Influence Of Teachers’ Characteristics On Students’ Academic Performance In Biology
[SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS]

On the other hand, the term “teacher characteristics” can be referred to as qualities that can be measured with tests or derived from their academic or professional records. They indicate that teacher characteristics does not generally refer to the direct observation of their influence on students’ learning in terms of either students’ test performance or teaching behaviors. Rather, the approaches dealt within the scope of this research are those that fall traditionally into the province of personnel psychology or personnel selection. This review deals with those characteristics of teachers that might be identified and used in the initial hiring of teachers to increase their students’ achievement.
Ashton (2006) indicates that these characteristics could include qualities of teachers that are viewed as personal– such as mental ability, age, gender – or as “experiential” – such as certification status, educational background, previous teaching experience and the like. Some characteristics are combinations – in unknown amounts – of personal and experiential qualities, for example; candidates’ performance on teacher-certification tests such as the national teacher examinations and state-mandated tests. A well-qualified teacher is the one who was fully certified and held the equivalent of a major in the field being taught. Huang andMoon (2009) document that teacher qualification accounted for approximately 40 to 60 percent of the variance in average of students’ performance in assessment. Richardson (2008) reveals that students in urban areas performed better than those in rural areas. The researcher suggests that the availability of enough qualified teachers must have been a determinant for students’ performance.   
Similarly, teacher’s experience has a significant effect on pupil performance in primary schools and at upper secondary level. Experienced teachers have a richer background of experience to draw from and can contribute insight and ideas to the course of teaching and learning, are open to correction and are less dictatorial in classroom. Teachers’ experience and student achievement was that students taught by more experienced teachers achieve at a higher level, because their teachers have mastered the content and acquired classroom management skills to deal with different types of classroom problems (Gibbons et al., 2001). Furthermore, more experienced teachers are considered to be more able to concentrate on the most appropriate way to teach particular topics to students who differ in their abilities, prior knowledge and backgrounds (Stringfield & Teddlie, 2000).
In their own opinion Abu and Gbadamasi (2014) stated that in science education, attitude toward science is an important factor affecting students’ science achievement as well as students’ alternative conceptions or misconceptions. Attitude is a hypothetical construct that indicates an individual like and dislike towards an item. It may be positive, negative or neutral. Attitude is an approach, temperament, sensation, situation, etc. with regard to a person or thing: inclination or course, especially of the mind. Attitude is a way of looking at things (Muellerleile, 2005). An attitude may be defined as a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given attitude object (Oskamp& Schultz, 2005). Every science teacher considered the development of positive attitude towards science subjects as his center responsibility (Cheung, 2009).
Influence of teachers’ availability on students’ performance, Akinsolu (2013) stated that many studies have equally been conducted to relate the quantity of teachers and academic performance. Ijaiya (2000) investigated the problems of teacher staffing in Kwara State secondary schools and found that there is an acute shortage of teachers in Kwara State secondary schools thus contributing to massive failures as well as poor quality teaching. In a study of relationship among school size, resource utilization and school effectiveness in Ilorin Local Government Areas, Ibitoye (2003) discovered that there is a significant relationship between enrollment, utilization of classrooms provided for teachers, the teaching of learning activities and students’ academic performance.