This study investigated the effect of AI-focused professional development on teachers' pedagogical effectiveness and students' Mathematics achievement in Ogoja Education Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. Using a quasi-experimental design, 100 teachers and 200 SS1 students were divided into trained and untrained groups. Data were collected through the Teacher Pedagogical Effectiveness Questionnaire (TPEQ) and a Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT), with Cronbach's Alpha reliability index of 0.79 and Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) reliability index of 0.75, respectively. Results showed that trained teachers demonstrated higher pedagogical effectiveness (M = 4.12, SD = 0.40) than untrained teachers (M = 3.78, SD = 0.54), while their students achieved better scores (M = 72.4 vs. 68.7). One-way ANOVA confirmed statistically significant differences (p < 0.05), though with small effect sizes. The findings suggest that AI-based training improves instructional quality and student outcomes, highlighting its value for educational development in semi-urban Nigerian contexts.
Received: January 2026 Accepted: March 2026 Published: May 2026
Journal: The Nigerian Educator Journal of Education ISSN: 699-3-7
Copyright: © 2026 The Authors. Published under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.
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