CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
Background of the study
An important as well as interesting construct to educationists, guidance counsellors, psychologists and sociologists is conception. This construct according to Eneh and Nkang (2001) citing Rubin (1996), enables the effective understanding of human behaviour and the therapeutic measures that can be rendered in order for an individual to be effectively adjust and achieve the goal he sets for himself irrespective of the environment and situation in which he finds himself.
Very often, educators, teachers, administrators and the society at large and even the parents, wonder why some children readily accept new challenges and attribute their success or failure with regard to those challenges as their own making, while others associate their success or failure to external influences. Conception has become a more important component of educational practice. This is because a lot of things and individual do depend on how he sees himself, his aspirations, ambitions and feelings towards these things. If he discovers himself, as one who is likely to succeed, he works harder for his success. But if he finds that he is likely to fail, he becomes shy and withdrawn. This law is observed to be at work in our schools today, as it is elsewhere and always been.
The pattern of conception developed by the individual as he grows from infancy to childhood, from childhood to adolescence, from adolescence to adulthood, and from adulthood to senescence is what the psychologist called “the self structure”. During the early years of childhood the child begins to make differentiations out of the blur of impressions which are his word. According to Eneh and Nkang (2008), citing (Roger), a portion of the conceptual field gradually becomes differentiated as the “self”. The (Rogers) goes on to say that the child does not only begin to see himself as a person somehow separate from the rest of the world and from other people, but that he learns to recognize and identify familiar faces, sounds objects and events. Eneh and Nkang (2008) cited Lindgen (1976) put it, conception is what the individual thinks of as his actual self; the part that is “Really me”. He adds that the conceive self includes not only the self-concept but also those aspects of the environment an individual identifies with himself as “my family” “my school” “my country”.
Azuka (1970) says to achieve success of all human endeavours one requires some measure of self confidence and a positive self-concept. He adds that one really has to experience within one self some feelings of capability and self-trust in order to participate actively and effectively in whatsoever one engages oneself. Nkang (2001) quoted Lyne (1976) pointed out in her study that school progress and academic ability were correlated with self-concept and that a child’s self-concept is built up through expectation and judgment he perceive others make of him.
Nkang and Eneh (2008) cited Naylor (1972) in their findings points to the fact that there is a direct positive relationship between favourable conceptions and performance in schools. He views that a successful student sees himself in essential positive ways and that unfavourable self-conception is closely related to maladjustment. The researchers assumes children react to school learning in terms of their own self-conceptions, situations, and points of views as contrasted with the conception of teachers and they grow to maturity, the conception of self change. Those changes in self image alter their attitude to learning. Some may decide to stay in school and others may get irritated hate and drop out of school.
The way people understand themselves as they grow will either make them develop interest in Business Studies or not.
Statement of the Problem
Self-concept could be a personal factor to one’s academic achievement. The parents may set a realistic goal for the child, such goals may not be attained if the child feels that he or she cannot cope in studies to achieve the goal. Okoro (2002) opined that some students’ weakness and low performances could be traced to their negative thoughts and beliefs about themselves relative to the learning tasks ahead of them. He asserts that students with positive self-concept are very ambitious to learn whereas those with negative self-concept often exhibit withdrawal attitude toward the course or programme.
Oyesola (2008) maintained that some Business Studies clusters such as shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping, commerce and office practice often scare students because of the manipulative skills involved in the courses. According to him, the students’ belief is that they cannot write the strokes in shorthand, manipulate the keyboards of the typewriter, or deal with the mathematical computations of the figures in bookkeeping, and nothing could be done to encourage their interests in the subjects. The work of Azuka (1970) confirms that negative feelings of inadequacy stands as a serious barrier to successful learning of skills courses in schools and colleges.
It is therefore suspected by the researchers that negative self-concepts and perceptions of the students could be responsible for low achievement of students in Business Studies in Eket Local Education Committee. This is the focus of this study.
