STUDENTS’ GENDER, ATTITUDE, AND INTEREST AS DETERMINANTS OF STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN SENIOR SECONDARY MATHEMATICS IN IKORODU LOCAL GOVERNMENT
ABSTRACT
This study focused on students’ academic interests, attitudes, and gender on the academic performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. The objectives of this study is to determine the relationship between academic interest and academic performance of the students, to determine the relationship between attitudes towards academic activities and academic performance of the students and to also determine the relationship between compliance to school rules and academic performance of the senior secondary school mathematics students… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Students in senior classes are mostly adolescents and tend to grow by being promoted from one class of the next, and so their academic interest increases. They begin to rediscover themselves more and more. Knowing the academic interest gives an opportunity for one to view him in a unique way which probably differs from how others may perceive him. Knowing the self also helps us to build our image, ability, and uniqueness (Mcleod, 2013).
The school may also develop students’ academic interests which could influence their behavior and academic performance. Attitude generally has roles in molding the behavior of each individual student, because its mental or neutral state of readiness is organized through experience. It exerts a directive and dynamic influence upon the individuals’ response to all objects or situations with which it is related.
Mukherjee (2002) indicated that from experience, individuals acquire cognition and feelings or attraction about things or situations of their environment and the readiness implies that it is a kind of predisposition to respond, and therefore it gets operational components as well. (Mukherjee, 2002)… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Statement of the Problem
Parents, teachers, administrators, and society, in general, have expressed concern over adolescents‟ academic interest, attitudes, and compliance. Most of these adolescents are found in our senior secondary schools. Students at this level increasingly develop their academic interest by seeing themselves in a very specific and unique way probably not the way others perceived them, some of them commonly give themselves nicknames and have an exaggerated feeling of wellbeing.
The students also have different attitudes towards their beliefs and emotions which trigger them to respond to other people, objects, or events at home or at school in a certain way… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Research Objectives
This research is carried out to find out the following objectives
- To determine the relationship between academic interest and academic performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
The aims of this research are to investigate the influence of academic interest, Attitude, and compliance to school rules on the academic performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. Therefore, it is imperative to review the related literature to the research work, knowledge of recent ideas regarding the concepts, components, types, and theories related to the concepts and research investigations have been reviewed.
Conceptual Framework
Concept of Attitude
When social psychologist talks about some one’s attitude, they refer to beliefs and feelings related to a person or an event and the resulting behavior tendency. Taking together, favorable or unfavorable evaluative reactions towards something-often rooted in belief and exhibited in feelings and inclinations to act (Myers 2010). Sorenso in Mangal (2008) defined Attitude as particular feelings about something. It therefore involves a tendency to behave in a certain way in situations that involve something whether person, idea, or object.
It is partially rational and partially emotional and is acquired not inherent in an individual. An attitude is a predisposition or readiness to respond in a predetermined manner to relevant stimuli (Mangal, 2008). According to Elliot, Timothy & Robin (2010), Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects or ideas. According to Allport in Mukherjee (2002), Attitude is a mental neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individuals’ response to all objects or situations with which it is related… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Concept of Academic Performance
Academic performance fulfills a number of purposes which include areas of achievement and failure in a student’s academic careers. It is also evaluated in order to foster improvement and make full use of the learning process.
Academic performance is a measurement of success or how well the student meets standards set out by the institution itself (Bell, 2014). Academic performance is how students deal with their studies and how they cope with or accomplish different tasks given to them by their teachers, it is also the ability to study and remember facts and being able to communicate your knowledge verbally or down on paper (Siva 2009).
Blair (1975) stated that for schoolwork to be meaningful, it should relate to the pupils background. He stated that children cannot do real thinking on the bases of abstractions alone. As long as words refer to objects or situations at some time presents to the senses, the meaning is simple and secure. What causes the difficulty is that the high-order abstractions go further and further from realities or concrete experiences… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Components of the Academic interest
Carl Rogers (1959) believes that academic interest has three different components.
- The view you have of yourself (Self-image)
- How much value you place on yourself (self-esteem or self-worth)
- What you wish you were really like (ideal self)
Self-image (What you see in yourself): This does not necessarily have to reflect reality. Indeed a person with anorexia who is thin may have a self-image in which the person believes they are fat. A person’s self-image is affected by many factors such as parental, influences, friends, etc Kulin (1960) investigated the self-image by using the twenty statements Test. He asked people to answer the question “Who and I” in twenty different ways.
He found that the responses could be divided into two major groups. These were social roles (external or objective aspects of oneself such as son, teacher, friends, and personality traits (internal or affective aspects of oneself such as gregarious, impatient, and humorous). The list of answers to the questions (Who Am I?) include examples of the following four types of responses… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Affective Component of Attitudes
The affective component of attitudes can be very strong and pervasive. It is the feeling segment of an attitude when someone attaches his/her emotions to the opinion that has been formed about any person, object, or situations; the effective component comes in to play. For example, if a person says “I hate the fact that life is unfair” he is connecting emotions through hatred, to his opinion of life being unfair… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Concept of Academic interest, attitude and compliance can be link with the following theories;
Adler’s Theory of Self-concept
The basic feature of Adlerian Psychology is his conception of lifestyle which determines behavior. Unlike Freud, who emphasized unconscious motivation, Adler stressed consciousness as the center of personality. He saw man as a conscious being, usually aware of his reasons for behavior, capable of organizing and guiding his actions with complete awareness of their implications for his own self-realization (Adler In Burns 1978).
