Secondary School Physics Teachers’ Level of Awareness and Extent of Use of Professional Ethics and Codes of Conduct in Enugu State

Abstract

Secondary school Physics teachers’ awareness and use of professional ethics and codes of conduct in teaching in Enugu state was established. Six research questions and four null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. Descriptive survey design was employed in the conduct of the study. The population of the study involved 196 Physics teachers in the 291 government owned secondary schools in Enugu state, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique specifically balloting with replacement was applied to obtain a sample of 105 Physics teachers from three education zones in the state. The codes of conducts questionnaire for Physics teachers (CCQPT) was used as the instrument for data collection. The CCQPT was validated by three experts. The coefficient of reliability was obtained using Cronbach Alpha method. The internal consistency of CCQPT was found to be 0.87and 0.76 for sections I and II respectively.  Statistical mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions, while multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses. The findings showed that Physics teachers are aware of and use the professional ethics and codes of conduct in teaching to a very high extent; there is no significant difference between the male and female Physics teachers’ awareness and use of professional ethics and codes of conduct in teaching. Recommendations were made among which are that Government should mandate all Physics teachers to register with TRCN and possess their maximum education training and appointment of ethics specialist who plays a role in top management decision making in schools should be approved.