ABSTRACT

This study examined the relationship between of staff development practices in public secondary schools and teachers' work performance in Abia state, Nigeria. Expo facto research design was adopted for this study. Five research questions guided the study and five hypotheses were posited and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study was 214 principals and 3855 teachers in pubic secondary schools in Abia state. The sample size for this study was made up of 610 respondents. The sample size was randomly drawn from 30 public secondary schools in the three education zone in Abia state (Aba, Ohafia and Umuahia educational zones) using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection and was made up of 30 items and was validated by experts in the Department of Educational Management. Mean and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions while correlation was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The reliability of the instrument was established using the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r). And the reliability coefficients obtained was 0.67. The findings of the study revealed a significant relationship in teacher workshop; conference and seminar while the result of teachers' participation in in-house training and computer related training having no significant relationship on their counterpart who do not. Based on the finding of the study, it was recommended among others that the Ministry of Education. State Education Board and other educational stakeholders should ensure regular organization of in-house training, computer related training and conferences for subject teachers to enhance their work performance in secondary schools.