CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Research proposal is the
impact of environment on academic achievement of children in primary school in
Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Right from the moment Julius Nyerere
became the Tanzania presidents, he committed his government deliberately and
unreservedly to the using of classroom environ merit to affect a radical
transformation of the social values of his people. Speaking about the task of
the period, Nyerere (1998), said “today we are engaged in revolution ... a
revolution to stamp out colonial mentality from the heads of the people".
Going by this, it was clear that if
the goals of the revolutions were to be attained environment has an impact in
achieving any positive goals oriented to include the children's academic
achievement. He saw the environment as the most important factor in any state
machinery directed toward development and changes. It was believed after some
observations and analysis that it is environment more than any other single
group or thing, that can determine, the attitude of children and shape their
idea and the aspiration.
Environment become power in its
reality. With concept of the environment given by the researcher, it becomes
more evident why very many years earlier Dewey (1968) has insisted that
"one of the prime functions of the school indeed, the chief function is to
provide a setting within which boys and girls can grow intellectually')'based
on this, the need for rapid improvement of our environment in order to make our
children maintain the expected standard should be a general concern to both
government, private organizations and individuals.
The impact of environment becomes
more apparent, the moment one ponders the notion of school without good or
favourable environment in which is located.
Ezema (1993)
quoting CESAC (2003) opined that there is the need to regard environment, since
environment determines the children's future welfare and standard with regards
to their academic works generally.
From the assertion above, there is a
need for parents to assist their children to choose environment that is
conducive for learning that is environment that is located in a palace that is not near a
market and have all the materials necessary for good education. This is
because, it is only the environment that can make the children what they will
be.
The impact of environment involves
guiding pupils towards securing the amount and quality of experience which will
promote the optimum achievement of their potentials of human begins. The core
impact of environment on the children's, academic achievement in Udenu Local
Government Area, to a research, tended to expose the primary motivation and
hidden areas where only environment made pupils not to met up with their
academic achievement. This is because almost all the school in Udenu Local Government Area are
located near a market in and the rural
parts of the local government area..
As a result, the researcher, deemed
it as a need to carryout this particular research work in order to determine
and inform the good teacher the impact of environment on the academic
achievement of children in primary school.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The relationship between man and
environment is basic and at the same time important because all the gains
derived from ecological systems and all evolutionary changes hinge on the man's
relation with the environment. Hence, children have not actually realized that
achievement of academic excellence depends basically on their ability to adapt
and cope with the environment.
Surprisingly, in Udenu local
government area, where this research work is conducted, schools, were situated
in all corners of the areas without a due consideration of the environment
whether favoruable or not. As a result, children found it extremely difficult
to learn and understand as a result of the less friendly environment. This
distracts the pupils and these rob them of the concentration required on
programmes sequentially presented to them on line with the school curriculum.
Udenu local government area is
inhabited by mainly illiterate parents who are determined to average their
illiteracy by ranking the education of their children as a priority. It seems
that the environment, as discussed may impose some limitation on the
realization of this ideal. The problem of the study then is "what is the
impact of environment on the academic achievement of the children in primary
schools in Udenu Local Government Area?
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to find
the impact of environment on the academic achievement of children in primary
school in Udenu Local Government Area.
Specifically,
the study is to determine
i. The factors that
promote academic achievement of children.
ii. The
impact on school
children of school
environment devoid of
teachers,
iii. The
extent to which
environment facilitates
children's learning readiness.
iv.
The degree to
which adverse cultural
factors influence
children's learning behaviour.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ~
The researcher has no doubt that at
the end of this research
work any one coming across it would definitely know the need for accurate
records of the past for future use. It will equally help any reader to know the
brief historical analysis of the environment as contributed towards children
academic achievement. The study is important for the following reasons.
1. It shows the
meaning and needs of environment to students by educating the students on the need to go to a school
that is not located near a market.
2. It will improve the academic standard of
children by encouraging them to school
in a good environment.
3. It helps parents to consider the
environment first before blaming the teachers
on the poor academic achievement of their children.
