Biology Teachers’ Workload and Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Abia State

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine Teachers' workload and academic performance of secondary school students in Biology. It was conducted in University of Port Harcourt Rivers State, Nigeria. The sample comprised of 220 Biology teachers which was purposively selected randomly from three educational zones (rural and urban locations) in Abia State. Two research objectives and two hypotheses were used in the study. The data was analyzed using mean and rank order statistics to answer the research questions while z-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The reliability co-efficient obtained using Pearsons product moment co-relation coefficient was 0.70. The study found that teachers' workload has effects on students' performance in Biology. In addition, it was found that teachers' supply have great influence on students' academic performance. It was recommended amongst others that in order to reduce teachers' workload, Biology teachers should only teach a particular arm of class as this will enable the teachers' cope with the stress of the workload.