ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher-student relationship, classroom management and pedagogical skills as determinants of students’ academic achievements in shorthand in Nigerian Polytechnics. Six research questions were raised to guide the study while six hypotheses were also formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance.
The study adopted a correlational survey research design. The population of the study comprised 2,126 full-time students in the nine public Polytechnics (State and Federal Polytechnics) offering Office Technology and Management programme in the six states in South-West zone of Nigeria; out of which 425 samples were selected through stepwise stratified random sampling technique. The instrument used was a questionnaire titled ‘Teacher-Student Relationship, Classroom Management and Pedagogical Skills Questionnaire (TSRCMPSQ). The instrument was divided into two sections (sections A and B). A pro-forma which contained code was used to match the students’ responses from the questionnaire with their academic scores in shorthand. This was done by assigning code to each institution and student under study. The instrument was subjected to face validity by the researcher’s supervisors and a test expert in Measurement and Evaluation, all the three from the Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Benin City. Pearson Product Moment Correlation formula was used to determine the test-retest reliability of the instrument for Teacher-student relationship, Classroom management and Pedagogical skills which yielded the following results 0.68, 0.68 and 0.67 respectively. The overall result was 0.90. Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Point Bi-serial Correlation Coefficient were used to answer the research questions. Simple and multiple linear regression, and Fisher’s Z statistics were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.
The findings revealed that the correlation between teacher-student relationship skill and students’ academic achievements in shorthand was moderate and positive. The study also found that teachers’ classroom management skill has very low positive relationship with students’ academic achievements in shorthand. The findings of the study established that the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical skill and students’ academic achievements in shorthand was positive but with low correlation. All the correlations between teacher-student relationship, classroom management and pedagogical skills and students’ academic achievements in shorthand were positive. It was concluded that cordial teacher-student relationship, effective use of teachers’ classroom management and adequate use of pedagogical skills independently and collectively improve academic achievements of Office Technology and Management students in shorthand. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended among others that teachers of shorthand should improve on teacher-student relationship, classroom management and pedagogical skills while teaching shorthand in order to enhance students’ academic achievements in shorthand.