4. The study will help in promoting the
body national environment protection
agency especially in Udenu Local Government Area. This is because any organization or
proprietor/proprietress must put more effort to
make sure that the school is conducive for learning.
5. The study will also serve as a
reference point to any further research work related
to environment and its important in academic achievement of the student.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study was based on finding out
the impact of environment on the academic achievement of children in primary school
in Udenu Local Government Area. Theresearch was basically delimited to the
environment cum its impact towards education of the people.
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS.
The
following research questions
1. What are the environmental factors that
promote academic achievement of children?
2. To -what extent does environment facilitate the chidlren's
readiness to learn?
3. How does an environment facilitate the
children's readiness to learn?
4. How does adverse
cultural environment affect the children's learning behaviour?
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE IS PROVIDED UNDER THE FOLLOWING
THEMES
2.1 Conceptual framework
2.2 Theoretical framework
2.3 Review of empirical studies
2.4 Summary of literature review
2.1 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Many authors have written many
papers as definitions to the concept "role" in various perspective
and each definitions lies on one's conception and ideology which were mainly
based on various areas of specialization.
According to Ekuma (199£J)
"Role is an expectation desired or belief which people have in a
particular circle which guides, directs and modifies their activity". This
assertion, was looking at the concept role as an already made factor which
stands the better chance of directing, guiding and modifying the activity of
the people within their circle.
From the oxford advanced learners
dictionary (2006) "it is a function that a thing typically has or is
expected to have^ *by this, it is a common goal to be done which if it is not
done may have an adverse impact. There are several roles but for the purpose of
this particular research work, the case in question was the role of environment
in pupils learning.
Having reviewed some scholars in the
definite of role as a concept, it is like saying that environment plays the
greatest role in insuring the positive achievement by the children at all level
of learning. This is obvious in an assertion given by Nigeria (1998) that:
"it is only environment more than any other single group of people or
thing that determines
the attitudes of children and shape their ideas and aspiration of the notion. This is power its reality.
With this conception of environment
given by a teacher (since Nyerere was himself a teacher) it becomes more
evident and clearer why many years ago or earlier, Dewey (2008) has insisted
that "one of the prime functions of the school, indeed, the prime
functions is to provide a setting within which boys and girls can grow
intellectually".
The impression here is that it is
only the environment that can play the vivid role in realizing the children,
who by this profession in position was in the support of the environment
without saying after its manifestation to the understand it and its manifestation to the
children's academic achievement in support of the said Icha (2001) in a seminar
to undergraduate adopting to your society he, said that: books can help, so can
laboratories computers, teacher, so also can numerous other types of materials
which are useful to a certain extent but yet without a due adaptation of the
environment where such things are presented, nothing meaningful have take place
inside this analysis it is clear that environment plays the double standard in
building the serves as a noun qualifier and harmonize knowledge for proper
assimilation to pupils who obeys the rule of the environment.
In a continuation to the learning
arousal role of environment on the children's academic achievement, Sunday
(2001) on the paper he presented to the students union government in the
resumption of his office, titled the 'social classes and its effect on the
children" he has this to say: "many children in a prominent middle
class tend to have difficulty in school if placed in the same environment with
children from the working class counter part. The reason is that in such social
environment, social control and instruction are highly structured or were
externally imposed in a teacher centred curriculum in Nigeria, Udenu Local
Government Area in particular it is not yet noticed because practically most of
the primary schools are all structured alike. As a result, the children from
the middle class environment have been better exposed to education materials
like radios televisions, toys and other rich educative materials and environment.
They are better equipped and more
motivated than children from working class environment tends to stress
egalitarianism and development of self direction, a highly structured teacher
centred classroom cannot only be discrepant fro middle class children but also
can cause them to loss interest and motivation in learning the impact of
adverse cultural environment on learning.
The impact of environment infact
becomes more, apparent, the moment one entertains the notion schools without a
good favourbale, environment where this work was conducted. In making this
study entertaining and educative in nature which is the primary motive, some
certain fact should be cheered first.
