Article Details

The quality of agricultural teacher education in North-West Nigeria is compromised by an inadequately documented occupational burnout crisis among teacher educators that erodes instructional quality and cascades into diminished student agricultural knowledge outcomes. This study determined the relationships among agricultural teacher educator burnout, perceived instructional quality, and student agricultural knowledge attainment across twelve colleges of education in North-West Nigeria. A cross-sectional multilevel mediation design was employed. 108 agricultural teacher educators and 648 of their NCE III students participated. Three validated instruments measured educator burnout, instructional quality, and student agricultural knowledge. Multilevel modelling with Level-1 (student) and Level-2 (educator) data structures was employed, alongside PROCESS macro bootstrapped mediation analysis at the educator level. The study found that burnout correlated negatively with instructional quality, r(106) = -.67, p < .001. Instructional quality significantly mediated 58.4% of the total burnout-to-student-knowledge effect (indirect effect = -0.34, 95% BCa CI [-0.44, -0.25]). Emotional exhaustion was the burnout dimension most strongly associated with reduced instructional quality (beta = -.51). Workload, collegial support deficits, and salary inadequacy were the highest-rated burnout antecedents. Institutional welfare reforms and structured collegial support systems are recommended as the primary intervention mechanisms to reverse the burnout-driven deficit in instructional quality in North-West Nigerian agricultural teacher education.