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.


Introduction
In the process of learning Social Studies, the teacher comes in contact with contents, goals, teaching methods, classroom environment and students. The subject is integrated and this applies to content and methodology. The introduction of new approaches to learning the subject places demands for a change in the education of teachers both in their personal characteristics such as their attitude and metacognitive awareness level.
A field of study that deals with the integration of experience and knowledge concerning human relations for the purpose of citizenship education is what is regarded as Social Studies (Barth & Shermis, 2013). People see the subject as interdisciplinary in nature with potentials to achieve the aims of education better than other enhancement of learning outcomes. Shafiee and Sattar (2011) maintain that metacognitive teaching both benefits students and also increases the teachers' motivation. The author also found a positive impact of metacognitive awareness of language teachers on their pedagogical success. Dogra (2016) found that teachers' everyday activities lead to increased metacognitive awareness and skills. It is the intention of this study to determine how metacognitive awareness determines teachers' perceived professional competence in Social Studies among private and public secondary schools.
Many teacher variables may be tied to whether the school is public or private. This may seem to have both theoretical and practical underpinnings. Public schools are seen as "no man's business" by both the teachers and the community. On the other hand, private schools are seen by parents and guardians to be more administratively effective (Ogbiji & Ogbiji, 2014). Therefore, it is imperative that teacher characteristics as determinant of their perceived professional competence in Social Studies among private and public post primary schools in Kogi East Education Zones of Kogi State, Nigeria is worth investigating.

Statement of the Problem
Social Studies helps students to develop the ability to adjust to fit into the ever-changing environment in which they find themselves by acquiring relevant knowledge, attitudes, values and practical skills (Adeyemi, 2010). Notwithstanding, the implementation of Social Studies over the years is has not yielded the expected goals in terms of imbibing the right type of attitudes and values that make learners good citizens (Abdu-Raheem, 2012). The youths have become knowledgeable in Social Studies but lacks in good social values, attitudes and behaviours that describe socially responsible citizens as evident from increasing social vices among the youths. This begs for change of attention to teachers' perceived professional competency to be able to be models to learners. Teacher characteristics such as attitude towards Social Studies and metacognitive awareness skills could be determinant factors of teachers' perceived professional competencies that could enable the teacher to make a class interactive. This could cause the students to participate actively for improved performance in Social Studies.
The characteristics of teachers such as metacognitive skills and attitude are attributes of perceived professional competence that could result in improved learning as well as performance of teachers in the teaching profession. Therefore, the problem of this study put in a question form is, how do teachers' metacognitive awareness skills and attitude determine their perceived professional competence in Social Studies in public and private junior secondary schools in Kogi East Education Zone in Kogi State, Nigeria?

Purpose of the Study
The objective of this study was to investigate extent to which teachers' characteristics determine their perceived professional competence in Social Studies among private and public secondary schools. Specifically, the study sought to: 1. Find the relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.

2.
Find the relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. 3.
Find the relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. 4.
Find the relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. 5.
Find the joint contribution of teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards their perceived professional competence in Social Studies in public secondary schools. 6.
Determine the joint contribution of teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards their perceived professional competence in Social Studies in private secondary schools.

Research Design
Correlational survey research design is used in this study. The design seeks to identify relationship or strength of relationship between two or more elements in a study being investigated (Agogo & Achor, 2019;Nworgu, 2015). In this study it established a causal model of relationships between teachers' characteristics as independent variable and the study's dependent variables of teachers' perceived professional competence in Social Studies.

Population
A total of 3,957 Upper Basic Social Studies teachers from 1,937 public and private Universal Basic Education schools in Kogi East Education Zone for 2019/2020 academic session was the population for the study (Kogi State Ministry of Education, 2019). The choice of Social Studies teachers from public and private Universal Basic Education schools was because Social Studies teachers demonstrate attitude professional incompetence.

Sample and Sampling
Nine hundred and eighty Social Studies teachers (470 in public and 510 in private) from 87 upper basic schools in 15 Local Government Areas within the three Education Zones of Kogi State formed the sample. Multi-stage sampling procedure was engaged. In the first stage 15 LGAs were randomly sampled, that is, five each from the three Education Zones of the state through the use of slip of paper or lucky dip with replacement.
In the second stage purposive sampling technique was employed to select 87 upper basic schools in the 15 Local Government Areas sampled. Purposive sampling technique was employed in the selection of schools that are certified by the researchers to have qualified and reasonably experienced Social Studies teachers.
The third stage was stratification along teachers' qualification and years of experience using proportionate stratified random sampling to select 980 teachers that were teaching Social Studies as a school subject in the 1937 Universal Basic Education schools as at 2019/2020 session which constituted the sample size for this study.