In the pursuit of optional
stimulation levels, much recent school design has emphasized the minimization
or maximization of environment stimulation. Although, there is much controversy
over their effectiveness in improving learning process, woods (1969) noted
that: "there is no significant difference in learning rate when widows are
replaced by solid walls, that it has been found that learning ability many
increase with continues sensory deprivation following this assertion, what it
was saying was that errors were fewer in the less rich classroom. The fact is
that some irrelevant things should be avoided in the classroom those thing
which to some administrator or teachers look like improving the environment
turns to be a great disturbance to such classroom whereby distracting and
making children to lack the concentration during lesson delivery and various
other class activities.
However, there has been a practical
trend towards on emphatic enrichment of the children internal or classrooms are
replete with noise tools, posters, painting mobiles and mulfanious utilities.
The assumption was that environmental richness is conducive to learning. A
study of year long classroom enrichment programes however found that children
performance were not enhanced. And on that very context Trabasso (1968) has
argued that 'there is more danger in enriching a learning environment perhaps
we might do better as teacher to improve words or relationships that are to be
learned.
2.2 THEATRICAL FRAMEWORK
According to Ebere (2003) citing
Goddis (1999) theory is a way of packaging patterns from the past, to understand
the present and be able to predict the future", from this definition
given, one then saw it as an avenue in which solution were identified and can
be solved in another perception, theory can be seen as scientific construct
designed to help in the explanation of events and phenomenon it helps to
sharpen the focus of a researcher, there by providing the necessary framework
on which the inquiring is based in a different discipline, thrones emerge in
explanation of the problems the basic rationale and relevance of theory lies on
its capacity to provide the necessary answers to the objectives and various
questions under study.
On the basis of this, Elseley (1999)
asserted that "it is environment that determines the human characteristics
and activities found and wholly determines and dutates what man and his
activities should be, and man is seen as vulnerable what man and his
environment.
Going by
this explanation, it is believed that, environment is a sine -qua-non in the
modification of any human activity and at that survival of an individual also
relived on the environment determinant perse.
2.3 REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL
Environment according to oxford
advanced learners disctionary (2006) is the condition, circumstances, etc
affecting a person's like it was agreed here that all existing or non-existing
elements that affect the human life was regarded as environment.
This is because all the elements
have an impact in the environment.
In a related manner Okere (1986)
said that "environment consist of all, or any of the following media
namely the air, water, land and medium of air which includes, the
air, within other
natural or main
made structured above or below ground.
Going by this particular analysis
given out environment is therefore anything including air which the children
breath the water they drink the food they eat and how they eat it. The building
which academic achievement. In a no distance time Ezema (1993) said that
"great Britain environmental development (1990) opined that environment
includes water, air, land and all plants and human beings which exists among
these or any of them" from these definitions and explanations, the concept
of environment encompasses all the circumstances and friendly factors to
include the natural and artificial factors that children interacts with which
in the other hand can enhance their academic achievement. This is just like
saying that children's academic achievement depends much on the environment and
that environment is universal.
In making the fate of pupils
learning in an environment without a teacher vivid for the purpose of this
research work.
Ezema (1993) federal environment
protect agency of Nigeria (FEPA 1993) thus, environment incorporates all in our
ways of life which includes arts, crast flora) fauna, tradition/culture,
weather/climate water bodies etc.
What the above expression according
to the author was saying was that environment that contain all things that
faster the children's life. The arts and science habitual attitudes, our-way of life
and all the water bodies of any kind. It was asserted that those thing which
affect children's life real situation was no other factor or element than what
we knew and called environment. According the Owunwa (1999) on the lecture he
delivered to school of social science Avan Ikoku collage of education titled,
"the formal decision making said that" environment refers to the
domain or setting where foreign policy of a state is made and he motional of
environment as regards to tais to include domestic and external environment
control everything that happens and that cannot be stopped or changed in
learning is environment.
The external environments comprise
the three sub-sectors. The physical, social and institutional sectors. The
physical sector is the entire universe the earth which includes land, sea and
air and the outer space. This sector essentially concerns the geographical
locus of the state obviously this locus can inhibit effective communication
among the milieu. The social sector deals with group of people which includes
students whereas the last one the institutional sector more or less can have
some measurable influence on its behaviour that is for the external
environment.
