TEST ANXIETY, AGE AND GENDER AS PREDICTORS OF EXAMINATION MALPRACTICES AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS’ BIOLOGY STUDENTS (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification and taxonomy. Modern biology is a vast and eclectic field, composed of many branches and sub-disciplines. However, despite the broad scope of biology, there are certain general and unifying concepts within it that govern all study and research, consolidating it into single, coherent field. In general, biology recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity, and evolution as the engine that propels the synthesis and creation of new species. It is also understood today that all the organisms survive by consuming and transforming energy and by regulating their internal environment to maintain a stable and vital condition known as homeostasis, (Richards, 2002).
Sub-disciplines of biology are defined by the scale at which organisms are studied, the kinds of organisms studied, and the methods used to study them for examplebiochemistry examines the rudimentary chemistry of life; molecular biology studies the complex interactions among biological molecules; botany studies the biology of plants; cell biology examines the basic building-block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of tissues, organs, and organ systems of an organism; evolutionary biology examines the processes that produced the diversity of life; and ecology examines how organisms interact in their environment, (Richards, 2002).
One of the objectives of education in Nigeria is to prepare the youth to become self sufficient in order to meet the nation’s manpower requirements. Schools need to conduct examinations purposely to assess the cognitive ability of the student. It follows then that examination is very paramount in the placement of students. Examination, according to Maruka, (1993) “can be seen as a way to ascertain how much of a subject matter in a particular field of study the candidate has mastered.” In other words, it is a process through which studies are evaluated or tested to find out the quality of knowledge students have acquired within a specific period.