Instrumentation
Three instruments were used for data collection. They are Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS), Social Studies Teachers' Attitudinal Disposition (SSTAD) and Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI).

A. Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS)
The Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS) has two sections: A and B. Section A sought for information from the teachers on some competency attributes. Part B elicits information on Social Studies teacher' perceived professional competence in teaching Social Studies. The Part B of the Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS) is made up of 41 items. Each of the items on Part B was rated on a four-point scale thus: 1=Somewhat Intense, 2=Moderately Intense, 3=Highly Intense and 4=Extremely Intense.

B. Social Studies Teachers' Attitudinal Disposition Scale (SSTADS)
The SSTADS was developed by the researchers. It has parts A and B. Part A sought after respondents' demographic factors/variables. Part B elicited attitudinal disposition of the teachers towards the teaching profession. It consists of 32 items out of which 14 are positive statements and 18 are negative statements. Each of the items was rated on a four-point scale thus: Strongly Agree (SA=4), Agree (A=3), Disagree (D=2) and Strongly Disagree (SD=1) respectively for positive statements. The reverse rating order (1, 2, 3 and 4) was used for negative statements.

C. Teacher's Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI)
Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) developed by Haines-Young and Potschin (2011) was adapted for the study. The Teacher's Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) contains two parts: A and B. Part A requested for the respondents; view on some of the demographic elements. Part B solicits information on the level of teachers' metacognitive awareness. This instrument contains items from the following metacognitive knowledge: Declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge, planning, monitoring strategies and evaluation. Each of the items of part B is a four point scale component thus: Always, Usually, Sometimes and Not at all weighted as 4, 3, 2, and 1 respectively.

Validation of Instruments
The Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS), Social Studies Teachers' Attitudinal Disposition Scale (SSTADS), and Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) were face validated by three experts. An expert in Measurement and Evaluation and two others of Social Studies background were requested to scrutinize the instruments for proper wording of the items, clarity and appropriateness to the respondents as well as the adequacy of content coverage.
The initial pool of items of Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS) is 99, Social Studies Teachers' Attitudinal Disposition Scale (SSTADS) is 32 and Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) is 26. Based on the comments of validators, some of the items are restructured in terms of grammatical structure. The observations from these experts were used for modification of the items to produce the final version. Then, the instruments were used for trial testing to enable the researcher determine the reliability of the instruments.

Reliability
The Social Studies Teachers' Competency Scale (SSTCS), Social Studies Teachers' Attitudinal Disposition Scale (SSTADS), and Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (TMAI) were trial tested on 50 Upper Basic II Social Studies teachers from 28 schools outside the study area. The instruments were trial tested on Social Studies teachers by the researchers and returned immediately. The responses from SSTCS, SSTAD and TMAI were analyzed using Cronbach Alpha formula to establish the internal consistency of the instruments. The reliability coefficients were found to be .75 for TMAI, .76 for SSTADS and .88 for SSTCS respectively. These values fare within acceptable standard range of .50 and .99 (Nworgu, 2015). As expressed by Dingley (2014) the reliability indicates acceptable level of internal consistency if the value is greater than .50. These instruments are therefore said to be reliable.

Data Collection
The SSTCS, SSTADS and TMAI were administered by the researchers and research assistants on the teachers. Two Social Studies teachers with Bachelor Degree and 10 years of experience served as research assistants. A total of two weeks was used for the administration of the instruments. Two days were spent in each school for the administration of the instruments. Day 1 in each school had TMAI and SSTADS and Day 2 had SSTCS administered. The school management gave permission for administration of the instruments. The researcher collected the instruments from the research assistants at the expiration of time scheduled for each instrument to be completed.
The decision of the researcher to personally administer the research instruments with the assistance of regular Social Studies teachers in each secondary school visited was to reduce attrition and guarantee high return rate of the instruments. The 110 instruments administered were collected at the end of the exercise and sorted out to obtain the sample size.

