ABSTRACT

The study examined the influence of teachers’ qualification and experience on Discipline of Junior Secondary School Students in Aba Education Zone, Abia State. Five research questions were asked and five null hypotheses were stated to guide the study.  The multi stage approach was used to sample 228 Teachers (64 male and 164 female) Teachers from 20 public Junior Secondary Schools in Aba Education Area. In the first stage, the simple random sampling technique was used to select 3 out of 9 local government areas that make up the Aba Education Zone namely Isiala Ngwa North, Obingwa and Ukwa West LGAs, and also this sampling technique was used in the second stage to select 20 schools from the 50 schools in the 3 Local Government Areas. In the third stage, the stratified disproportionate random sampling technique was used for the selection of Teachers from the schools using Gender, Qualification and Experience as strata. Data were collected using structured questionnaire (ITQEDJSSS) and analyzed using mean, frequency count and standard deviation. T-test was used to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The instrument was validated by three experts, two experts from Department of Education Management and one expert from Measurement and Evaluation of Science Education Department, all in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The reliability of the instrument was .86, which was obtained using Pearson Product Moment Co-relation Coefficient (PPMCC). Findings of the study revealed that Disciplinary problems faced by Junior Secondary School Students are: stealing (3.44), lateness to school (3.11), bullying/fighting (3.08), insulting teachers (2.96), vandalism (2.91), sexual harassment (2.88), wrong use of cell phones (2.83), truancy (2.80), substance abuse/smoking (2.74) and absenteeism (2.58) while disciplinary measures adopted by Teachers in Junior Secondary Schools include: Manual labour (3.67), kneeling down (3.57), verbal warning (3.49), reporting to the parents (3.48), flogging (3.38), suspension (3.20), counseling/therapy (3.04), discussion (2.95), loss of privileges (2.91), expulsion (2.57) and written warning (2.53). The findings further revealed that Teachers were involved in the discipline of Junior Secondary School Students to a high extent with a grand mean of 2.708 with the qualified and experienced teachers adopting counseling much more than the unqualified and inexperienced Teachers, whereas the unqualified and inexperienced teachers adopt flogging more than the qualified and experienced Teachers as disciplinary measures. For the hypotheses testing, the result showed that there is no significant difference in the mean response of male and female teachers on the listed disciplinary problems faced by Junior Secondary School Students thereby accepting the null hypothesis. The result on no significant difference between mean response of male and female Teachers on the Disciplinary Measures used by teachers in Junior Secondary Schools showed that the mean responses of male and female Teachers on the disciplinary measures used in Junior Secondary Schools do not differ significantly thereby accepting the null hypothesis. The result on no significant difference between the mean responses of male and female teachers on the extent of teachers’ involvement in junior secondary school discipline was not statistically significant thereby accepting the null hypothesis. The result further showed no significant difference in the mean response of qualified and unqualified teachers on the disciplinary measures adopted in junior secondary school, the null hypothesis was accepted. The study concludes that teachers are involved in the discipline of Students in Junior Secondary School to a high extent. Based on the findings, the study therefore recommends among others that Teachers both qualified and unqualified, experienced and inexperienced should be of good behavior so as to be role models to students in Junior Secondary Schools in Aba Education Zone.