Teachers Behavioral Attitude and Its Effect on Students Academic Performance

Section 1 1. 0 Introduction Learning is a lifetime process. Continues learning equips one as a student with a larger mastery of knowledge, a broader understanding of facts, a larger repository of wisdom, and a better insight on life that will make better individual responsible and upright human beings. On process of learning, students or learner is the center of education. Studying their different aspects of a student and their ways on attaining such goals will be of great impotance. As such, the extent of student’s learning in academics may be determined by the grades a student earns for a period of learning. It is believed that a grade is a primary indicator of such learning. If a learner earns high grades it is concluded that they may also have learned a lot while low grades indicate lesser learning. However, many experiences and studies found out that there are also several factors that would account for the grades. No single factor can be definitely pointed out as predicting grades. It has been interplay of so many factors – gender, daily allowance, social status, time and interest. In fact, almost all of existing environmental and personal factors are a variable of academic performance. Measuring of academic performance of students is challenging since student performance is a product of socio-economic, psychological and environmental factors. However, base on Bradley's (1978) hypothesis that the individual are motivated to take credit for their successes and to deny responsibility for their failures in order to protect or enhance their self-esteem. Hence Bradley notes that students’ rating is a function of both their attitude and the interaction between them and their teachers. This may be in the sense as suggested by Meighan (1978) that the students perceived teaching as more important than learning and teachers' activity as more central than pupils'. This of course contradicts the official rhetoric of educational writing and debate that makes the claims for the pupils' welfare as the central focus, Meicghan argues further(Meighan 1978,86). Goos (1982) also found out that many students over the years develop a negative attitude not only to school and subject materials, but also to teachers in general. Such students often find it difficult to relate to teachers and more often they attribute many of their difficulties to â€Å"poor teaching† and â€Å"rotten Instructors† (Goos 1982,121). Base on the above assertions, this study therefore aims at finding the factors, which are responsible for student’s inelastic behavior towards study along with identifying those factors, which help a student to make progress in his studies with specific emphasis on teachers’ behavioral attitudes as it affects students’ academic performance. . 1 statement of problem On attaining Independence status as a nation in 1960 what seemed a major concern to most Nigerian leaders then was how education would be accessible to all citizens of the newly created nation. Education was seen as the necessary instrument immediately and essentially for the consolidation of the independence, for securing the new nation against neocolonialism and for making workable the newly establishe d self government in a multi-ethnic society. Mass education, at least to the level of literacy, was also seen by the Nigerian leaders to be necessary to create a proper foundation for a democratic government (Best, 1984) The desire to use education for nation building was (and is still) very compelling and so much was the faith in education that the schools of the nation were not only meant for political socialization but also for other social functions like education and for economic growth. Despite the commendable motives which seemed to justify the very â€Å"high cost of the expanded education programmed of the late Nigeria, most Command schools in Nigeria are not really effective engines for the diverse functions for which they are set up. The performance of the schools as attested to by the academic performances of the students especially at the secondary school level have been rather very disappointing. The situation actually tends towards threatening the future of the schools. Apart from command schools, the reports of the many studies and surveys (for example, the 1980-1984 Statistics of Education by the Federal Ministry of Education, Lagos report published in the Times Publication (Nigeria) of September 15, 2006 and the one in the Nigerian Guardian of February 2, 2009) and the many recent editorials in many Nigerian dairy newspapers all point to the academic performances of Nigerian secondary school students which have been on the decline for some times now. This declining trend has become a concern for the researcher. As a matter of fact many soldiers living in the Barracks would rather prefer to enroll their children in to civilian schools than to send them to command schools at a relatively cheaper rate. The failure of command schools is thus indicating that the health and the well-being of the future of these schools may be in jeopardy. It therefore becomes a concern to the researcher as to the reason why students’ performance have been in continuous decline despite the improvements and advances learning facilities that are now available in our age. Although the researcher may not be able to cover a larger portion of the subject matter’ he however hopes that this study will expose him to a larger scope for future research. 1. 2purpose of study During the past several years a number of valuable studies have been added to existing body of knowledge developing various models to assess the student performance however most of the studies relied on the advanced developed societies as their setting. This study therefore aims at 1. Determining the factors that affect the academic performance of secondary school student specifically in our context and particularly in Command secondary schools. 2. Determining the effects of teachers’ behavioral attitude on academic performance of students. 3. Determine to prefer possible ways in which students’ academic performance can be improved through a healthy teacher-student relationship. 