Relationship Between Teacher Attributes and Academic Achievement of Senior Secondary School Students in North Central, Nigeria

This study investigated the relationship between teacher attributes and academic achievement of senior secondary school students in North Central, Nigeria. With the purpose of identifying the teachers’ professional attributes and examines the relationships that academic achievement could have with variables such as teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, communication skills and classroom management skills. The study adopted a correlational research design to examine the relationship between variables. The population for the study was one hundred and eighty thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight (180,978) SS II students in the North Central of Nigeria out of which 384 students were systematically selected for the study. Teacher Attributes Scale was used as research instrument. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data at four different levels; simple percentages was used to analyze the respondents’ demographic data, mean, standard deviation, scatterplot and One-way ANOVA were used to analyze the research questions, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was used to test hypothesis 1 and 5, Person Product-Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test hypotheses 2 to 4 at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The results revealed both teacher-related attributes substantially predict students' academic achievement; having pedagogical content knowledge as a key positive predictor of academic achievement, and teachers' classroom management skills and communication skills have weak inverse relationships with students' academic achievement. Educational institutions should invest in comprehensive professional development programs that enhance teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, communication, and classroom management skills to collectively boost student performance.