Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the level of music competence and teaching skills of South West Nigerian junior secondary school music teachers as it affects student’s music academic achievement. Descriptive survey and posttest- only control- group quasi experimental design were adopted for the study. Five research hypotheses were postulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Six instruments were also used to generate data. The instruments included closed-ended questionnaires and competency tests for twelve teachers and achievement tests for one hundred and twenty Junior Secondary School pupils. Analyses were performed using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s product moment coefficient of correlation. Out of the five hypotheses postulated two were accepted and three was rejected. The findings revealed that there is no significant relationship of music teachers’ cognitive competencies on students’ academic achievement in music in Junior Secondary Schools but student’s background knowledge in music is a strong predictor of student’s academic achievement in music and is the most influential in predicting academic achievement in Music. In the light of the findings it was recommended that there is need for a regular periodic professional music teacher’s development initiative. This should involve training that are specific to the music discipline that is within the content of junior secondary school and general one that will involve general pedagogic issues, curriculum issues and personality training.

Keywords:

Music, Competence, Music Teacher, Academic Achievement, Teaching Skills.