Abstract

This paper investigated the relationship between students’ personality, teachers’ teaching methods and academic performance of senior secondary school students’ in Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Correlational survey research was adopted in this study. The population of the study is 80,215, in which 6,147 are teachers and 74,068 are students from 245 senior secondary schools in Nasarawa state. The sampled population of this study is 600 respondents which comprise of teachers and students. Stratified random sampling techniques was employed to select 10 schools for the study from 245 senior secondary schools in Nasarawa State. The researcher used two instruments for data collection from teachers and students of senior secondary schools. The first instrument is Questionnaire on Teachers’ Teaching Methods (QTTM) and the second one is Eysenck’s Students’ Personality Inventory (SPI). QTTM was used to collect data on teaching methods of discussion and demonstration which contained 20 items based on 4 points modified likert type scales given as follows; always- 4 points, often-3, sometimes-2, and never-1 point. The second instrument SPI was used to collect data on personality of students which also contained 20 items. The scoring of SPI was based on the likert-4 points scales of strongly agree 4 points, Agree-3 points, Disagree-2 points and Strongly Disagree 1 point. The logical validity indices of 0.79 and 0.84 for QTTM and SPI respectively. Reliability indices of 0.84 and 0.88 for QTTM and SPI respectively were obtained. Based on the data collected for this study was presented in tabular form. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer research questions. Point biserial correlation coefficient was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance because in the hypotheses one variable is normally distributed and the other variable is genuinely dichotomized. Findings from the study revealed that there was a weak positive correlation between discussion method and the introvert students’ academic performance in economics and there was a weak positive correlation between discussion method of teaching and introvert students’ academic performance in economics but the relationship is significantly positive. The study recommended that Since extrovert students have a positive performance from the use of discussion method of teaching, teachers should therefore use discussion method frequently in teaching Economics.