In the domestic environment it
includes the people the political parties, interest groups and the policy
makers, themselves, because as members of the society they have imbibed the
values and norms of that society and those exposes them to pressures and
influences from entitles within the state. A part from being members of that
society, some element of the peoples domestic environment of the decision
making. As we are going on Devis (1997) has his to say "environment
consist of all the external influences that impinge upon human organization ,
these influence exert their effects through physical stimulus that produce
sights sound test, smells and other bodily sensations" it is these
sensations that made us to be aware of our environment and its is environment
and meet to it. We can easily under state our total environment if we separate
the human elements in it from those that are non-human, the element surrounding them
are of human origin which we refer to as social environment. The general
character of our social environment depends chiefly on the culture of the group
to which we belong. The character of our natural environments depends primarily
on the climate water, resources of the part of the world we live in an area for
long period of time, they are certain to have made changes for better or worse
in their environment. It then becames difficult to draw a sharp line between
the constructed physical environment and some aspects of natural environment.
The fate of pupils learning in an
environment featured greatly after the successful established by Darwins theory
(2003) when geographers of the period began to adopt environment approach to
the explanation of area variation over the earth surface and the
differentiation of man from one place to another. This form of explanation is
geography inspired the springing of the two schools of thought with divergent
views on man environment relationship. The schools were the school of
environment determination and the school of environment possibilities.
The first school has the following
people (Budde, Oemoline, miss ellem sample and Eusarth Huntington) and have
their view that " a particular physical environment or any given
environment determines the human characteristic and activities found in him
they were saying that general attitude of behaviour was best ermined by the environment
found there and nothing else. To the school of possibilsm which encompassed
(Paul, vice, delabianche) said that "it is man rather than changes the
environment and make the environment what he wants it to be" when
enitcially analyzed especially for the purpose of this particular research work
we can believe that the first school of thought were of more useful view
because it was their view which considered the environment in manipulation of
human activities rather than human being manipulating the environment to fit
theirs. Although, they said that the first group was correct but what they were
saying was that man is not totally enslaved to his environment because man has
some options to free himself from some of environmental influences. After all, man has
grown his crops by irrigation where there were little or no rainfell has
reclaimed land from water body.
2.4 SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW
In order to investigate the
confliction claims of environmental impoverishment and enrichment, lurole poerteous
(1992) exposed children to a learning task in an environment which was
sufficient flexible to permit the rearrangement of soft furnishings posters or
mobiles to give distinct levels of environmental complexity children were found
to learn best in the low complexity and least well in the high complexity
environment children were found spending more time looking at the environment
rather than the task in the high complexity condition.
Of course, several replications of
the experiment would be required to discover whether adaptation accrued and the
room. It is impossible to asses whether he is attending to the environment
displays or whether he is rehearsing the learning task, clearly a design
decision for or against enrichment of the traditionally classroom or the,
impoverishment of many modern classroom will required much more research on the
cones proposed by the authority or scholar porteous. Notwithstanding, learning
environment should not built solely to promote learning activities in classroom,
libraries and study areas. In the effect of this, summer (1990) argued that
since formal learning is an interaction between tutor and pupils while engaging
in working which is teaching and learning process to bring about change, the
children was expected to gain as much intellectual fellow children as from his
teacher. The explanation have is that regardless of what the distraction should
be, there is the need for calling a spade a spade. That is improving the
academic environment to adopt the cordial learning atmosphere. The place of
academic learning should be kept decent not over decorated for the fact that
anything over dose learning environment can be any settings, classroom nursery
or playground and the purpose of the prepared environment is to make the
children independent of the adult, the vision of the scholar above was that
when an environment is prepared for the children in any particular setting the
environment will play the role of making such children an independent of the
adult. It is assumed that most of the children have not reached to the age
being on their own and it is only the environment that can help them to do
this. As this will manifest in their real life situation when they (children)
come up to the expected age of being independent. It is a place where the
children can think for himself. This is environmental manifestation, the ideal
classroom to him was described, they talk about open education in many
respects.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes methods and
procedures used by the researcher in caring out the study with particular
emphasis on.
