The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of Nigerian secondary school teachers who completed the Teacher Training College (TTC) program with those teachers who graduated from traditional universities. The study took into consideration the following: teaching methods, educational materials, academic performance of students, and students' ratings of teachers. Hypotheses were developed to test these four aspects of teacher effectiveness.
The subjects were 3,326 secondary form five (12th grade) students, a random sampling of 130 teachers who completed the TTC program, and a random sampling of 120 teachers who graduated from traditional universities. The Inventory of Student Perceptions of Instruction (ISPI), High School Form, originally developed by Scott in 1973, was administered to all students in the classes taught by the selected teachers. Students' academic records (SAR) were obtained, and teacher questionnaires were administered to all of the selected teachers. The ISPI, SAR, and teacher questionnaires were matched. The two groups of teachers were compared, along with the two educational programs. Teacher effectiveness was determined by the teacher's high score on the ISPI questionnaire and the academic performance of students. Descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to analyze the data.
It was determined that there was no statistically significant difference between the teaching methods of teachers who attended Teacher Training Colleges and teachers who attended traditional universities, the educational materials used by teachers who attended Teacher Training Colleges and teachers who attended traditional universities, and students' ratings of teachers who attended Teacher Training Colleges and teachers who attended traditional universities. There was a statistically significant difference between the academic performance of students taught by teachers who attended Teacher Training Colleges and teachers who attended traditional universities.
It was concluded that students who were taught by university-trained teachers achieved academically higher than did students who were taught by TTC-trained teachers. The training received by university-trained teachers appeared to produce superior teachers. It was recommended that TTC-trained teachers complete their educations at traditional universities. Teachers should be allowed 5 to 10 years to obtain their degrees. Those teachers who failed to attend universities within this time period should be permitted to teach in primary schools.
