor teacher’s motivation, ineffective teaching styles and other dropout tendencies have really posed a lot of repercussions for the growth of the educational sector, thereby thwarting the progress of the country’s economy which is highly dependent on a solid educational sector, thereby thwarting the progress of the country’s economy which is highly dependent on a solid education. In view of this, teachers’ motivation is very essential to the continuing growth of any nation as the students and younger generation benefits immensely in recording educational success and performance.
According to Sergiovani (2014), teachers motivation is a vital instrument that brings out the positive morale in teachers to effectively execute their classroom duties, and this teachers obligations are effectively carried out through shared knowledge which widens their teaching experiences, making available the students learning resources to ease the teachers stress in passing knowledge to them, orally appraising the teachers, payment of allowances, incentives and other remunerations. According to Augustine, Alfred Mapolisa and Tshabalala (2005), motivation means a driving force that makes a person put the maximum effort to meet organizational goals such as working very hard to achieve high pass rate or any other goals pursued by the schools. It implies instilling in teachers the urge or desire to act willingly in specific ways to achieve high result. Similarly, the role and contexts of educational motivational methods and tools cannot be underemphasized because high motivation enhances productivity which is naturally in the interest of all educational system (Ololube, 2010 and 2011). According to Paul Barnell (2012), over one third of all countries at the survey primary school in five or six extended case study countries indicated that teachers at their schools are poorly or very poorly motivated. The level of motivation in Nigeria appear to be chronically low, teachers are expected to render a very high job performance and the Ministry of Education demands high measure of loyalty, patriotism, dedication, hard work and commitment from its teachers (Ubon& Joshua 2013), and yet fail to apply the ingredients to enhance the level of the teachers motivation. The National Policy on education of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN 2006) seems to recognize the relevance of teachers by stating that no education system can be greater than the standard of teachers, they keep raising the hope of teachers but fail to understand that teachers are ultimately accountable for translating educational policies into actions based on practice during interaction with the students. If teachers who are the engine of the educational sector are not properly taken care of, then there is room for ineffectiveness in teachings. In Nigeria today, there’s an alarming outcry that out today’s teachers are ineffective, compared to the teachers of the past, some channel their blames and miseries to the student’s but they fail to attack the board of directors who decline our quality of education due to their negligence to sum in the adequate motivational support needed by the teachers to increase their morale in teaching efficiency.
Research by Ihua-Maduenyi (2002), and Ashimole (2011) indicates that motivation and incentives for teachers, and teacher’s job satisfaction and motivations for school effectiveness have yielded result to support the idea of motivation of teachers to help improve the student’s performance. Therefore, the value of teachers in preparing students for a better academic achievement and a useful living is very high and as such help to “equip” students to live effectively in modern age of Science and Technology. This has made the growing complexity in terms of environmental expulsion, resources mobilization, and organization of educational institution. Evans (2014), in his research believe that teachers motivation in developed countries is due to the fact that teachers are provided with good teachers training and development, hence they have opportunities to further improve their training. Teachers in countries like United States of American (U.S.A), United Kingdom (U.K), Australia, and others from Europe remain motivated when they see their learners or students achieve academically as they expect their incentives. A decade ago, Hanushek (2016), observed that performance incentives in schools were virtually untested and since then, a multitude of accountability programs have been implemented that meted out rewards or sanctions to schools and teachers based on some functions of school test scores, in that, teachers teaching effectiveness can be well measured through the test scores of students to find out the level of teachers effectiveness and its efficiency in carrying out their teaching obligation. There is mounting concern that rigid compensation structures weaken incentives, hence the need to exert effort and improve students’ performance. In developed countries like United Kingdom, such concerns have catalyzed the use of monetary performance incentives, often base upon by the level of growth of students test scores performance. In contrast, Nigeria school teachers have been eligible for large financial award but have been deprived. They fail to understand that motivation enhance the effectiveness of schools as that is one of the major factor that can boost good academic performance in the school. They fail to understand that the prominence of a teacher in the society at large cannot be emphasized. The prospect of every individual and the nation lie in the hand of a teacher. If a doctor makes a mistake, perhaps one person might die, if a lawyer makes a mistake, perhaps one person might go to jail, but if a teacher makes a mistake, generation yet unborn will come to suffer the effect of that mistake (Ukeji, 1986; cited in Ihua-maduenyi, 2002).Many researches such as that of Augustine et al (2005) sees gender as a major factor that can influence teachers teaching ability, as some female teacher seems to be emotionally loose mostly when they are exposed to challenges
In the course of this research work, it is pertinent to note that teachers’ motivation is an essential component to enhancing classroom effectiveness (Carson & Chase 2009). As student’s learning outcomes are highly dependent on the quality of instruction, teacher’s teaching effectiveness has been explored in terms of teaching styles, teachers approach to teaching, teaching practice and instruction behaviors in relation to teacher motivation factor (Butter & Shibaz 2014; Han, Yin, & Wang, 2015). In addition to consider the relationship between teacher’s motivation & teaching effectiveness Hein & Ekler (2012) in their study with physical education teachers from five countries examine the relationship of teacher’s motivation and teaching style. The study confirmed that teacher’s autonomous motivation was related to productive (student-centered) teaching styles, while non autonomously motivated teachers adopted reproductive (teacher-centered) teaching styles, this bridging the gap between teacher’s motivation and teacher’s teaching effectiveness.
According to Bennel & Akyeampon (2008); teachers motivation is a state of being influenced by materials, psychological factors which may induce activeness or reluctances in achievements associated to teachings. It is in this assertion that the researcher point out or identify the major factors of motivation which can influence teacher’s teaching effectiveness and student’s performance
Non financial Motivation: This is a type of motivation that the satisfactions of desires are not influenced by another person, or by an external incentive or reward. An example is a teacher who is motivated either through oral appraisal or a teacher who loves teaching not because he is being paid but because he loves passing knowledge to the students either, another example is a person who love jogging and does not jog because he is afraid to die of weight or fat.