Teacher Qualification Characteristics and Secondary School Students’ Mathematics Achievement: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Many Grade 12 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Mathematics examination registrants are consistently underperforming due to their inability to grasp basic mathematical concepts (Caribbean Examinations Council, 2006-2016). The purpose of this research was to examine the relation and association between five Teacher Qualification Characteristics (TQCs) and students’ 2016 CSEC Mathematics achievement at two secondary schools in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). A sample size of 113 participants were incorporated in this research (N=105 students and N=8 teachers). These teachers taught these students CSEC Mathematics during the year of examination, 2015-2016. The Spearman’s rho correlation revealed that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between teacher qualification, teacher certification, and teacher Mathematics teaching experience and students’ ordinal grades at [r=.416; p=.000 < ?=.001], [r=.235; p=.016 < ?=.05], and [r=.20; p=.041 < ?=.05] respectively. Similarly, the chi-square output showed a statistically significant association between teacher qualification, teacher certification, and teacher Mathematics teaching experience and students’ ordinal grades at [p=.000 < ? =.001], [p=.010< ? =.05], and [p=.003< ? =.05] respectively. On two occasions, the Bonferroni adjustment was used. For both tests, professional development and academic coaching were not statistically significant.