Instructional Techniques and Academic Performance in Secondary School Students in Business Studies

Instructional Techniques and Academic Performance in Secondary School Students in Business Studies

ABSTRACT

The study was designed to investigate the effect of Instructional Techniques on academic performance of secondary school students in business studies in Ini Local Government Area. Two hypotheses were formulated and tested. Population for the was one hundred (100) junior secondary two (JS2) students were randomly selected from four secondary schools in Ini Local Government Area for the study.

A quasi-experimental research design was adopted using Business Studies Performance TEST (BSPET) as instrument for data collection. Data analysis was done using independent t-test. Findings showed that academic performance of secondary school students in business studies when taught using demonstration instructional strategy is significantly higher than those taught using lecture instructional strategy and that there was no significant difference in academic performance between male and female students when taught business studies using demonstration instructional strategy.

Based on these findings, it is recommended that there should be sensitization of teachers toward the use of demonstration instructional strategy for effective teaching and learning of business studies in order to eradicate poor performance among business studies students in the area irrespective of their gender.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the study

Teaching is indeed a complex process and secondary school teaching seems to be even more complex because, at this level we are dealing with infants who need more attention. Teachers who teach in secondary schools must be made to understand that they have a very important role to play in preparing the children for the greater tasks ahead.

If the teacher fails to give a good start to the child at this age, the child’s future could be gloomy. Eddie (1986) in Ekanem (2006) observes that in spite of the technological breakthrough in audio-visual equipment, teachers have remained indispensable since they constitute the bulwark in which educational process is made to have meaning. There is no doubt that there has been a growing concern about the quality and intellectual aims of education in the Nigerian society. The school is looked upon as an avenue for the citizens of Nigerian to imbibe the culture and norms of the country. The National Policy on Education (NPE) (2013) clearly recognizes the role of the teacher when it declares that “no educational system may rise above the quality of its teachers”.

However according to Ekanem (2006) the school system is always in a state of crisis over the issue of instructional techniques employed by teachers in instructing the learners. This is so because the instructional process is what brings the teacher more often than not into contact with the learners. His/her manipulative skills coupled with his/her professional and academic ability determines to a very large extend the success of the learning programmes.

Similarly, according to Ekanem, Udo and Ntuk (2003) teaching effectiveness at any educational level involves knowledge of what to teach, when and how to teach it. Essentially, the basic elements of teaching are content methodology and techniques, personality of the teacher and the characteristics and quality of the learner. Effective teaching therefore is a fusion between sound academic knowledge and profound knowledge of pedagogical principles. Thus, no child is below average communicating amongst others. No individual is efficient in all talents. In teaching therefore, we consider the ‘total person’, that is, we must perceive the individual as a whole and therefore seek to develop a multi-talent approach.

Furthermore, a good teaching will involve a multi-talent approach which involves teaching the facts (cognitive) having the learner have love, interest and affection for what is taught (affective) and finally enabling the learner transfer what has been learnt into practical terms, that is he/she is able to use his motor skills in applying the knowledge learnt (psychomotor). This type of teaching enables the learner develop self concept and to develop self-concepts, the teaching must be students- centered, investigative and discovery oriented rather than teacher dominated (Ekanem,Udo and Ntuk, 2003).

Similarly, Johnson, (2007) asserted that teachers’ instructional technique is important for quality education and that students have also become both geographically and socially diversified. Therefore teachers should also adopt new instructional techniques to meet global challenges in the learners as well as changing the students-teachers’ means of interaction.

According to Hill and Revola, (2003), the major drawback in many schools is that teachers lose focus on their instructional techniques and they assume that the learners face difficulties because the content (what needs to be taught and delivered) is complicated or not of their interest, instead of realizing the facts that the teaching technique (how to teach and deliver) should be more effective and as per their requirement and needs in order to generate their interest and better learning opportunity for the students. It is on this background that the researcher intends to investigate the instructional techniques and academic performance of secondary school students in business studies in lni local Government Area, with the view of proffering some recommendations.

