ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to investigate the influence of parental support on achievement motivation and interest in schoolwork of secondary school students. The study was guided by seven research questions and four null hypotheses. The design of the study was ex-post facto design. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 240 students in SSII. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire on achievement, motivation and interest. The Cronbach Alpha method was used to measure the internal consistency coefficient of the instrument. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the seven research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study showed that, parental support has no significant influence on achievement motivation of secondary school students, influence of parental support on interest in schoolwork of secondary school students is not significant, gender has no significant influence on secondary school students’ achievement motivation and students’ gender has no significant influence on their interest in schoolwork.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In life some people have intense need to achieve whereas some may not have. According to McClelland (1961), those who strive for excellence and success without consideration for some material reward have high achievement motivation. Santrocks (2005) observes that, some people are highly motivated to succeed and excel while others are not as motivated to succeed and may not be positively disposed to work harder to achieve success.
Gesinde (2000) posits that, the urge to achieve varies from one individual to another. While some individuals’ need for achievement is very high, that of others may be very low. Atkinson (1964) states that, individuals’ actual achievement behaviour depends not only on their motivation to achieve but also whether they expect to achieve. People are more likely to work hard when they perceive a reasonable chance to succeed than when they perceive a goal to be out of reach. The trend of school achievement over the years among secondary school students seems to be poor. This could be in line with WAEC Report (2005), which observes that, the level of achievement among secondary school students in recent times has not been encouraging. It is in recognition that statistics from the West African examination council WAEC (2005) reveals that, the number of candidates that entered for biology, for instance has been encouraging over the years while their percentage pass at credit level in the senior school certificate examination (SSCE) has been following a downward trend. In the year 2001,2002,2003,2004, for instance, only 31.7%, 25.6%, 25.3%, 23.1% passed biology at credit level respectively. These are indications of poor achievement by students. On a similar note, Osuji in Ali (2006) states that, trend analysis studies on achievement pattern in mathematics among secondary school students indicated that between 1979 and 2001, there were steady average of 1.7% annual decline in students A1 to C6 grade in mathematics at the west African school certificate examination. This implies that over the past decade or there about in Nigeria, students’ attitude to achievement in their schoolwork has taken a negative direction. Shaffer (2000) opines that, achievement is inferred from individual (and often competitive) accomplishments that can be compared among some standard of excellence.
Conceptually, achievement motivation is a desire for significant accomplishment for mastery of things, people or ideas; for attaining a high standard (Iheanacho 2002). Students develop interest in reading certain literary genres, writing, poetry, engaging in experiments and so on, all of which enhances learning. These unique patterns of interest might have developed through exposing the children to a knowledge domain or type of activity they discover they value as they identify with it in some fashion or because it meets some salient need
Murray (1938) defines achievement motivation as the desire to accomplish something difficult, to overcome obstacles and attain a high standard, to excel oneself in a given task. Byme (1996) defines achievement motivation as a learned motive to compete and strive for success. Burger (1997) defines achievement motivation as an individual desire to accomplish difficult task, to overcome obstacle and attain high standard and excel oneself. Barron (1997) opines that, achievement motivation as the need for success or the attainment of excellence. Elliot (1997) opines that achievement motivation is based on reaching success and achieving all our aspiration in life. Gesinde (2000) states that, achievement motivation could be seen as self-determination to succeed in whatever activities one engages oneself, be it academic work, professional work, sporting activities.
For the purpose of this study, achievement motivation is described as a desire resulting from reinforcement that centers around achievement, independence and mastery concern. The definition deals with the generalized tendency to strive for success and chose even difficult goal oriented activities and attain high demands or excellence. It is in recognition that Adedeji (2007) opines that, achievement motivation as a motive that leads to seeking success or the achievement of high standard of performance.
Achievement motivation could either be high or low. According to Adedeji (2007), the issue of motivation of students in education and the impact on academics achievement are considered as an important aspect of effective learning. However, a learner’s reaction to education determines the extent to which he or she will go in education. Based on the fore going, academic achievement should be considered as both a process and a product. It is a continuous process until there is evidence of improvement in interest in school work and achievement (as a product) of the student in the subject particularly the secondary school students.
Conceptually, interest is defined as organismic conditions that result in a desire for further stimulation from a particular type of object or experience (Russsell (1990) in Iheanacho (2002). Interest could also be essentially a function of the perceived likelihood to succeed on a specific group of tasks and the value of the consequence of doing well (Ainley, 2002). Dewey (1899) in long (2007) defines interest as the formation of a relationship between a person and an object. The way each person learns depends on interest. For instance some students prefer to learn complete subject matter by heart while others search for meaning. Students’ differences in learning preferences have often been related to a number of individual factors such as motivation, interest and perception of one’s ability. Interest is very important in one’s educational and life success. This is because ones action towards anything depends largely on ones interest on that thing. Interest drives one towards action especially when such action benefits one thereby forming a relationship between a person and an object. In regards to above Shane (1956) in Ngwoke (2005) explained interest as something with which one identifies one’s personal well being. Interest is an innate characteristics of a person which drives one into action. Alexander, Murphy, wood, Duhon and parker (2007) describe interest as energizing the underling needs or desire of the learner in a way that can positively influence the cognitive, affective and volitional components of individual learners.