Data Analysis and Results
Multiple regression analysis was used followed by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of regression at 0.05 level of significance to investigate the extent to which teachers characteristics of attitude and metacognitive awareness determine their perceived professional competence in Social Studies, since this was a measure of the extent, magnitude and relationship between variables. Multiple regression analysis measures the extent and magnitude of relationship between variables, hence it was used for analysis. Moreover, since the study was a correlation study with one of the variables predicting another, the use of regression analysis was quite in order. Table 1 reveals that F (1,469) = 1.158; p = 0.000 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.  Table 2 shows the regression of relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The analysis implies that the correlation between teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence is 0.550 with a coefficient of determination of 0.303. This implies that 30.3% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is accounted for by their attitude towards Social Studies. Therefore, the relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is 30.3% Table 3 reveals that F (1,469) = 15.638; p = 0.000 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.  Table 4 shows the regression of relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The analysis implies that the correlation between Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and their perceived professional competence is 0.680 with a coefficient of determination of 0.462. This implies that 46.2% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is accounted for by their metacognitive awareness. Thus, the relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is 46.2%. Table 5 reveals that F(1,507) = 0.920; p = 0.038 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools.  Table 6 shows the regression of relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The analysis implies that the correlation between teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence is 0.443 with a coefficient of determination of 0.196. This implies that only 19.6% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is accounted for by their attitude towards Social Studies. Thus, the relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is 19.6%. Table 7 reveals that F (1,507) = 1.487; p = 0.023 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This means that there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools.  Table 8 shows the regression of relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The analysis implies that the correlation between Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and their perceived professional competence is 0.514 with a coefficient of determination of 0.264. Therefore, only 26.4% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is accounted for by their metacognitive awareness. Hence, the relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is 26.4%. Table 9 reveals that F (2,468) = 8.234; p = 0.000 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that there is significant joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant dual contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.  Table 10 shows the regression of joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness, attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The result implies that the correlation between Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness, attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence is 0.841 with a coefficient of determination of 0.707. This implies that only 70.7% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is accounted for by the joint contribution of metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies. Therefore, the joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools is 70.7%. Table 11 reveals that F(2,506) = 1.087; p = 0.038 < 0.05. Thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. This implies that there is significant joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. Thus, based on evidence from data analysis, there is significant combined contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools.   Table 12 shows the regression of joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The table reveals the linear regression model of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness, attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The analysis implies that the correlation between Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness, attitude towards Social Studies and their perceived professional competence is 0.665 with a coefficient of determination of 0.442. Therefore, only 44.2% of Social Studies teachers' perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is accounted for by the joint contribution of metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies. Thus, the joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools is 44.2%.

Relative Contribution of Teachers' Attitude towards Social Studies to their Perceived Professional Competence in Public Secondary Schools
It is found in this study that there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. This means that teachers' attitude towards Social Studies is a determinant of their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The findings agree with that of Al-Bataineh (2014) whose result showed that teachers that display high positive attitudes toward technology implementation were far more likely to have high perceptions of competency needed for implementation of technology in social studies classrooms. This finding is consistent with that of Yildirim, Arastaman, and Dasci (2016) that teachers had positive attitudes toward measurement and evaluation and perceptions of professional well-being. A significant positive relationship was found between the teachers' attitudes toward measurement and evaluation and their perceptions of professional wellbeing. Attitude toward measurement and evaluation was identified as a significant predictor of perception of professional well-being. Yildirim (2015) found that attitude is a determinant of teachers' professional wellbeing and the present study has confirmed this.
Attitude is an individual way of thinking, display and behaviour. Finding of the present study implies that Social Studies teachers have positive attitudinal dispositions towards Social Studies. This is majorly responsible for the teachers' attitude towards Social Studies being the determinant of their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. It has very serious connotation for the Social Studies teachers since attitudes formation are consequences of learning exposures. Attitudes are also acquired simply by following the example or ideas of others. This is regarded as imitation that influences the teachinglearning. Therefore teachers' disposition to form their own attitudes could have a significant influence on their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.

