Abstract

The work title “The effect of Team Teaching on Academic Performance of Secondary Schools Students in Buea Municipality”, it was carried out in the University of Buea. It examined three research questions which are to what extent does the effect of collaborative teaching affects student’s academic performance? To find out effect of parallel teaching on students’ academic performance? To what extent dose the effect of alternative teaching affects students’ academic performance? which sort to explore how team teaching will affect the academic performance of secondary schools students.

While there may be various benefits to teachers collaborating, it is unclear if collaboration translates into gains in student achievement.  Therefore, it is necessary to examine research in order to determine if in fact collaboration amongst educators leads to improved student achievement. Lastly, given the achievement gap that exists between various sub-groups of students, it is also important to examine how collaboration impacts different groups of students.

Given the resources expended to promote, support, and facilitate collaboration, it is critical that scientific research results support the idea that this practice leads to increased student achievement. This is what urges the researcher to carry out an investigation on the effects of team teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality.

It has the following as its specific objectives: Investigating the effect of collaborative teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality. To find out the effect of parallel teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality. To investigate the effect of alternative teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality. The sampling technique used for the research was the simple random technique with a sample of 120 students was selected for the purpose of the study.

The questionnaire was used as the research instrument for data collection. The data collection was subjected to the Descriptive Statistical Method with Frequency (f) and Percentages (%). This was suitable because of the structured nature of responses against each item on the questionnaire that required the respondents to rate their responses.

At the end of the study, it shows that, collaborative teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea municipality with a cumulative percentage of 66%, followed by parallel teaching method affect students’ academic performance in the Buea municipality with a cumulative percentage of 59.3% and alternative teaching method affect students’ academic performance in the Buea municipality with a cumulative percentage of 56.7%. As a result, some recommendations were made to parents and teachers to encourage appositive team teaching.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

In addition to the various operational definitions of collaboration, the individuals collaborating in studies also varied a great deal.  Studies have examined collaboration between a variety of individuals such as teachers with other teachers (e.g. Brown & Green, 2014), teachers with administrators (e.g. Cerit, 2012), teachers with district personnel (e.g. Bruce, Esmonde, Ross, Dookie& Beatty, 2010), and teachers with instructional coaches (e.g. Campbell and Malkus, 2011).

Many studies in the existing literature on collaboration do not examine the effect it has on student achievement (e.g. Honingh&Hooge, 2014) or focus on various other benefits of collaboration (Levine & Marcus, 2009).   Of the studies that do examine the effects of collaboration on student achievement, some use anecdotal evidence to support their claims (e.g. Brown & Green, 2014), while others do not site data at all to support their findings on the effects of collaboration on student achievement (e.g. Egodawatte, McDougall, and Stoilescu, 2012).

Findings from existing research suggest that teacher collaboration is correlated to higher student achievement (Dumay, Boonen, & Van Damme, 2013), helps create a positive work environment (Egodawatte et al., 2012),  is influenced by school leadership (Goddard, Goddard, Kim, and Miller, 2015; Honingh&Hooge, 2014 ), is related to collective efficacy (Dumay, Boonen, & Van Damme, 2013; Moller, Stearns, Mickelson, Bottia, & Banerjee, 2014), and is an integral part of a professional learning community  (Thessin, 2015; Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2007). While these findings are informative, they fail to draw a causal relationship between collaboration and increased student achievement.  Assuming the end goal of all educational practices is to improve student achievement, it is pragmatic directly examines the benefits of collaboration on student achievement.

Academic performance is commonly measure through examinations or continuous assessments but there is no general agreement on how it is best evaluated or which aspects are most important procedural knowledge such as skills or declarative knowledge such as facts (Tomas 2011).  Furthermore, there are inconclusive results over which individual factors successfully predict academic performance, elements such as test anxiety, environment, motivation, and emotions require consideration when developing models of school achievement.

A school with more academic achievements would receive more money than a school with less achievement, (Mildred Murray 1996), this can be seen in relations to private and public schools, where students performed well in public exams turn to pull more students and school administrators turn to increase tuition fees than schools with lower than schools with lower academic achievement.