4. And finally to quantify the relationship between the different factors that are considered responsible or affecting the students’ performance and also providing bases for further researches regarding student performance. . 3scope of study This study focuses on investigating teachers' behavioral attitude and its effects on students’ academic performance. The scope of this work will be limited to three command secondary schools in Lagos. A survey will be conducted to collect information and responses of students, and teachers regarding factors affecting their p erformance. However it should be understood that the researchers would not by any means try to cover all the ariables that can influenced students’ academic performance hence the focus is on investigating teachers’ behavioral attitudes and how it can affect the education and performance of students according to needs and requirements. Literatures will also be reviewed on different factors that are expected to influence the student performance. 1. 4Significance The major contribution of this study lies in the demonstration of a large impact of the role of teachers on students’ performance. The researcher also believes that by focusing on different factors that influence students' performance, this will help teachers to improve on students’ academic performance by creating a healthy students-teachers relationship This study will also act as an antidote for the researcher who hopes to be a lecturer in command schools in future hence it will guide him on how to develop his character so as to make relevant impact on the students whom he will be opportune to teach. It will also serve as an addition to existing literatures in the library 1. 5Limitation of Studies As it is often said, â€Å"there is no perfect research† so it may likely be with this research work. It is important to note that there are several factors that can affect a students’ academic performance. To embark on such a scope of work is still beyond the researcher’s capacity at this level hence only a single factor among the numerous factors that affects students academic performance will be researched into. Base on this the researcher will have to recommend other areas for other people to research into or may have to further research into them in the future. It is also possible that some of the factors that have received significant attention in existing literatures will prove to be only weakly related to student performance in this study. Section 2 2. 0 Literature Review 2. 1 Introduction Education is the most essential factor and the pride of every nation. As such the future of any country is greatly determined by the quality of its educational sector. But it is rather unfortunate that the educational system of Nigeria today seem to have been just a caricature of what it ought to be. This has been blamed on a number of factors such as poor instructional strategies by the teachers. That is, the students probably perceived teachers' instructional strategies or generally the teacher-pupil relationship or inter action through the medium of instruction more importantly for their academic success than any other school-related factor presented to them. The emotional climate for learning provided by the teacher whether in the attitude or considered by the student will be more highly valued than any other factor in the school which may have effect on the academic achievement. Hence the researcher will in this chapter review literatures on factors that affect students performance. 2. 2 Students-Teachers Relationship and effects on Academic Performance All of the research reviews support the hypothesis that student performance depends on different socio-economic, psychological, environmental factors. The findings of research studies focused that student performance is affected by different factors such as learning abilities because new paradigm about learning assumes that all students can and should learn at higher levels but it should not be considered as constraint because there are other factors like race, gender, sex that can affect student’s performance. (Hansen, Joe 2000). Some of the authors even tried to explain the link between students achievements, economic circumstances and the risk of becoming a drop-out that proved to be positive (Goldman, N. Haney, W. , and Koffler, McDill, E. , 1989, Levin, H. , 1986) B. A Chansarkar and A. Mishaeloudis (2001), explained the effects of age, qualification distance from learning place etc. on student performance. On the contrary, Yvonne argue that the performance of students on the module is not affected by such factors as age, sex and place of residence but is associated with qualification in quantitative subjects. It is als o found that those who live near the school perform better than other students. Yvonne Beaumont Walters, kola soyibo,(1998) further elaborated that student performance is very much dependent on socio economic back ground as per their statement, High school students’ level of performance is with statistically significant differences, linked to their gender, grade level, school location, school type, student type and socio-economic background. Kirby, Winston et al. (2002) focused on student’s impatience (his time-discount behavior) that influences his own academic performance. Goethe found out that weak students do better when grouped with other weak students. As implied by Zajonc’s analysis of older siblings (1976,27) it shows that students’ performance improves if they are with the students of their own kind. There are often different results by gender, (Hoxby’2000, 96). Sacerdote (2001) finds that grades are higher when students have unusually academically strong room-mates. The results of Zimmerman (1999, 2001) were somewhat contradictory to Goethe idea but again it proved that students performance depends on number of different factors, it says that weak peers might reduce the grades of middling or strong students. (Alexander, Gur et al. 974; Fraser, Beamn et al. 1977) explained that some of the practices adopted by college administration in higher education like residential colleges or organized study groups also help to increases performance. Keeping in view all of the variables discussed by authors one discovers that they are just uncountable factors and projections that have been made regarding students academic performance. Again Maclean's (1966) claim is consisted with this view in the statement that poor teaching methods and too much emphasis on unrealistic curricular objectives and contents may cause emotional block to learning. . 