TRAINING PROGRAMMES AS A TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PHYSICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Abstract

This research work aimed to investigate teachers’ training programmes as a tool for effective teaching of secondary school physics in the 21^st century. The design of the study was descriptive survey design The researchers adopted the use of Teacher Report Form (TRF) to collect data from two hundred and forty (240) secondary school physics teachers drawn from 48 secondary schools in Federal Capital Territory Abuja, using multi-stage random sampling technique. Two research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. Data collected were analyzed using simple mean and t- test statistic. The result of the study showed that secondary school physics students taught by teachers exposed to training programmes had high leaning achievement score than their counterparts taught by physics teachers un-exposed to training programmes who showed average moderate academic achievement. Thus, the researchers concluded that Teachers exposed to in-service training are more effective than their counterparts who are not exposed to training programmes. Secondly, training programmes for physics teachers increase physics students’ academic achievement and thirdly, that Teacher training programmes have positive influence on the academic achievement of physics students. The researchers, thus, recommended that: Government at all levels should be more proactive in the provision of adequate training programmes for secondary school physics teachers in Nigeria; and that training programmes for physics teachers should be made a routine and mandatory exercise from time to time for every physics teacher both private and public secondary school teachers among others.