Education develops the student’s minds to a great level and helps in removing all the differences in the society. It helps us to become good learners and understand the different aspects of life. It provides ability to understand the human rights, social rights, duties and responsibilities towards country. Education is a very important tool for life success. It helps a lot in lessening the challenges of life. Knowledge gained throughout the education enables each and every individual to be confident about their life (Aniemeka 2002). It opens various doors of opportunities to achieve better prospects in life so promotes career growth. Many awareness programmed have been run by the government in enhance the value of education in rural areas. It brings feeling of equality among all people in the society and promotes growth and development of the country (Aniemeka 2002). Good education gives many purposes to the life such as enhancement of the personal advancement, increase social status, increase social health, economical progress, success to the nation, set goals of life, make us aware towards many social issues and gives solutions to solve environmental problems and other related issues

Conceptually, concepts like academic performance, team teaching, collaborative teaching, and parallel teaching.

Academic performance is commonly measure through examinations or continuous assessments but there is no general agreement on how it is best evaluated or which aspects are most important procedural knowledge such as skills or declarative knowledge such as facts (Aniemeka 2002). Furthermore, there are inconclusive results over which individual factors successfully predict academic performance, elements such as test anxiety, environment, motivation, and emotions require consideration when developing models of school achievement. All teaching is carried out for a purpose – to generate learning in students in order to produce educated persons. According to (Oyedeji 1998), the two basic types of instructional methodology are the teacher-centered, and student-centered.

Teacher-centered instructional approaches are more traditional and didactic. Students acquire knowledge by listening to the teacher, by reading a textbook, or both. In such an approach, the student is a passive recipient of information. In contrast, student-centered approaches to instruction provide a learning environment that invites students to actively participate in, and help to shape, their own learning experiences. Either of the two instructional approaches can be used effectively to bring about learning outcomes or influence academic performance. This though depends on the ingenuity of the teachers. Academic performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has received their short or long-term educational goals.

Team Teaching

Co-teaching or team teaching is when two educators work together to plan, organize, instruct and make assessments on the group of students, sharing the same classroom. There are two types of team teaching. These include: hierarchic team teaching-the structure of a hierarchic team teaching may be linked to a pyramid with a team leader at the apex, master teachers just below and regular teachers at the base and synergetic team teaching-synergetic team teaching groups are formed through the co-operation of two or more teachers working together as professional equals

Investigations of team teaching have often focused on the social climate of classrooms, even in secondary level schools where students occupy multiple classes throughout the school day. The classroom-level focus reflects the interest of investigators in changing instructional practices and conditions in particular subject-specific classrooms.

The emphasis of teachers team teaching is reflected in the work of James Comer’s School Development Program on the School Climate (UNESCO, 2004) When teachers are able to form positive students-teachers relationships and engage their students to positive cognitive instructions, learning becomes an enjoyable experience taking place in a balance classroom climate.

When students experience a sense of belonging at school and supportive relationship with teachers and classmates, they are motivated to participate actively and appropriately in the life of the classroom as a result promoting positive classroom climate (Anderman, 1999, Birch and ladd 1997, Skinner and Belmond 1993) Positive relationships with teachers-students and parent-teachers relationship in the school appear to be less common with low income students from humble family backgrounds than students from higher income or rich family backgrounds (Entwisle and Alexander 1988).

Collaborative Teaching

Collaborative teaching, sometimes called cooperative teaching or team teaching, involves educators working in tandem to lead, instruct and mentor groups of students. Collaboration can be implemented across all instructional levels and subject areas. Unlike individual learning, people engaged in collaborative learning capitalize on one another’s resources and skills.

More specifically, collaborative learning is based on the model that knowledge can be created within a population where members actively interact by sharing experiences and take on asymmetric roles. Put differently, collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in common task where each individual depends on and is accountable to each other. These include both face-to-face conversations and computer discussions.

Thus, collaborative learning is commonly illustrated when groups of students work together to search for understanding, meaning, or solutions or to create an artifact or product of their learning. Furthermore, collaborative learning redefines the traditional students-teacher relationship in the classroom which results in controversy over whether this paradigm is more beneficial than harmful.

Collaborative learning thus entails “students working together without immediate teacher supervision in groups small enough that all students can participate collectively in a task. Thus collaboration can be termed as “coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem” (Roschelle&Teasley, 1995, p. 70). A collaboratively rich environment has been strongly recommended to improve students’ cognitive performance, social relationships, and metacognition (Paris &Winograd, 1990). Keeler & Anson (1995) also asserted that cooperative learning significantly improved learning performance and reduced attrition among students.