For Adler, every person has the same goal, that of self-assertion. Adler believed each human was born into the world feeling incomplete and inferior, hence the origin of the drive to attain superiority or self-assertion was the motivation of the fear of interiority. He saw that there were innumerable possible lifestyles for achieving their goal… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Milgram’s Obedience Theory
Milgram did more than reveal the extent to which people will obey authority. His experiments tested what happens when the demands of authority clash with the demands of conscience (Myers 2010). In one of his experiments a man in his 50‟s is designated the “learner” and another man “the teacher”. The teacher is to read a list of word pairs. The learner’s task is to memories them. The teacher is to punish the learner with an electric shock each time he makes a mistake.
The learner is taken to an adjacent room and seated in an “electric chair” apparatus. Electrodes are attached to his wrists. The teacher was escorted to his position in front of a “shock generator” on this device is a row of 30 switches marked from 15 to 450 volts. Corresponding labels range from “slight shock” to “extreme intensity shock” and finally “Danger severe shock”… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
METHODOLOGY
This study is survey research that is carried out in the form of a correlational design to find the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Therefore, a correlational survey method was used for the study. According to Salawu (1991), A correlation study is a concern with the measurement of the degree of relationship between two or more variables for the purpose of making a prediction about the relationship.
The targeted area of the study includes all government senior secondary school students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. All the students in senior secondary (SS-II) of these schools were the target population.
Sample and Sampling Technique
The sample of this study is four hundred and thirty (430) senior secondary school mathematics students. Due to the larger number of the schools and the size of the population, it is not suitable for the researcher to administer the research questionnaires to all the schools and the entire students.
The instruments used for collecting data for this study are self-constructed questionnaires based on reviewed related literature. They are developed in three different categories, each consisting of biodata variables and 20 items measuring the selected variables of the investigation at hand.
Academic interest questionnaire (ASCQ) was developed to measure senior secondary school mathematics students’ academic interest in school, attitude towards academic activities questionnaire (ATAAQ) to measure their attitude towards school activities and compliance to school rules questionnaire (CSRQ) was to measure the students’ compliance to school rules… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Introduction
This chapter presents a discussion of the data analysis. The first part of the analysis presents the biodata distribution of the senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. The answers to the six research questions, the outcome of tested hypothesis using Pearson Product moment Correlation (r), and Independent t-test to determine the differences. The hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The chapter goes on to presents the summary of the major findings of the analysis and the discussions of findings.
Analysis of Biodata variables
Table 4.2.1 Distribution of respondents by gender
| Gender | Frequency | Percent |
| MALE | 227 | 52.8 |
| FEMALE | 203 | 47.2 |
|
Total |
430 |
100.0 |
The table above shows the sex of the respondents, 227 representing 52.8% are males while the rest 203 representing 47.2% are females. This shows that both male and female students are well represented in this study.
Answering Research Questions
Question One: What is the relationship between Academic interest and Academic Performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos state?
Table 4.3.1: Analysis of the responses of students on the relationship between Academic interest and Academic Performance.
| VARIABLES | N | MEAN | S.D |
| Students’ Academic Interests | 430 | 75.2860 | 9.14680 |
|
Students’ Academic Performance |
430 |
31.9302 |
11.04219 |
The table above reveals that the mean response for the academic interest which is 75.2860 with a standard deviation of 9.14680, and average academic performance was 31.9302 and a standard deviation of 11.04219 implies that there is a relationship. This result suggests that relationship might exist between academic interest and academic performance of sample students used for this research… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Discussions of Findings
The discussion of findings in this study is done in accordance with the research questions and hypothesis testing as they agree or disagree with relevant quoted literature. The use of the Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistics revealed that there is a significant relationship existing between Students Academic interest and Students Academic Performance. This shows that the Students‟ Academic interest has an existing relationship with the students’ academic performance.
Hence, the null hypothesis which suggests that there is no significant relationship between academic interest and academic performance of senior secondary school mathematics students In Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos state is hereby rejected. Answer to research question also shows that Students Academic interest has a significant relationship with the Students Academic Performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
The study aimed to determine the influence of academic interest, attitudes towards academic activities, and compliance to school rules on the academic performance of senior secondary school mathematics students in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State. A total of 430 students that were randomly selected duly responded to this study.
The high point of the analysis includes:
- A significant relationship exists between academic interest and academic performance of students in government senior secondary schools in Ikorodu Local Government of Lagos State… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
Recommendations
The following recommendations are suggested as a result of the analysis of the study:
- Students should maintain their academic self- concept and improve their academic performance by striving to have good grades in their
- Positive attitudes towards academic activities yield to better academic performance, therefore, students should maintain a good attitude that can improve their academic performance… (Scroll down for the link to get the Complete Chapter One to Five Project Material)
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