Deci and Ryan (2000) observe that, an interest in mathematic could be the result of the belief that one is able to understand mathematical problems (at least in the long run) and the consequences that follow such an understanding. Wentzel (2008) states that, interest in activities tend to increase the likelihood that individuals formulate goals relating to that activity and in vest time and effort to achieve them.
Renninger (2000) describes interest as being deep seated and originating in the individual, and influence task choice and task investment which in turn should influence achievement. Students differ with regard to what academic subject they like and dislike from early stage (Eccles 1993). The investment theory is of the view that interest is not static construct rather reflecting the investment of intellectuals and motivational resources. This means that interest guides the investment of intellectual resources. Harackiewicz and Sansone (2000) opines that, a person’s level of achievement increases intrinsic motivation, a construct that is related to individual interest. Interests are further categorized according to the degree of content specificity being considered. When interest is conceptualized as a domain specific motivational variable, educators use this information to investigate why students are motivated to learn specific subject matter over others when all activities appear to have the same value and provide similar challenges (Alexander and Murphy 1998). Interest’s potential for energizing learning appears to be limited when students possess lower level of knowledge (Wenner 2003).
For the purpose of the study, interest could be defined as a temporary response relative to the attractiveness of a situation or object. This is because, it affects the way we react or listen to the teacher. This could be as a result of the fact that students may come to the classroom with certain interest. It then becomes rewarding if a teacher (s) discover these interest and build on them especially the use of instructional materials of different attractive colours and shapes, live objects should be preferred to provide reality in the classroom. Teachers should teach topics that students are interested in as students could pay little or no attention, when teachers teach topics that they lack interest in. The interest, a student(s) attach to situations or objects especially in their school achievement could be influenced by the level of parental support enjoyed by such student(s) from their parents. It is in recognition of this, that Mau and Biko (2000) observed that, students perception of parental support for learning tend to have a strong impact on their achievement motivation and interest to learn. In addition, Mau and Biko (2000) opined that, parental support reflects the extent to which parents are present and interject themselves into the lives of their children especially in their school work.
Hossler and stage (1992) defines parental support as encouragement given to children by their parents. Rani (1998) observes that, the foremost duty of parents is to provide their children with needed satisfaction by creating a home, a climate conducive to increase their achievement in their school work. In the view of Gonzalez (2006), attending school function, helping in home work or showing interest in what is happening in school are aspects of parental supports.
Burger (1997) observes that, it is important that parents provide enough support to allow their children develop a sense of personal competence without robbing the children of independence and initiative. McClelland and Pilon (1983) propose that, parents promote the need for achievement by providing support and encouragement. Stage (2000) observes that, it may be that parental support influence students achievement in school as parents who provide more educational opportunities develop high motive to achieve in their children.
For the purpose of the study, parental support is an aspect of parenting that influence either positively or negatively the achievement motivation and interest of children in their schoolwork. The essence is that parents play a key role in shaping students interest and achievement in their school work.
Positive parental support could breed high achievement and interest among students whereas negative parental support may breed low achievement and interest among secondary school students. It is also possible that in most cases parents gender stereotype influence the nature of parental support given to their children. Wigfield (2002) observes that, parents with gender based belief could provide different types of learning opportunities for their sons and daughter. Parents may likely encourage and enroll their sons in science classes and push their daughters to excel in reading and writing. According to Akagwu (2003), the gender role stereotype that parents hold directly or indirectly influence the choice of subjects in schools. This is because girls could considered better in creative subjects like arts and reading and boys in mathematics and science.
Berk (1998) defines gender as a socially constructed roles and socially learned behaviour. Okeke (2000) refers gender to socially constructed role and socially learned behaviours and expectations associated with males and females. The gender issue may be seen in parenting and parental pattern or family organization.
Parents’ gender type belief may also influence the students’ achievement motivation and interests. It may be possible that, the emphasis placed on gender by parents may affect the extent of parental support. They may end up therefore making their motive to achieve high or low. Bleeker (2005) opines that, those with gender types beliefs are more likely to spend more time helping their sons with mathematics and science home work and their daughters on reading and writing as parents regard female as incompetent.
Bleeker (2005) concludes that, children are very adapt at picking up gender type information as they actively try to find out what is normal and what is expected of them. The gender related expectations and beliefs parents hold may be assimilated into their children’s own thought of self-competence, appropriateness and the value they place in school tasks. In addition ones sense of competence can affect motivation, which affects choice, interest, behaviour and effort. There also come greater time on task and greater persistence of achievement oriented behaviour in the event of difficulty or failure (Bleeker 2005).