Parallel Teaching

Parallel teaching is a collaborative teaching method where two teachers use their individual strengths and teaching styles to jointly plan a lesson, then divide the class in half and each teach the same lesson to the two groups at the same time.

The class can be split randomly, according to learning profiles, behavior tendencies, or to strategically combine or distribute students with various strengths, needs, or characteristics. Working with a smaller group increases support for each student and the teacher’s ability to monitor the students for understanding. Parallel teaching allows for students with disabilities or learning needs to receive a higher level of support within group settings with a decreased level of social stigma that is sometimes associated with individual support. However, the extent to which knowledge is dependent on gender appears not to be resolved yet. Study results have been mixed.

Some authorities such as (Eze, 2000; Gbodi&Laleye 2006 and Akudolu, 2005) believe that good teaching should break the boundaries of gender while others such as (Opera, 2001 and Obayan, 2006) believe that knowledge is gender-related. This study was therefore carried out to investigate if parallel teaching approach could be of greater assistance in facilitating students’ achievement in English language comprehension vis-à-vis the effect of teaching approaches on achievement of academic performance.

Contextually Ndagana and Onifade (2000) considered no method as being the best for every teaching situation. However, they added that a carefully designed teaching method can make wonders in making learning effective. Ndagana and Onifade (2000) stated that “the success in the use of the method depends on an intelligent analysis of the educational purpose, the learners in the class, the curriculum content of the moment or the type of subject matter being taught”.

On the other hand, team teaching involves harnessing of benefits of co-operation efforts among teachers. Quinn and Kanter (1984) reported that team teaching is simple team work between two or more qualified instructors who together make presentations to an audience. Co-teaching or team teaching is when two educators work together to plan, organize, instruct and make assessments on the group of students, sharing the same classroom.

There are two types of team teaching. These include: hierarchic team teaching-the structure of a hierarchic team teaching may be linked to a pyramid with a team leader at the apex, master teachers just below and regular teachers at the base and synergetic team teaching-synergetic team teaching groups are formed through the co-operation of two or more teachers working together as professional equals.

Academic performance is commonly measure through examinations or continuous assessments but there is no general agreement on how it is best evaluated or which aspects are most important procedural knowledge such as skills or declarative knowledge such as facts (Aniemeka 2002). Welch, Brownell and Seridan (1999) described team teaching as a restructuring of teaching procedures in which two or more educators who possess distinct set of skills, work in a co-active and co-ordinate fashion to jointly teach academically and behaviorally homogeneous groups of students in an educationally integrated classroom setting.

Ajayi, Ajibade and Aniemeka (2002) reported that team-teaching involves a number of instructors of different types who shares the same subject matter area, and actively engaged in all aspects of course development from sequencing of topics in a unit plan or scheme of work and lesson plan, generation of learning activities and development of appropriate evaluation instrument.

Ajayi, Ajibade and Aniemeka (2002) also went further to explain that in team-teaching the topics or units and other expected activities are equitably so that when a member is not teaching, the time taken off teaching could be spent on evaluation, grading, production of instructional materials and assisting whoever is teaching by observing his presentation or supporting the practical exercises, as demonstrators in small group settings.

Theoretically, several theories have been developed to explain the effects of team teaching on secondary schools students. In this study, two theories have been used to explain the effect of team teaching and academic performance of secondary schools students.

Albert Bandura social learning theory.  Bandura and Walters (1973) stress on the fact that students can learn new responses merely by watching a model or activity. Modeling refers to the learning of behavior by observing another individual engaging in that behavior or activities around the school. In order to learn from a model, an individual does not necessarily need to participate in that behavior.

The individual only needs to watch how the model is performing and the individual learns how to accomplish the learned behavior or activity (Zastow1987) As Bandura and Walters further said much learning is produced not through operant conditioning but through sample observation for usually, there is no period for trial and error learning that would be expected for observational learning. Bandura further argues that cognitive process perception, learning, memory and thinking play a central role in regulating what the students see and observe around their school.

The social context of Bandura’s Social learning theory  on team teaching is related in the fact that when the teacher-teachers relationship or participation, is positive or convenient for the students, they can easily observe positive learned behavior or copy what is of positive academic interest to their performance, and this will improve academic performance.

