Teachers’ Attitude and Metacognitive Awareness as Determinants of their Perceived Professional Competence in Social Studies

The study was an investigation of teachers’ attitude and metacognitive awareness as determinants of their Perceived Professional Competence in Social Studies among post primary schools in Kogi, Nigeria. The study adopted correlational survey research design. The population comprised 3,957 Upper Basic Social Studies teachers from 1937 Universal Basic Education schools in Kogi East for 2019/2020 academic session with a sample of 980. The three instruments used are Social Studies Teachers’ Competency Scale (SSTCS), Social Studies Teachers’ Attitudinal Disposition (SSTAD) and Teachers’ Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) with reliability coefficients of 0.88, 0.76 and 0.75 respectively. From the analysis it was found that teachers’ attitude towards Social Studies F(1,469) = 1.158; p = 0.000 < 0.05 and teachers’ metacognitive awareness F(1,469) = 15.638; p = 0.000 < 0.05 have significant contributions to their Perceived Professional Competence in public secondary schools. It was also found that teachers’ attitude towards Social Studies F(1,507) = 0.920; p = 0.038 < 0.05 and metacognitive awareness F(1,507) = 1.487; p = 0.023 < 0.05 had significant contributions to their Perceived Professional Competence in private secondary schools. Social Studies teachers’ metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies jointly also contributed significantly to their Perceived Professional Competence in public secondary schools F(2,468) = 8.234; p = 0.000 < 0.05 as well as in private secondary schools F(2,506) = 1.087; p = 0.038 < 0.05. It was recommended among others that the State Ministry of Education should employ only teachers that are professionally qualified and certified to teach Social Studies.