Environment exerts a lot of influence on a child’s academic performance in school. In fact, it is regarded as a crucial turning point in a child’s educational career. Certain rooms develop and tend to influence the behaviour of the children in this group which should inculcate the desired and acceptable mode of behaviour in the students. In the context of this research work, environment is grouped into school environment and home environment.
a. School as a factor that influence the academic performance of students in secondary school is as a result of unconducive atmosphere of our secondary schools. Learning environment also contributes to the poor academic performance of students. The present secondary schools are experiencing astronomical increase in population to the extent that some classes use 3 to 5 registers for a class having up to 250 students. In such situation, teacher-students ratio is 1:250. The recommended 1:50 ration has gone into oblivion. Knowing students by name is no longer in vogue in Nigerian secondary schools. The problems in classroom do not create a good condition for learning which can lead to poor academic performance of students.
b. Home as a factor that influence the academic performance of students according to Skinner found among other thing that home and other agencies are set up by the society for the purpose of providing adequate and desirable experiences for the children undesirable family experiences such as nagging by parents, conflicts within the family affects the developing attitudes that interfere with the school works.
Mcdill (1989) found that those who live near the university perform better than other students. There are also social class differences in secondary school students who belong to the group that think likely of themselves and aspire to have the best always portray a brilliant performance in their academic work. Some children are comprised of individuals who have set out to oppose the authority and exhibit negative behaviours. Such is the type of children referred to as anti-academic group. It is also believed that children who live in the urban and developed areas do better in their academic performance. Bakare (1994) described poor academic performance as any performance that falls below a desired standard. Aremu and Sokan (2003) submit that the search for the causations of poor academic performance is unending and some of the factors that they put forward are - motivational orientation, self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional problems, study habits, teacher consultation and poor interpersonal relationships. Bakare (1994) also made efforts to categorize factors militating against good academic performance into four (4) principal areas which are:
a. Causation resident in the child such as basic cognitive skills, physical and health factors, psycho-emotional factors, lack of interest in the school programme.
b. Causation resident in the family such as cognitive stimulation basic nutrition during the first two years, types of discipline at home, lack of role model and finance.
c. Causation resident in the school such as school location and physical buildings, interpersonal relationships among the school personnel.
d. Causation resident in the society such as instability of educational policy, underfunding of educational sectors, leadership and job losses.
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