Perception of Out-Of-Field Secondary School Biology Teachers' Anxiety on Content Mastery in Niger State.

Abstract

This study examined the perception of out-of-field secondary school biology teachers' anxiety an content mastery in Niger state. The research design that was adopted for this study is descriptive survey. Three research questions and two nul hypotheses guided the study. The population of this study was 666 out-of-field Biology teachers in 543 public and private Senior Secondary Schools drawn from the seven educational zones in Niger State. The sample sie for this study was 501 out-of-field Biology teachers (private school = 246 & public school = 255). 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 respondents from the schools. A resercher developed-questionnaire named out-of-field Secondary School Biology Teachers' Anxiety on Content mastery Questionnaire (OFBIOTACMQ) validated by two experts in science education and one psychologist was used to elicit responses from participants. The questionnaire had two sections (A and B). Section A was designed to collect demographic data of respondents, while section B had 15 contents mastery statements using anxiety constructs. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.85 through Cronbach Alpha fomula. Data colected 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 ANOVA and Scheffes post Hoc was 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 was significant difference between the Mean scores of out-of-field male and female Biology teachers at 0.05 level of significance. There was a significant difference in the out-of-field Biology teachers anxiety on Content Mastery based on years of teaching experience. 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 fleld of practice to ensure efficiency and efficacy.