ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AS DETERMINANT OF STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE (EDUCATION PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Intelligence is not the only determinant of academic achievement of a student. Lizzio, Wilson & Simons (2002) noted that academic achievement of a student is most often associated with a lot of components of learning environment. According to Bosque and Dore (1998), teaching and learning environment ought to implement six (6) functions: inform, communicate, collaborate, produce, scaffold and manage. They further added that “conceptually speaking, the learning environment refers to the whole range of components and activities within which learning happens”. Hence, learning environment takes into account several variables that have direct and indirect effect on students.
In another perspective, the issue of academic achievement in mathematics has become a focus of many educators. The alarming issue in mathematics could be discussed from the social aspect and each individual point of view (Murugan&Rajoo, 2013). The social aspect includes learning environment which seems to affirm the consistency of relationship between learning environment and students’ cognitive as well as effective outcomes (Ashby, et al, 2011).. Thus, learning environment could be an essential key determinant to the students’ achievement in mathematics. According to Bosque and Dore (1998), higher-achieving students are likely to have been exposed to curriculum content under an ideal learning environment. In fact, Frenzel, Pekrun& Goetz, (2007) attributed underachievement in academic as a result of poor learning condition. This also affirmed that most scholars are of the opinion that educational attainment/achievement is likely to be determined by the idealness of the learning environment.
Environmental influence before now have not been considered as one of the factors that affect academic performance in secondary schools hence it has little or no attention in educational discourse and consideration. But over the past decade remarkable studies have indicated a correlation between the environment and academic performance of students. Environment plays major role in the life of every individual whether a students, teachers, employer or employee. Though some people are yet to believe that environment brings about better performance. Udoh (1980) in his article “The Environmental Health Problems in Nigeria Schools”, Identified some unhealthy practices in our schools. These include sitting of schools, inadequate facilities, poor ventilation etc.
[…] Education remains the biggest instrument for academic progress, social mobilization, political survival and effective national development of any country, it constitutes the largest enterprise/industry in Nigeria that is why, the government continues to ensure that funds, school facilities, instructional materials, teaching personnel and a beneficial learning environment are made available for the sector in Nasarawa State. The state Government has also continuously encouraged secondary education by adopting a social demand approach towards planning the education sector by subsidizing the SSCE fee in the state since 2012 in line with Archibong’s (2013) position that quality education does not just occur miraculously but can be achieved through continuous improvement efforts by the stakeholders in the education enterprise. Ehindero, Aladejana and Jegede (2009:12) define education as a process of critical, analytical and continuous re-assessment, readjustment and rediscovery of self, society and culture in the total contexts of life and living”. Education should enable those who consume it learn marketable skills to earn a job, learn to think, have an informed decision making which is cognizance of moral ethics as the component of life. It also entails personal development, and not just knowledge orientation or vocational. Relatedly, education is a process of providing knowledge, skills, competence or desirable qualities of behavior or character being so provided especially in a formal course of study, institution or training (Akpa, 2002). Education goes on all through one’s life, deepening and broadening one’s vision with expectant benefits to him as a person and the entire society. The individual’s advancement in education is without doubt improved knowledge, skills and capacities on which the roots of development are anchored. The development of society is therefore couched on the level of its educational attainment. Martin Luther King Jr. is quoted by Akpa (2002:25) as saying “The prosperity of a country depends not on the abundance of its revenues nor in the strength of its fortification. It consists in the number of its cultivated citizens in its men and women enlightenment and character”. The natural resources are mobilized, exploited to create a market by the humans. Thus economic development of any society begins with the mind of men and not with goods through education, organization and discipline (Udoh and Akpa 2001). Without education, all other resources remain latent untapped potentials; thus it is an indisputable tool for national development. […]