IMPACT OF IN-SERVICE TRAINING ON DEVELOPMENT OF MUSICAL ARTS EDUCATION AMONG MUSIC TEACHERS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA

Musical arts developments over the years have seen tremendous improvement especially at the tertiary level. Unfortunately, this is not the case in other lower educational institutions. Also, the development progress and improvement of any area is a function of training and self-development of the manpower resources. Hence, this study focused on the impact of in-service training on the development of musical arts education among teachers in secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. Three specific objectives, research questions and corresponding hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consisted of 52 music teachers drawn across public secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis. A sample of 41 respondents was drawn for the study using multi-stage sampling procedure. An instrument named "The Impact of In-service Training on Music Development Questionnaire (TIITMDQ) was used for the study. Validation of TIITMDQ was done by experts in measurement while Cronbach alpha method was used to determine a reliability index of 0.83. Item-byitem analysis and t test was used as method of data analysis. Findings of the study revealed that attending conferences (P=0.003<0.05), seminars, (P=0.02<0.05) and workshops (P=0.000<0.05) all have significant impact on the development of musical arts education. Based on this, it was recommended among others that government, school authorities and other stakeholders in education should make in-service training compulsory among music teachers in secondary schools in Port Harcourt Metropolis, Nigeria.