Relative Contribution of Social Studies Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness to their Perceived Professional Competence in Public Secondary Schools
It is found that there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. This means that Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness is a determinant of their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. This finding corroborates with that of Wilson and Bai (2010) and Akman and Alagöz (2018) that the participants' metacognitive knowledge had a significant impact on their metacognition and that teachers who have a rich understanding of metacognition report that teaching students to be metacognitive requires a complex understanding of both the concept of metacognitive thinking strategies. The finding also agrees with that of (Doyle, 2013) that there was a significant increase in students' knowledge of cognition for metacognitive intervention but increase in total metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) scores and regulation of cognition scores were not significant. The finding further agrees with that of Jayapraba and Kanmani (2013) that students taught using the cooperative learning strategy had higher scores in metacognitive awareness than those taught using the inquiry-based method.
Metacognitive awareness enables Social Studies teachers to regulate their teaching activities to suit students, goals and situation. It helps the Social Studies teachers in planning, monitoring and evaluation of thinking processes and products, and it also equips the teachers about kind of information/skills they have, when, why and how to put them to use. This is responsible for the relative contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their professional competence. Social Studies teachers are found in the present study to be thinking metacognitively to effectively run teaching and strategically use instructional techniques. Teachers could do this by developing internal cognitive strategies that could help them in organizing, planning, delivery, and evaluating learning activities more effectively and efficiently through contribution to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.
Finding of the present study establishes support for Social Studies teachers with positive attitudinal disposition: they are friendly, intelligent, emotionally more stable, sober, conscientious, venturesome, toughminded, shrewd, placid, controlled, relaxed and have favourable attitudes towards teaching. This must have accounted for the significant relative contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The Social Studies teachers with positive attitudinal disposition are seen as effective teachers because they can adjust their personality better; have more favourable attitude towards teaching, are more emotionally stable and tended for less authoritarian. They may be warmer, adventurous, more self-controlled, less suspicious, less apprehensive, more imaginative and more experimenting. Favourable teachers' attitudes towards students are expected to enable them carry students along. All these are necessary ingredients for effective and efficient competency measures of the teaching profession.

Relative Contribution of Teachers' Attitude towards Social Studies to their Perceived Professional Competence in Private Secondary Schools
Finding of this study has revealed that there is significant contribution of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. This means that teachers' attitude towards Social Studies is a determinant of their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. This finding is consistent with that of Yildirim et al. (2016) that teachers had positive attitudes toward measurement and evaluation and perceptions of professional well-being. A significant positive relationship was found between the teachers' attitudes toward measurement and evaluation and their perceptions of professional well-being. Attitude toward measurement and evaluation was identified as a significant predictor of perception of professional well-being. Yildirim (2015) found that attitude is a determinant of teachers' professional well-being and the present study has confirmed this. The findings agree with that of Al-Bataineh (2014) whose result showed that teachers with relatively high positive attitudes toward technology implementation were far more likely to develop high perceptions of competency needed for technology implementation in social studies classrooms.
Attitude as a concept is about individual way of thinking, acting and behaviour. Finding of the present study implies that Social Studies teachers have positive attitudinal dispositions towards Social Studies. This is majorly responsible for the teachers' attitude towards Social Studies being the determinant of their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. It has serious implication for the Social Studies teachers since attitudes formation are consequences of some kinds of learning experiences. They may also be learned simply by following the example or opinion of others. Teachers' disposition to form their own attitudes could have a significant influence on their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools.

Relative Contribution of Social Studies Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness to their Perceived Professional Competence in Private Secondary Schools
Finding revealed that there is significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. This means that Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness is a determinant of their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The finding agrees with that of Jaumime (2013) that strategies involving self-regulation and metacognition in secondary Physics classroom are favourable to residential Physics students from low socioeconomic status. The finding also supports that of Anyafulude (2014) that students trained in metacognitive behaviour acquisition, achieved higher than those taught without training in metacognitive behaviour acquisition. However, the finding disagrees with that of Doyle (2013) that in adult pre-nursing students' metacognitive awareness do not correlate with age or academic indicator.
The high level of awareness that characterise metacognition could be associated with the school type. But findings revealed that Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness equally contributed to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. The relative significant contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness to their perceived professional competence found in the present study may be due to the fact that the teachers are aware of the role of metacognition in learning as it relates to the learner's awareness of thinking and learning. This could be manifested in the use of their reflective thinking tool in teaching and learning process and metacognitive awareness in the context of Social Studies learning. The Social Studies teachers are often aware of, monitor and in charge of their own learning. The levels of awareness of metacognitive process do influence the extent to which individuals prefer to use strategies. Social Studies teachers' spontaneously interpret tasks according to what they think the task demands. The study supports the fact that those Social Studies teachers who were aware of and used strategies in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of their work are more professionally competent.