According to Bandura, academic performance will improve when the student-students, student teachers, teacher-teachers participations interactive, and the students have focused group for studies. The students can easily interact with the teachers and observe positive behaviors, that increase students understanding, and the teachers team teach teaching is focused on the students challenges on their academic performance and how to improve on the students challenges, students who experienced positive team teaching observe both peers and teachers positive activities that improve performance this is known as hidden curriculum. This theory is that much related to my work because it gives a clear view on how academic performance will improve when the student-students, teacher-teachers participations interactive, and the students have focused group for studies.

The psychosocial theory of Erik Erickson.  Erickson was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He proposed a psychosocial development theory that looked at development through the whole lifespan. The first stage of Erickson’s theory of psychosocial development is trust versus mistrust. He said this stage is the fundamental in life because a child is utterly dependent; the development of trust is based on the dependability and quality of the child’s parents.

If a child successfully develops trust, he or she will feel safe and secured in the world.  Parents who are inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, who ignore their children feelings instill a feeling of mistrust in their children. This can be related to the study in the fact that, if the students are trusted, this will increase the students’ self-confidence, and independent learning will be encouraged.

This theory is related to this work in that students need to trust their teachers’ team teaching and interact with them. Without this trust, they can be no effective study and this trust can only be developed in the students by their parents at home and peers in school. Therefore, when students develop trust in their parents and teachers, they will equally develop trust in their teachers. This will enable them to work harder and improved on their academic performance. He also says that a student is utterly dependent, meaning students cannot succeed for themselves. Thus, the responsibility of teachers to provide all is needed in order for the students to succeed since they know that students depend on them for everything that they need for their academic achievements.

Erickson tries to establish a partial likeness between the first stages of a child or students from infancy when he develops feeling of trust or lack of trust from his teachers to the later stage of school when they develop social interaction with others.  In this theory, he explains how student’s opinion, attitude, feelings and desire are affected by their teacher team teaching. Students’ interaction, knowledge and understanding of the school also influence their academic performance.

The implication of this theory to this work is that firstly the team teaching needs to includes the interact with the students in order to boost trust of the students, and the more the students feel trusted by teachers collaboration or team teaching, the more they are motivated to learned and performed well. This theory is related to this work in that students need to trust their teachers’ team teaching and interact with them.

B.F.Skinner The behaviorism learning theory of Behaviorism is a learning theory that only focuses on objectively observable behaviors and discounts any independent activities of the mind. Behavior theorists define learning as nothing more than the acquisition of new behavior based on environmental conditions. Experiments by behaviorists identify conditioning as a usual learning process. There are two different types of conditioning, each yielding a different behaviorial pattern:

Classic conditioning occurs when a natural reflex responds to a stimulus. We are biologically “wired” so that a certain stimulus will produce a specific response. One of the more common examples of classical conditioning in the educational environment is in situations where students exhibit irrational fears and anxieties like fear of failure, fear of public speaking and general school phobia.

Behavioral or operant conditioning occurs when a response to a stimulus is reinforced. Basically, operant conditioning is a simple feedback system: if a reward or reinforcement follows the response to a stimulus, then the response becomes more probable in the future. This theory is relatively simple to understand because it relies only on observable behavior and describes several universal laws of behavior. Its positive and negative reinforcement techniques can be very effective-such as treatments for human disorders including autism, anxiety disorders and antisocial behavior. Behaviorism is often used teachers who reward or punish student behaviors.

Statement of Problem

While there may be various benefits to teachers collaborating, it is unclear if collaboration translates into gains in student achievement.  Therefore, it is necessary to examine research in order to determine if in fact collaboration amongst educators leads to improved student achievement. Lastly, given the achievement gap that exists between various sub-groups of students, it is also important to examine how collaboration impacts different groups of students.

Given the resources expended to promote, support, and facilitate collaboration, it is critical that scientific research results support the idea that this practice leads to increased student achievement. This is what urges the researcher to carry out an investigation on the effects of team teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality.

Objectives of the study

Main Research Objective

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of team teaching on student’s academic achievement in the Buea Municipality.

Specific Objectives

Specifically, the study aimed at:

1. Investigating the effect of collaborative teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality South West Region of Cameroon
2. Finding out the effect of parallel teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality South West Region of Cameroon
3. To investigate the effect of alternative teaching on students’ academic performance in the Buea Municipality South West Region of Cameroon.