ABSTRACT
This study examined
the factors affecting the academic performance of state senior secondary school
students in Economics in Education District IV of Lagos State. In carrying out
this study, the sample survey design was adopted. The population of the study
covered the entire students of the Public or State Senior Secondary Schools in
Education District IV of Lagos State. A sample of 300 students was selected for
the study using the simple random sampling technique. Two research instruments
were designed to collect data for this study. These instruments included a
questionnaire structured by the researcher for the students and a forty-item
objective achievement test on Economics. The samples of the instruments were
shown to the research supervisor for validation. A pilot test was conducted
using some copies of the instruments; and the Split-half statistical method was
employed to determine the reliability coefficients of the instruments and the
instruments were found reliable at 0.63 and 0.58 coefficients. The data
collected on the demographic features of the respondents were presented in
percentage tables and interpreted respectively; whereas the data generated from
the responses of the respondents to the questionnaire items and their scores
from the achievement test were used to analyze the four the research questions
and test the four hypotheses posited for the study, using percentages, mean and
one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study result showed that the home,
school and classroom environmental factors, as well as socioeconomic factors
have significant influence on state senior secondary school students’
performance in Economics. Accordingly, it was suggested among other things that
government and secondary school administrators should ensure that secondary
schools are provided with adequate relevant and appropriate physical and
material resources needed to aggrandize both the school and classroom
environments for effective teaching and learning.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENT PAGE
Cover page i
Certification
ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv
Abstract v
Table of
contents vi
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study 1
1.2 Statement of Problem 3
1.3 Purpose of the study 4
1.4 Research Questions 5
1.5 Research Hypotheses 6
1.6 Significance of the study 6
1.7 Scope of the study 7
CHAPTER TWO :
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0
Introduction 8
2.1 Home
environmental factors and academic performance 8
2.2
School environmental factors and academic performance 10
2.3
Classroom environmental factors and academic performance 16
2.4
Social environmental factors and academic performance 18
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.0 Introduction
22
3.1
Research design 22
3.2 Population
of the study 22
3.3
Sample and sampling technique 22
3.4
Research Instrument 23
3.5
Validation of Research Instrument 23
3.6
Reliability of the Research instrument 24
3.7 Procedure
for Data Collection 24
3.8 Procedure
for Data Analysis 24
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT
PRESENTATION
4.0
Introduction 26
4.1
Presentation of Respondents’ Bio-data 26
4.2
Answers to Research Questions 27
4.3 Test
of Hypotheses and Results 33
4.4 Summary of findings 36
CHAPTER FIVE : SUMMARY,
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS
5.0 Introduction 37
5.1
Discussion of Findings 37
5.2
Summary of the study 42
5.3 Conclusion
44
5.4
Recommendations 44
5.5
Suggestions for further studies 45
REFERENCES 47
APPENDIX 1 53
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Education
is a social service that is provided for the general population of a country
for the enlightenment of the people. Through education skills are acquired; and
this enables a country to develop. In Nigeria, like so many other developing
countries of the world, there is always strong faith in education as the key to
economic progress and political stability. Education constitutes the major
engine for sustainable human development as well as the fulcrum around which
every activity revolves. Bell (2003) posits that no nation can rise beyond its
educational level. Indeed, nations that have achieved feats in the world
heavily rely on the instrumentality of education (Obianime and Nwachukwu,
2006). This is because through education individuals acquire useful and
relevant knowledge, skills and attitude that enable them to live meaningful and
contributive life in the world. As a result, education liberates the
beneficiaries from ignorance, poverty, redundancy and disease.
Nevertheless, there will be no provision of
qualitative education without efficient educational system that guarantees
effective teaching and learning (effective implementation of the curricula of
education) in schools at all levels of the educational system. This is because
through teaching the curriculum as related to every educational level is
interpreted into ideas, skills and attitude by the teachers and transferred to
the learners. When this process is effectively carried out, better learning
outcomes and performance on the part of the learners is achieved. This is
because the real essence of teaching is to transmit and internalize the
educational values and ideas, which are recommended in the National Policy on
Education (2004).
In Nigerian schools, especially secondary
schools, it is expected that apart from brilliant performances in the various
subjects taught by teachers; creativity, self-reliance and independence of
mind, nationalistic outlook and freedom from mental colonization should as well
manifest as learning outcomes in the lives of the students from that level of
education. The above fundamental issues are not peculiar with Nigerian schools
only. But, in a rapidly changing world with its complex and complicated
schooling phenomena, scholars who are concerned with educational development
have been hammering on the ever-intriguing issues of failure of Nigerian
educational quality and students’ poor academic performance.
