Motivational Strategies and Teaching Effectiveness among Business Studies Teachers

Motivational Strategies and Teaching Effectiveness among Business Studies Teachers

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

Motivation is the internal feeling or satisfaction that arises from the desires and needs of an individual. It is the continuous process of needs and satisfaction that stimulate individual to perform more. Motivational strategies could arouses interest, enthusiasm and regulate the individual behaviour in order to perform different tasks with interest for the attainment of particular goals. Motivation is an internal arousal, which directs and maintains achieving set goal.

Motivation can be classified into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is the pleasure and interest in activities that exist within an individual rather than outside pressure. It is the foundation of having enjoyment in performing activity without any external incentives. Whereas individuals who are extrinsically motivated need, rewards and punishments to engaged him in any activity. For students rewards can be in the form of grades and marks in examination. Achievement motivation is concerned with achieving the successful outcomes at the end of the process.

Obviously in teaching learning process with the help of motivation teachers can maintaining, controlling and arousing interest of the learners. Learner is motivated by support his concerns with the ongoing activities and interest. In education motivation is implemented in terms of what and how student learn about the subject matter. Students’ learning process becomes more successful by using different motivation techniques. In the teaching-learning process, to encourage and boost up the students ambition so that they can put more effects in their learning process. Motivation in the education is the degree of self-esteem to processes and the sense of value to determine how well the student can improve and develop their learning can exploit his potentials.

Teachers can utilize successful strategies and tactics to make the teaching-learning effective because motivation plays a significant role to arouse the teacher interest towards the teaching process. Teacher who focuses student interest toward studies should actively involve learner in the teaching learning process. Activities to direct towards the learning of important processes or skills involve acquisition of useful knowledge. There is nothing more discouraging to a teacher more to spend hours preparing a lesson than to show concern about how students are going in the acquisition of knowledge. For this teachers may use positive reinforcement because it plays a significant role in achieving the student academic achievements.

Teacher motivation plays an important role in the promotion of teaching and learning excellence. Generally, motivated teachers are more likely to motivate students to learn in the classroom, to ensure the implementation of educational reforms and feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment. While teacher motivation is fundamental to the teaching and learning process, several teachers are not highly motivated. This observation should be taken seriously and an investigation into the factors influencing teacher motivation is therefore necessary to achieve the educational goals in every learning institution.

The motivating strategies that may be employed towards the teachers may be directed at individual levels or directed at the teachers in a given set up as a whole. Moreover, from a group point of view, the motivational efforts may be in the form of their design of the environment, direct intervention, or explicit instructional and/or interpersonal strategies (Hardré & Sullivan, 2012). An ideal result of teachers’ motivating efforts is the individual’s intrinsic and self-regulated motivation. Effort is intrinsic when teaching is driven from within, and it is self-regulated when the teacher plans, monitors and adapts reasons, choices and actions systematically in order to optimize learning (Schunk & Ertmer, 2010). The effectiveness of a particular motivational strategy is reflected in the self-regulated behavior of teachers and results from their experiences, coupled with their proximal, which is their point of attraction immediately and futuristic goals (Miller & Brickman, 2004).

1.2     Statement of the Problem

Motivation is very important because it explains why the employees do their work. The essential stimulus of work motivation is meeting the needs of the employees. Needs are the driving factors in developing work motivation while working in an organization. Thus, the objective of a teacher who is a paid employment is to earn income and fulfill his/her needs, with hopes, desires and wishes that can be realized in his workplace.

Over the years, secondary school teachers in Nigeria have complained of government inability to satisfy their needs. Among workers in the civil service, the teachers are the least motivated. Their salaries are not paid when month ends, their promotion is delayed and when implemented, the financial involvement is not paid from the time the promotion took place. The classroom where they carry out their job is overcrowded and in some cases, the children sit on the floor to learn. This makes it difficult for the teacher to manage his class effectively. Besides, government officials from ministry of education, parents, and members of the community where they teach do not have respect for them.

To enhance their economy and improve their living standards most of them engage in other business ventures during the school period. The time and energy devoted to the business affect commitment to duty as a teacher and consequently hinders their effectiveness in the classroom. Moreover, whenever teachers are not adequately taken care of especially with regards to regular and prompt payment of their salaries and other entitlements, their attitude to work automatically changes. They refuse to obey laid down rules for their work. They could come to work, but no meaningful work will be done, no effective teaching and learning. Instead of teaching, many of them resort to discussing their personal woes in their staff rooms and offices. This study is therefore sought to examine the influence of motivational strategies and teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area.

Motivational Strategies and Teaching Effectiveness among Business Studies Teachers

1.3     Purpose of the Study

1. Examine the influence of prompt payments of teachers’ salaries on teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area
2. Examine the influence of teachers’ promotion on teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area
3. Examine the influence of teachers’ welfare on teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area.

1.4     Significance of the Study

It is hopeful that this study will be of great importance in this era of education for all (EFA) as needs motivated staff in the education sector so that performance is enhanced at this level. The study, therefore, sought to explore possible strategies for improving teachers job performance and hence students‘ academic performance in day secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area and indeed all the secondary schools within the county and country at large. This will go a long way in contributing towards vision 2030 and the devolved governments.

