Ethno-Religious Settlement Pattern, Teachers’ Posting, Productivity and Junior Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Social Studies in Plateau State, Nigeria

Prof. Dauda Adeyemo Ariya Dr. Ruth James Umaru

doi:10.56201/ijssmr.vol.12no10.2026.pg686.702

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Ethno-Religious Settlement Pattern, Teachers’ Posting, Productivity and Junior Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Social Studies in Plateau State, Nigeria

Prof. Dauda Adeyemo Ariya Dr. Ruth James Umaru

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between ethno-religious settlement pattern and teachers’ posting, teachers’ productivity and junior secondary school students’ achievement in Social Studies in the Northern Senatorial Zone of Plateau State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted. The population comprised the teachers and students of the 99 public junior secondary schools in the six local government areas of the zone, and purposive sampling was used to select 21 schools, 279 teachers and 701 students. Data were collected with the Teachers’ Posting and Settlement Pattern Questionnaire , the Students’ Settlement Pattern Perception Questionnaire and the 30-item Social Studies Achievement Test , which was administered once. The instruments were given face and content validation by experts in Test and Measurement at the University of Jos, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .84 , .81 and .79 showed that the questionnaires were highly consistent and the test acceptably so, since all exceeded the .70 benchmark and the instruments were therefore dependable for group-level comparison. Means and standard deviations answered five research questions, and four null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level with the independent samples t-test and Pearson product-moment correlation. Respondents largely agreed that religious considerations influence teachers’ posting and the school’s students attend, and this agreement was stronger in Christian-dominated than in Muslim-dominated zones. Teachers’ posting was closely aligned with the religious character of school areas, and teachers reported that religious settlement pattern reduces their productivity, with greater polarisation going with lower productivity. Students’ achievement in Social Studies was average, and male students achieved significantly higher than female students. It is recommended that the Plateau State Ministry of Education adopt a merit-based, religion- neutral posting policy, strengthen peacebuilding content in Social Studies, and support inter- community school exchanges and the safety of female teachers and learners.

Keywords

ethno-religious settlement patternteachers’ postingteacher productivitySocial Studies achievementjunior secondary schoolPlateau State

References

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Ethno-Religious Settlement Pattern, Teachers’ Posting, Productivity and Junior Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Social Studies in Plateau State, Nigeria

Abstract

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