1.2   Statement of the Problem

Education is an indispensable tool for national development through it potentials in the development of human resources in moral and intellectual abilities. This being the case, it follows therefore that education is a process through which an individual is admitted into a society by being taught what is worthwhile, in order that the individual might play his part well in the society (Ekanem, Udo and Ntuk, 2003). This development in an individual is evidenced in the academic performance of the individual in the teaching-learning process.

Unfortunately, when the result of the junior secondary three final examination results is release, there has been a decline in the performance of students in the subjects they registered for. Business Studies being one of the compulsory subjects in the junior secondary level of education is not an exemption to this decline in students’ performance.

Many researchers such as Ekpo,(2014), Edem (2015) and Daniel (2015) have attributed this fall in the academic performance of students in Business Studies to lack of students’ participation birth order and family variables. The government on this process has turned to blame the parents for lack of good home training of the students; the teachers blame the students for not reading and for in proper preparation for examinations, bodies for purposefully failing them in order to generate income for themselves in the course of student paying money to re-sit any fail subject.

This then trigger the researchers to personally asked could the instructional technique employ by the teacher during the instructional process affects the academic performance of students? The quest for answer to this question motivated the researcher to carryout this study in order to investigate instructional techniques and academic performance of secondary school students in business studies in Ini Local Government Area.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study was to examine instructional technique and academic performance of secondary school students in business studies in mi Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom Stte. Specifically, the study sought to;

1. Investigate the use of demonstration and lecture instructional techniques and academic performance of students in business studies in secondary schools in Ini Local Government Area
2. Find out the impact of gender difference on academic performance of students being taught business studies using demonstration instructional technique in secondary schools in Ini Local Government Area.

 1.4   Significance of the Study

The study will be significance in the following ways:

1. To the students the findings of this study will help them in developing positive attitude towards the learning of Business Studies.
2. To the teachers, the findings of this study will enhance innovative thinking, creativity and resourcefulness among them as they will have to think of and select relevant instructional technique for utilization during the teaching of business Studies.
3. To the government, it will provide information for them on the need to provide in-service training, seminars, conferences and symposium for teachers on the selection and utilization of instructional techniques in teaching/learning process.
4. To the stakeholders in education and curriculum planners, the findings of this study will help technique to be used in technique each concept in the curriculum.
5. The finding of this study will also serve as reference material for future researchers on topics similar to this present one

1.5   Research Hypotheses

The following research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:

1. There is no significant difference in the academic performance of students taught business studies using demonstration instructional strategies and those taught using lecture instructional strategies
2. There is no significant difference in the academic performance between male and female students when taught business studies using demonstration instructional strategies

1.6   Delimitation of the Study

The scope of the study was delimited to instructional techniques (demonstration and lecture-based) and academic performance of secondary school students in Business Studies in Ini Local Government Area. The study was only confined to Junior Secondary Two students who registered for business studies in all the selected public Secondary Schools in Ini Local Government Area.

1.7   Limitation of the Study

In the process of conducting this research, the study will be confronted with different problem which threatened the successful completion of this study. Prominent among these problems will include: insufficient time frame allotted for the completion and submission of the research report and insufficient finance to process and purchase necessary materials required for the study. Hence, the study will not be generalized as the topic suggest but limited to some selected public secondary schools in Ini Local Government Area.

1.8    Operational Definition of Terms

The following terms were operationally defined:

Instructional Technique: This refers to the way which the teachers adopt in teaching the students.

Demonstration Method: The instruction method which involves showing the learners corrects use of apparatus illustrating a technique, performing an experiment which is dangerous, risky or expensive for individual learner use.

Lecture-Based Instructional Technique: This is an instructional technique whereby teaching is presented in an oral form about a particular subject.

Academic Performance: This is the Students scores in examination or continuous assessment in Business Studies

Business Studies: The study of business studies is about how individuals and group of people organize, plan and act to create and develop goods and services for human consumption and satisfaction.