ABSTRACT
Overtime, motivation and satisfaction of workers on the job had been key to efficient and effective work attitude. In Nigerian schools, there is a general dearth of music teachers which has resulted in the employment of unqualified teachers to teach the subject, thereby helped in discouraging students through inefficient teaching. Nigeria as a developing country is concerned on educating her citizens to suit her manpower needs and to meet the needs of the ever-changing world. It is observed that when the student is unsuccessful, much blame is usually leveled on the teacher. Music teaching/ learning at this level needs a well-organized and serious motivating initiatives. Oftentimes, the music teachers are criticized because of the apparent inefficiencies in the school system, particularly when their students fail to perform academically. To make the teachers accountable, there must be a way of getting them involved in school policies, provide incentives that will make them motivated and satisfied on the job. Consequently, the study aim at assessing the influence of motivation and job satisfaction on music teachers and junior secondary school students’ performance in music in South-South Nigeria. The objective of the study is to determine how the moderator variables of gender, experience qualification and school location influences music teachers and their students’ performance in music. The study employs the descriptive survey method, whic collected allows the researcher to organized, analyzed and described as they exist without interference by the researcher. A proportionately stratified random sampling technique is used in selecting a sample 150 (10%) from the total population of 1,512 music teachers. 20 secondary schools are selected from each of the four states (out of the six South-South States) which formed the study population. Akwa Ibom, 62 (10% out of 620); Cross River, 36 (10% of 360); Rivers, 28 (10% of 286) and Delta, 24 (10% of 246). A structured questionnaire on the title Music Teachers’ Motivation, Job Satisfaction and Students’ Performance in Music Questionnaire (MTMJSSPMQ) and personal obsevaions are the tools utilized to collect primary data from the sampled population. Collated data are analyzed with both descriptive frequency counts and simple percentages, and inferential statistics such as the Chi square. The analyses show that there is significant influence exerted by the independent variables (motivation and job satisfaction) on the dependent variable which is the output of music teacher (students’ performance in music). The moderator variables of gender, years of experience, qualification and school location respectively, have positive influence on the level of music teachers’ motivation and job satisfaction and the junior secondary school (JSS) students’ performance in music. The results show that getting teachers’ motivated with in-service training, better work environment antecedents, job security, etc, are important to achieving increased teachers’ morale, productivity, job satisfaction and reduce the brain drain rate in the school system. Based on the findings, it is recommended that education stakeholders in each state should build partnership with higher education and secondary schools to create optimal working condition for effective teaching and learning.