Joint Contribution of Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness and Attitude towards their Perceived Professional Competence in Social Studies in Public Secondary Schools
Finding also revealed that there is significant joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. This means that Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies are joint determinants of their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. The finding agrees with that of Esuh (2013) who found a significant relationship between teaching qualifications, lecturers' characteristics and lecturers' competence with regards to lecturers' output. Following this fact, it was concludes that both lecturers' characteristics and competence are two most important factors that predict lecturers' output. The finding agrees with that of Titus and Adu (2017) that there is a significant relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable, while one differs indicating that there is no significant difference between the two variables. Thus, the level of experience of the teacher is a determinant of students' academic performance while classes effectively managed by teachers are likely to perform better than those poorly managed because the students lack concentration.
It seems obvious from the finding of the present study that teachers should be in touch with their knowledge control and consciousness of their own thinking and process of learning. This is the disposition of teachers towards teaching as a profession, coupled with the subject matter, has a marked influence on their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. This is responsible for the combination of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies jointly contributing significantly to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools. There is, however general lack of understanding about the extent to which people are involved in metacognitive thinking and the reflection of that thinking in everyday-life situation and on daily life tasks especially if the cultural contexts of those settings and tasks are not the same with that of classrooms. It is expedient therefore, to ensure that Social Studies teachers are positively disposed, work hard, show commitment and dedication to jobs; and ever ready to work towards realization their aims and objectives in the classroom environment using metacognition to increase the meaningfulness of learning in public secondary schools.

Joint Contribution of Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness and Attitude towards their Perceived Professional Competence in Social Studies in Private Secondary Schools
Finding revealed that there is significant joint contribution of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. This means that Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies are joint determinant of their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. This finding confirms the work of Taran and Nalla (2019) who found a significant relationship between the metacognitive awareness of the senior high school students and their attitudes toward problem solving in science. The finding agrees with that of Omolara and Oanite (2015) who found that Social Studies teachers display bad attitudes towards the subject teaching. The attitudes are non-regular class attendance, poor knowledge of the subject, non-variation in the manner of instructional delivery, and poor enthusiasm. Similarly, the reasons for their poor attitudes towards teaching are insufficient support from the students' parents, poor motivation and job satisfaction, poor attitudes of students towards learning, low social status, inadequate government support, absence of relevant and up to date teaching and learning materials. Others include low level of instructional supervision and delay in salaries payment. It is obvious that teachers possess negative attitudes towards teaching of Social Studies at secondary school level.
The finding of the present study supports the development of metacognitive activities that can be integrated into teaching context. The plan of such metacognitive activities should focus on cognitive and social aspects of Social Studies development, including capacity development on strategy and creation of a facilitating social environment for advancing knowledge about a specific domain and understanding of self as learner. This is because the combination of Social Studies teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies jointly contributed significantly to their perceived professional competence in private secondary schools. Thus, it could be deduced that the teacher functions as the facilitator of learning to fusion metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies. The success of Social Studies programme depends greatly on the classroom teacher as he is the one that translates all our thoughts into action. It is imperative to ensure that Social Studies teachers are aware of their metacognition and have positive attitude towards Social Studies to prepare them for the leadership role they are expected to play. The present study found that metacognitive teaching and positive attitudinal disposition of teachers could improve perceived professional competence of Socials Studies teachers.

Conclusion
The study has established that teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and metacognitive awareness have relative contributions to their perceived professional competence in public and private secondary schools. Furthermore, the study established that teachers' metacognitive awareness and attitude towards Social Studies jointly contributed to their perceived professional competence in public secondary schools as well as in private secondary schools. It was concluded that Social Studies teachers' teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and metacognitive awareness enhance their perceived professional competence in both public and private secondary schools. The study also concluded that the combination of teachers' attitude towards Social Studies and metacognitive awareness augment their perceived professional competence in both public and private secondary schools.

Recommendations
It has been recommended in this study that: 1.
The State Ministry of Education should employ only teachers that are reasonably qualified and certified to teach Social Studies. This may clarify the assumption that anybody can be a teacher of Social Studies and encourages the training and certification of Social Studies teachers.

2.
School authorities and administrators should make provision for activities that stimulate the provision of alternative attitudinal disposition in Social Studies classes. Such that Social Studies teachers may be better engaged during classroom activities as a result of positive attitudinal disposition to teaching; this could enhance their professional competence.

3.
Curriculum planners should modify the Social Studies curriculum to provide teachers with the necessary perceived professional competence to make them adaptable to changing situations in metacognitive awareness variable in the teaching of Social Studies.