For instance, Okam (2002) notes that on
aggregate the performance of secondary school students in economics in
placement examinations like WAEC and NECO has been dwindling every year. Other
scholars (Lanham, 1999)
who have the same view with Okam have tried to ascribe this decline in
students’ performance in economics and other relevant subjects to poor school physical
facilities, outdated books in
the libraries, ill-equipped laboratories, antiquated workshops, abandoned
classroom blocks, unmotivated shabby hungry looking teachers, non-availability
of instructional materials and inadequate availability of classroom based
furniture and materials.
However,
today in Lagos State, the government of Babatunde Fashola has taken a
conspicuous policy action that had resulted in the renovation of the physical
facilities in almost all the public primary and secondary schools in Lagos
State, as well as provided them with adequate school and classroom based
infrastructure. Some of the schools are even blessed with Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) facilities. The teachers are also not left
behind as they have as well received a little financial motivation. But all the
above positive changes in the state schools according to recent report of
Damole (2011) have not made any obvious increase in the performance of the
students in their various subjects or in their placement examinations. It is
against this background that this study attempts to examine the factors that
are really affecting the academic performance of state secondary school
students with particular reference to economics.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Many
authors (Obianime & Nwachukwu, 2006) have
attempted to examine the factors affecting the academic performance of
secondary school students in economics. But none of them has made a holistic
effort to capture in one study the entire factors affecting students’ academic
performance in the subject. Some of the authors even studied only one factor as
independent of students’ academic performance in economics. In addition, most
of the authors conducted their studies at the state level without involving
many of the secondary schools and students in the local education districts.
This study therefore intends to close the above gaps by focusing on the
secondary schools and students at the local education districts; and also by
studying holistically the entire supposed factors affecting students’ academic
performance in economics under four groups of socioeconomic factors home,
school and classroom environmental factors.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
This
study examined the factors affecting the academic performance of state senior
secondary school students in economics. Based on this main objective, this
study sought to:
1.
examine the influence of
home environmental factors (parents’ educational background, level of parents’
value and preference for education, level of parents’ income, provision of home
lesson, quality home accommodation and space, etc) on state senior school
students’ academic performance in Economics;
2.
assess the effect of school
environmental factors (principal’s leadership style, school policies, tone of
school climate; quality and quantity of available physical facilities, level of
personnel motivation and supervision, level of social and extra-mural
activities in school, etc) on state senior school students’ academic performance
in Economics;
3.
ascertain the extent to
which state senior school students’
academic performance in Economics is influenced by classroom environmental
factors (teaching methods used by teachers, level of instructional resources
provided for teachers, teacher gender, level of student-teacher cordial
relationship, etc); and
4.
examine the effect of
socioeconomic factors (level of societal value for education, students’
religious and cultural backgrounds, level of unemployment, government’s
economic welfare policies, students’ involvement in off-school social
activities, etc) on state senior school students’ academic performance in
Economics.
1.4 Research Questions
In
order to achieve the above objectives, the following questions were raised to
guide the process of this study.
1.
Do home environmental
factors lessen state senior secondary school students’ performance in
Economics?
2.
Could public senior
secondary school students’ performance in Economics be frustrated by school
environmental factors?
3.
Is the state senior
secondary school students’ performance in Economics being reduced by classroom
environmental factors?
4.
Could public senior
secondary school students’ performance in Economics be lessened by
socioeconomic factors?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were posited for testing during this study.
1.
Home environmental factors
do not have significant influence on state senior secondary school students’
performance in Economics.
2.
Public senior secondary
school students’ performance in Economics is not significantly affected by
school environmental factors.
3.
Classroom environmental
factors do not have significant influence on state senior secondary school
students’ performance in Economics.
4.
Public senior secondary
school students’ performance in Economics is not significantly affected by
socioeconomic factors.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This study will be of great value
to the Federal and state Ministries of Education as it will reveal to them the
various weak areas needing policy actions to strengthen teaching and learning
at the secondary schools in order to achieve the expected performance among the
students.
Also, for this study to examine the factors affecting state secondary
school students’ academic performance in economics in Education District IV of
Lagos State, the results are expected to be another contribution to existing
literature and body of knowledge on the influence of the home, school,
classroom and socioeconomic factors on state secondary school students’
performance.
While previous studies have
generally addressed and evaluated specific impacts of selected factors
affecting secondary school students’ learning and experiences in many other
areas in Lagos State, little effort has been devoted to secondary schools’ learning
outcomes and factors affecting it in the Education District IV of Lagos State,
hence, this study is an effort that has covered this gap.
The study will also be a
reference document for other students carrying out research on the same or
similar topic.
1.7 Scope of the Study
This
study focused on examining the factors influencing the academic performance of
secondary school students. The factors were grouped under home, school,
classroom and societal environmental factors. This study was limited to Education
District IV of Lagos State; and covered only the public secondary schools in
the district. In addition, only the students were involved in the study.
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