3 School Characteristics that Affects Students Academic Performance School-related characteristics which seem to have been ranked more highly than any other, is inade quate resource materials for teaching. Although this group of characteristics was ranked as number one by the many authors this nevertheless is an indication that the respondents of this study perceived this group of characteristics as the one that affect pupil academic performance the most. Inadequate resource materials for teaching are indeed a major problem in Nigeria. A Nigerian Times Publication of September 15, 1990 reported findings of a research commissioned by the World Bank and the British Overseas Development Administration stating that many institutions in Nigeria do not make available to school pupils textbooks, appropriate reading materials, library and laboratory facilities. The perception of a situation of this nature as having the most effect on pupil academic performance or as responsible for the high rate of academic failures among students is supported by Maclean's (1966, 32) who claim that difficulties expressed by failing students may be due to lack of material information for learning. A supposedly learning environment devoid of necessary learning materials will definitely result into learning difficulty and hence failure by the learner. Section 3 3. 0 Methodology 3. 1Introduction In this chapter the researcher will present the method that will be used in the course of this work. Amongst which is the population, sampling, procedure, validity, methods of data analysis and the administration of instruments. The researcher will use the descriptive method to gather data on how the behavioral attitude of teachers can affects the academic performance of students. To achieve his goal, the researcher will employ both the primary and secondary methods of data collection. For the primary method, questionnaires will be developed and distributed amongst teachers and students of three selected school in the army command secondary schools. Meanwhile, the secondary method of data collection will be based on review of literature in the libraries. Views of various authors will be examined and analyzed so as to understand their opinions on the subject matter. 3. 2 Research Instruments In order to sample the opinions of the targeted audience, the researcher will employ the primary method of data collection. Interview questions will be framed and questionnaires designed by the researcher and modified by the supervisor to sort the desired goal. A total of 120 questionnaires will be designed to sample the opinions of respondents. The questionnaires will be distributed in equal proportion to both teachers and students of the three selected command secondary schools in Lagos. Meanwhile the oral interview will be conducted only among the principles of these schools. 3. 3 Research Designs The questionnaires will be divided into three major parts. The first part will aim at collecting personal data of the respondents. The second part will contain major questions demanding for the respondents’ opinions on the subject matter. The questionnaire will comprise both structured and unstructured questions. The unstructured (open-ended) questions will enable the respondents to freely express their own opinions without being guided by anyone. 3. 4Administration of the Instrument Being a soldier who has lived and served in some of these schools, the researcher has obtained permission from the authorities that are to carry out this research work in command secondary schools. The principles of these schools and some teachers have also promise to give their maximum support to enable the researcher achieve his goal hence; the researcher will personally with the assistance of the principles administer the questionnaires to the respondents. 3. 5 Validity and Reliability of the Instrument. To ensure the authenticity and credibility of the instruments, the researcher with the assistance of the supervisor will carefully and designed the instrument so as to enable the respondents to express their minds without biases. 3. 6 Population of Study The population of study in this work will constitute of three selected ommand secondary schools in Lagos among who are students, teachers, and the principles. It this these group of person whose opinions will be sample in this work. 3. 7 Population Sampling The researcher will target one hundred and twenty (120) persons from the three selected schools. Out of the total population, the researcher will sample the opinions of t en(10) teachers including the principal of each of the schools. Meanwhile the rest of the questionnaires will be served only to final class students of the schools- thirty (30) questionnaires to each class of the three schools. The researcher believes that these classes of persons are mature enough and so will be able to respond to the questions wisely. REFERENCES Bacharach, S. B. Bauer, 1986. The work, environment and the school. Teachers College Record. USA Winner Press. Best, J. H. 1984 Reforming America's schools: the high risks of failure. USA. Teachers College Bradley, G. W. 1978. Self-serving biases in the attribution process: a re-examination of the fact or fiction question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Chansarkar B. A. and A. Michaeloudis 2001. Student profiles and factors affecting performance New Jessie math. educ. sci. technol. Int. Gordon c. Winston, David 2000. Student Performance and Student Growth as measure of success: New Orleans, Louisiana. The American Educational Research Association, Little, L. F. and Thompson, R. 1983. Truancy: how parents and teachers contribute. ________ Lockheed, M. E. and Komenan, A. 1989. 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