The study will be of importance to the policy makers and secondary school administrators as it identifies major strategies that motivate the behaviour of teaching staff towards their job performance. It will identified strategies that will help to improve teacher morale and working conditions, at the same time counter the factors that lower teachers ‘motivation. On the other level, this study will provide a good comparison for various motivation strategies in different schools in the study area especially in the rural area.

1.5     Research Questions

The following research questions guided the study:

1. To what extent does prompt payments of teachers’ salaries influence the teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area?
2. To what extent does teachers’ promotion influence the teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area?
3. To what extent does teachers’ welfare influence the teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area?

1.6     Statement of Hypotheses

The following research questions guided the study:

1. There is no significant influence of prompt payments of teachers’ salaries on teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area
2. There is no significant influence of teachers’ promotion on teaching effectiveness among business studies in teachers secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area
3. There is no significant influence of teachers’ welfare on teaching effectiveness among business studies teachers in secondary schools Local Government Area.

1.7     Delimitation of the Study

 For the purpose of effective research work and viable results, the research was delimited to concentrate on motivational strategies and effective teaching among Business studies teachers in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area. Variables considered for the study include prompt payment of teachers’ salaries, teachers’ promotion and teachers’ welfare.

1.8     Operational definition of Term

Motivation:This is the attribute that arouse one to do or not to do something.

Teacher’s welfare:this is the feeling by the employee towards the job they do with regard to condition of work and the reward.

Job satisfaction: this is the feeling by the employee towards the job they do with regard to conditions of work and the reward accrued.

Prompt payment of Salary:This is money that a professional teacher receive for doing their job when due with the use of appropriate technique in facilitating learning to improve the quality of learning to a level that justify effective teaching.

Fringe Benefits:these are motivational factors that provoke teachers to do more such as incentive and reward.

In- Service Training:this is a training a teacher undergoes while still in the teaching profession to uphold his/her knowledge.

Promotion: This refers to the advancement of an employee’s rank or position in a hierarchical structure.

�CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter concerned with the review of works done by other authors that are related to this study. The review will be carried out under the following sub-headings:

1. The Concept of Motivation
2. Prompt Payment of Teachers’ Salaries and the Teaching of Business studies in Secondary Schools
3. Teachers’ Promotion and the Teaching of Business studies in Secondary Schools
4. Teachers’ welfare Teaching of Business studies in Secondary Schools
5. Summary of Literature Review

Motivational Strategies and Teaching Effectiveness among Business Studies Teachers

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

5.1     Summary

The study examined motivational strategies and teaching effectiveness among Business studies in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area. In order to attain the aims of the topic, three research questions and three research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study area was Abak Local Government Area. Literature of work done by other authors was reviewed to in order to employ the opinion on this topic.  The researcher adopted a survey research design in carrying out the study. Population of the study consisted of all business studies teachers in all the secondary schools in Abak. The study sampled size was 22 Business studies teachers randomly selected from all the secondary school in Abak Local Government Area. The instruments used for data collection was the researcher made questionnaire titled Motivational Strategies and Teaching Effectiveness Questionnaire (MSTEQ). To ascertain the level of available motivational strategies, chi-square statistical tool was used in the analysis and the hypotheses.

5.2     Recommendations

Based on result of findings it was recommended that:

1. Government should provide need satisfiers: such as regular payment of salaries improved rent, transport and medical allowance to teachers.
2. Teachers’ job security and protection in work place should be guaranteed.
3. Teachers should be respected, loved and consulted in decision making by the school authority.
4. Since business studies teacher’s work load is greater than their motivational support, government should try every effort to provide teachers’ with adequate motivational supports to avoid teachers job from being threatened.
5. Teachers should utilize the available motivational strategies.

�5.4     Conclusion

Findings on motivational strategies  in secondary schools in Abak Local Government Area  indicates widespread low or decreasing levels of motivation, resulting in job dissatisfaction among teachers and low student performance. The findings also revealed that sizeable percentages of secondary school teachers are poorly motivated in the study area and even when the provision for motivation is well enshrined in the teachers’ working document by the federal government it is not still utilized by schools.

The study also revealed that teachers facing heavy workloads need sufficient motivational supports in order to sustain their effort and professional conduct on the job. If teachers‟ workload is greater than teachers‟ motivational supports, teacher motivation is threatened. Unfortunately, the literature and questionnaire confirmed that this occurs in many developing countries, therefore stretching teacher motivation thin.

5.4      Suggestion for Further Studies

The study was limited to only teachers. It would have been useful if all the apparel firms were covered. A clear idea could have been arrived at if the small, medium and large apparel firms were evaluated separately. Then the differences of each segment could have been justified clearly.

1. The study can be expanded to other professions as well in order to increase their performance level as well since the performance of organizations is indispensable in the development of the country.
2.  It is suggested that for future research, a proportionate stratified random sample be used to compare several public sector institutions using a larger sample.
3. A research is needed to further investigate the potential relationship that affects variables and other extraneous variables, such as role ambiguity, job level, contingent rewards and co-work have on job satisfaction.      