TEACHER’S ATTITUDE AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN BIOLOGY
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study.
A teacher is a friend, philosopher and guide to the students. He does not teach but makes the students learn. The teachers are to sow knowledge in the form of education. The teaching profession calls for dedicated people, who will willingly accept the changes of building up generations. Any profession is noble but the teaching profession is the noblest. Koballa (1988) defines attitude as a feeling towards an object, that is an effective component.
According to him, attitude differs from the beliefs, which represents information an individual has about an object that is, a cognitive component (Fishbeiin & Ajzen, 1975) However, even though attitudes and beliefs are separate constructs, they do influence one another, what an individual believes to be true about an object (belief) determines how he/she feels about that object (attitude)
(Koballa, 1998;Shrigley, koballa & simpson,1988). Therefore, both attitudes and beliefs are important factors that may affect how educators approach teaching in the classroom (Earl & Winkelijohn 1977)
Having this researcheable topic in view “Teachers Attitude and Students Academic Performance In
Senior Secondary School Biology in Uyo Local Government Area”. By contrast, many other researchers (Ajze, 2001, Eagly & Chaiken,1993; Van Aalderen – Smeet et al, 2012) do not distinguish between both constructs and use the terms interchangeably. In this research, the term “attitude” will be used in this broad way, referring to the psychological tendency to classify an object in terms of favourable or unfavourable dimensions (Ajzen, 2001, Eagly & chaiken, 1993) Typically, the three – component – Defination of attitude is used, which stipulates three components: an affective, Cognitive and behavioural one (pratkaius, Breckler & Greenwald, 2014) The cognitive components encompasses a person’s thoughts and opinions about the attitude object example “I think that teaching biology to senior students in secondary school will improve their skills in other subjects”. The affective component consists of feelings a person experience in relation to the attitude object for instance “while a teacher is teaching biology he/she feels anxious. Finally, the
behavioural components constitutes the actions of a person when confronted with the actions of a person when confronted with the attitude object example “when I teach science, I never provide students with the correct answers”. (Eagly & Chaiken).
The behaviour and approach of the teacher is directly accepted and copied by students, which puts great responsibilities on the teachers. Studies performed in the current day clearly show the effect on students of mutual interaction in teacher – student relationship ,teachers approach regarding students and especially the perception of this by students. For a teacher, being able to interact with the students and display positive behavior such a asking questions , understanding their thoughts , showing interest and appreciation increases the students motivation and success. In Frymier’s (1993) study concerning the effect of positive teachers behavior on the students motivation level the author had concentrated on certain behaviours for teacher such as giving feedback for students work, complimenting, wanting to listen to students and being interested. The result of the study show that teachers non verbal actions such as smiling, having a relaxed stance, various gestures and facial expressions come first in improving the learning experience for students whereas the topic of the class itself comes in second. Low performance in science generally and in biology particularly among senior secondary school students is below average (40%) (W.A.E.C chief examiners report 2010 –2014). This trend is disturbing in an era of globalization and urbanization where modern biology is faced with various social economic and environment challenges. Considering the Importance and roles played by the knowledge, the teaching of biology should be planned in a way that biology, would be taught to students to respond to issues and changes of life in this 21st century.
The researchers are of the view that performance of students is a function of appropriate Teachers attitude, lesson delivery methods of biology teacher’s amongst others.
The study sought to investigate Teacher attitude as traceable to student’s poor performance in Biology.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The demand for graduates in the field of biological science continues to grow at a relatively rapid rate (wang 2013).
The national policy on education states that, education maximizes the creative potentials and skills of the individual for self fufillments and general development of the society.
However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that in any teaching learning situation the students, the teachers ,the curriculum and the learning environment are the four pivots. It was on this basis that this study was constructed and tested seven (7) variable models for providing a casual explanation of teachers attitude and students performance in biology; in terms of teachers variable such as teaching skill, attitude in classroom, teachers qualification and teaching experiences, under the students variables are anxiety, motivation and level of interest.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of the study is to investigate teachers attitude and academic performance of senior secondary school biology students in Uyo Local Government Area.
1.4 REASERCH QUESTIONS
The present studies were geared toward answering the following research questions.
(i) What significant difference exists between the teacher’s attitude and student’s academic performance in senior secondary school biology?
(ii) What significant difference exist between male and female teachers of secondary schools with respect to their attitudes towards teaching biology?
1.5 REASEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following null hypotheses were formulated
(i) The is no significant difference between teachers attitude and biology student academic performance in Uyo Local Government Area.
(ii) There is no significant difference between male and female teachers of senior secondary schools with respect to their attitude towards teaching biology.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.
(i) This study will contribute to knowledge in exploring the importance of teachers attitude to the academic performance of biology students in Uyo Local Government Area.
(ii) The work will also provide the knowledge of sending teachers to increase programs most especially science oriented teachers serving under the authority.
(iii) Help them conduct induction courses, workshop for teachers, seminars on classroom management and good method of teaching biology from time to time in secondary schools.
(iv) The work will motivate both students and teachers positively in their attitudes towards learning.
(v) It will be of help to educational planners in assessing and evaluating.
1.7 DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY.
The study is delimited to teacher’s attitude and student’s academic performance in senior secondary biology in Uyo Local Government Area. It’s delimited to senior secondary II students only.
1.8 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The study was limited to senior secondary school II students in Uyo Local Government Area. Time was the major constraint of this research work, since the researcher was attending regular lectures and also writing examination while working on this research project. Nevertheless, the observed limitations would not have any adverse effect on the research findings.
1.9 DEFINATION OF TERMS
ATTITUDE: This is a tendency to react in a particular way after positively or negatively towards any matter. Attitude possesses both cognitive and emotional components. Fazio and Roske (1994) says that attitude is the psychological and social thought in individuals, how they think about social information.
STUDENTS PERFORMANCE: According to pandey (2008) students’ performance is the performance of students in the subject they study in the school. It is directly related to students growth and development of knowledge in educational situation where teaching and learning takes place.
S. S. S BIOLOGY: Is simply a branch of science that is taught to senior secondary school students in secondary schools.
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