3.1 Research design
3.2 Area of the study _
3.3 Population of the study
3.4 Sample and sampling technique
3.5 Instrument for data collection
3.6 Validation of the instrument
3.7 Reliability of the instrument
3.8 Method of data collection
3.9 Method of data analysis
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN
The design of this study was a
descriptive survey research. Questionnaire was used together, vital information
from the respondents as regards the impact of environment on the academic
achievement of children in primary school in Udenu local government area of
Enugu State.
3.2 AREA OF THE STUDY
The researcher conducted her
research study in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State.
3.3 POPULATION OF THE STUDY
The target population is estimated
at 9TDOO people in Udenu local government area of Enugu state. This comprises
mostly of teachers, civil servants and literate parents at the proportion of
the 2.2.1 respectively.
3.4 SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
The researcher used stratified
random sampling in selecting her respondents. The accessible population of two
hundred (200) were used which comprises of teachers, civil servants and
literate parents. This was carried out in the proportion of 2.2.1 that is 80
for teachers, 80 for civil servants and 40 for literate parents.
3.5
INSTRUMENT FOR DATA COLLECTION
The instrument used was a structured
questionnaire, copies of the questionnaire were used to collect the data for
the study since the research involved the measurement of perceptions of
respondents in terms of the impact on environment on the academic achievement
of children in primary school in Udenu Local Government Area, questionnaire was
considered appropriate (Borg and Gall 1979 and Best 1984).
The 20 items instrument consisted of
two parts. Part one sought personal data on the respondents, part two was
developed based on the purpose of the study, the hypotheses and the reviewed
literature to elicit answers to the study's research questions.
The part two was
further divided into five sections: strongly agree, "SA" agree
"A", undecided "U", disagree "O" and strongly
disagree "SA".
These sections respectively sought
information on the impact of environment on the academic achievement of
children in primary school in Udenu Local Government Area.
The questionnaire was ended with
nominal values assigned to each possible response that was expected from the
response each of the items was scored on the basis of this code.
In part one, the
respondent was requires to check the column that concerns him/her. The part two
is a rating scale structured in five point: strongly agree, agree, undecided;
disagree, and strongly disagree were assigned with numerical values 5,4,3,2 and
1 respectively. Responses with values 2.5 and above were classified as positive
responses, while those below 2.4 were negative responses, 2.45 being the real
lower limit of agree, with the assigned numerical value of 2.5 was adopted as
the cut-off point on the scale.
3.6 VALIDATION OF THE INSTRUMENT
The instrument was given to two
experts were requested to validate the instrument with reference to clarity and
its appropriateness in addressing the purpose of the study. The items which
were not clear and appropriate were dropped leaving the twenty items used in
the study. These are the items the experts found appropriate in addressing the
objectives of the investigation.
3.7 RELIABILITY OF THE INSTRUMENT
The instrument
used in this study was very reliable because it makes use of questionnaire
which it is the people of the same locality were the respondent. The teachers,
the civil servants in udenu local government area and also the literate parents
in udenu and this shows that their answer is the truth and nothing but the
truth. It is also reliable because the item used is validated by experts who
dropped those that are not clear and appropriate.
3.8 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
A total of 220 copies of
questionnaire were add-ministered to the respondents. Two hundred (200) copies
were returned for analysis. This respondents a high return of 91 percent.
3.9 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
Frequency distribution table
and mean statistics
were adopted
for the data analysis as it applies to the research questions highlighted for
this study. The formula for the X = EFX
Where X = mean; E = summation sign;
F = response frequency; X = nominal values and N = number of respondents.
Decision
Rules
In the five-point
likert scale weighted 5 to 1 from strongly disagree, undecided response is
weighted 3. This means that the positive response starts from 3.5 which is the
lower limit of "agree". Which is weighted 4. consequently, scores
below 3.5 are regarded as disagree while those with socre of 3.5 and above are
accepted as agree 3.5 therefore is the cut-off point of the responses to the
research questions items.