CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The period from mid 1968 to mid 1970 in the life of the Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) was characterized by boisterous activity in the review of the curriculum, Gbamanja (1991). Subject committee were setup to consider both the changing needs of Nigerian pupils and international trends in their respective disciplines and drawing on their teaching expertise, to propose detailed guidelines for future science teaching.
The preliminary effort towards integrated science began with STAN committees working on separate disciplines of physics, chemistry and biology. In terms of these other subjects, which are integrated science and computer science, there has been some difficulties in the teaching and learning of topics in the junior secondary because of some problems that has face them in the system. These are some of the problems; lack of materials is also one of the major problems facing the junior secondary school, for examples textbook, workbooks for practical etc. Like for the part of the computer science after learning without practical with the computer machine, it will be difficult for the students to really understand it. the teacher’s guidelines will also help, because it helps the teachers to know what to do in any particular session and how to follow it.
Integrated science is a science subject, which is all about practical and also is divided into three major branches, which are Biology, Chemistry and Physics, these particular subjects make up what we call integrated science in the junior secondary school levels. Also poor attitude of the students also is one of the problems that contribute in the difficult teaching and learning of topics in the junior secondary schools, because some students due to their poor attitude in that particular can bring about poor performance in the subject, thereby making the students not to understand the subject. Non-use of instructional materials also contributes to the difficult and learning topics in junior secondary schools integrated science and computer science, it makes the students performance very poor in terms of their junior secondary schools certificate examination in the system.
In this particular research, they researchers would wish to find out if lack of students attitude towards integrated science and computer science can cause the difficult teaching and learning topics in the junior secondary school integrated science and computer science in the system. Whether lack of the use of instructional materials in the teaching and learning of integrated science and computer science can also be the causes of difficult in the teaching and learning of integrated and computer science, finally, whether lack of proper teaching method can also cause the difficult in the teaching and learning of topics in the junior secondary school integrated science and computer science.
1.2 Statement of Problems
The identification of difficult teaching and learning topic in the junior secondary school integrated science and computer science has been a problems to many teaching and learning topics in the both subjects, like Ochoha (1996) the research carried out by Odo (1995) and Onah (1997) maintain that student who enter for integrated science and computer science in the junior secondary school certificate examination perform very poor in this particular subject, it is because of some factors, which contribute to the poor standard of the students. These are some of the factors that contributed, first we have to identify the environmental factor, which also is one of the most important problem in the area of teaching and learning in the both subjects in the system, because some of the environments where these students study are not good for learning and because of that it makes the teaching and learning difficult for both the teachers and the students. Also there is also other important factor, which is poor attitude of teachers towards the teaching of integrated science and computer science and the poor attitude of students towards the subjects and some people like Okoro (1990), Okafor (1986) and Elechi (1993) say that one of the factors is lack of trained teachers in the system in integrated and computer science, other still say that one of the factors to be identified is non use of instructional material in the teaching and learning process of these particular topics in integrated science and computer science. On the other hand, Ugwu (1996) pointed out that due to these particular factors it has made the performance of the students in the junior secondary school to perform poor in the system, specially the junior secondary school certificate examination, students during the class three examination in the junior levels. In the junior secondary school, class three, if this identifies factors should be looked into; it will enhance the teaching and learning of the topics in the system.