ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE USAGE AND TEACHER’S PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined artificial intelligence usage and teacher’s performance in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. The study was guided by two objectives with corresponding research questions and hypotheses. The descriptive survey research design that is correlational in nature was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of 6,153 academic staff (320 principals and 5833 teachers) in three hundred and twenty public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. The sample size of the study was 376 respondents obtained using Taro Yamane formula of minimum sample, with stratified sampling as the technique. The instrument for the study was a two set questionnaire titled: Artificial Intelligence Usage Questionnaire (AIUQ) and Teacher’s Performance Questionnaire (TPQ). The questionnaire were validated and reliability coefficients of ‘r’ = 0.84 and 0.81 respectively were obtained using the Cronbach alpha statistical method. Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to answer the two research questions, while same correlation statistics was used to test the corresponding hypotheses at 0.05 significance level. The findings of the study revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between artificial intelligence usage in assessment/grading of students, virtual teaching and teacher’s performance in public senior secondary schools in Rivers State. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that government through training should encourage teachers to utilise AI-powered assessment and automated grading systems to navigate and adjust the level of difficulty and workload they face in assessing/grading of students in order to improve individual teacher performance. Also, teachers should not see AI-powered adaptive systems and chatbots as a silver bullet, but rather as vital tools that can enhance their performance to deliver instruction through virtual means in order for them and the students to compete favourably with their counterparts globally.