MENTORING AND HEALTH SERVICES AS PREDICTORS OF TEACHERS’ JOB ENGAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study examined mentoring and health services as predictors of teachers’ job engagement in public secondary schools in Anambra State. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses were tested at a 0.05 level of significance. A correlational research design was adopted for this study. The population of the study comprised 7,248 teachers from the 267 public secondary schools in Anambra State. The sample for this study consisted of 726 teachers drawn using a proportionate stratified sampling technique. Two sets of structured instruments titled ‘‘Mentoring and Health Services Questionnaire (MHSQ)’’ and ‘‘Teachers’ Job Engagement Questionnaire (TJEQ)’’ were used for data collection. The instruments were subjected to face validation by three experts, comprising two experts in Educational Management and an expert in Measurement and Evaluation, all from the Department of Educational Foundations, Faculty of Education, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam Campus. The construct validation of the instruments was determined using factor analysis. The internal consistencies of the instruments were determined using the Cronbach Alpha method, which yielded overall reliability indices of 0.83 for MSSQ and 0.84 for TJEQ respectively. The instruments were administered by the researcher with the help of five research assistants who are secondary school teachers in Anambra State. A total of 726 copies were distributed, out of which 713 copies were properly filled and successfully retrieved, indicating 98% return rate. Simple regression was employed to address the research questions and test the hypotheses. The findings of the study revealed, among others mentoring services are a strong and significant predictor of teachers’ job engagement in secondary schools in Anambra State. It was also found that health services are a strong and significant predictor of teachers’ job engagement in secondary schools in Anambra State. Based on the findings, it was recommended, among other things, that the Ministry of Education should develop a handbook to promote and guide principals in rendering mentoring services to teachers for improving their job engagement.