IMPACT OF OUT-OF-FIELD SECONDARY SCHOOL BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ CONTENT MASTERY AND CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT ANXIETY ON PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined the impact of out-of-field secondary school Biology teachers’ anxiety on Content Mastery and Classroom Management on Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Niger State, Nigeria. The research design that was adopted for this study is the Correlation research design. Six research questions with four null hypotheses guided the study. The population of this study was six hundred and sixty-six (666) out-of-field Biology teachers’ in 543 public and private senior Secondary Schools drawn from the seven educational zones in Niger State. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted for this study; firstly, stratified sampling technique was used for selecting 226 senior secondary schools from 7 educational zones while simple random sampling technique was adopted in picking 501 respondents from the schools. Three researcher developed-questionnaires validated by 2 experts in science education and one psychologist were used for data collection. The questionnaire had two sections (A and B). Section A was designed to collect demographic data of respondents, while section B had 15 content mastery statements using anxiety constructs. The reliability coefficient of the instrument were 0.85; 0.84; and 0.86 respectively through Cronbach Alpha formula. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as Percentages (%), bar charts, Mean and Standard Deviation were used in answering the research questions raised while inferential statistics such as linear and multiple regressions analysis were used to analyze data for hypotheses testing at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that the level of anxiety of out-of-field Biology teachers was within the mean range of highly anxious. There is a significant relationship between the predictor (content mastery) and the criterion variables (pedagogical content knowledge). The study recommends among others that teaching in senior secondary schools should be ‘strictly’ professionalized in all respects and treated as such to remove quackery in its field of practice to ensure efficiency and efficacy.