CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY: INFLUENCE OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND SELF-ESTEEM: A CASE STUDY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IKENNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA.
Education is very essential to all countries of the world both developed and developing. Education is the process or art of imparting knowledge, skills, facts, judgment and either formally or informally. It is the channel through which human, physical, social, emotional and intellectual abilities are developed. Education to Kneller (2000) is the process by which individuals go through schools, colleges, universities and other institutions of learning for transmission of values and knowledge. Education in the assertion of the 1st black president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, is the most potent weapon to fight poverty, ignorance and provoke positive reforms in the world. Quality education allows for acquisition of skills, technology, progress and creates an avenue for the exploration of human resources towards the attainment of economic development.
School, colleges and universities -have no worth without student. Students are most essential asset for any educational institute. The social and economic development of the country is directly linked with student academic performance. The students’ performance (academic achievement) plays an important role in producing the best quality graduates who will become great leader and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country’s economic and social development (Ali et.al, 2009). Student academic performance measurement has received considerable attention in previous research, it is challenging aspects of academic literature, and science student performance are affected due to social, psychological, economic, environmental and personal factors. These factors strongly influence the student performance, but these factors vary from person to person and country to country.
School environment: Quality assurance is the systematic management, monitoring and evaluation procedure adopted to ensure that the learning environment and the curriculum program of an educational institution meet the specified standards to achieve the set goals and produce outputs that will satisfy the expectations of the institution’s customers (society). Quality assurance oriented schools are characterized by core values and elements which were identified by UNICEF (2000) as: quality learners, learning environments, curriculum content, teaching and learning processes, and learning outcomes.
The societal expectation of quality outputs from the training institutions makes the students the primary focus of attention in any instructional program, and the better the school, the better it can meet the goals that include equipping the students with desirable skills, knowledge and attitudes that enable them to work and live in the society of knowledge. The teachers are expected to make teaching the learners’ centered and create enabling environment for the students to interact with learning materials in order to concretize their knowledge and skills so that they can become self-confident and self-reliant, and contribute meaningfully to the socio–economic development of the society.
There is actually a general belief that the condition of school’s learning environment including infrastructure has an important impact on teachers’ effectiveness and students’ academic performance. The facilities that are needed to facilitate effective teaching and learning in an educational institution include the classrooms, offices, libraries, laboratories, conveniences and other buildings as well as furniture items and sporting equipment. The quality of infrastructure and learning environment has strong influence on the academic standard which is an index of quality assurance in the school. For instance, Earthman (2002), reporting on California, revealed that comfortable classroom temperature and smaller classes enhance teachers’ effectiveness and provide opportunities for students to receive more individual attention, ask more questions, participate more fully in discussions, reduce discipline problems and perform better than students in schools with substandard buildings by several percentage points. Ogundare (1999) and Olagboye (2004), viewed utilization of school infrastructure and learning environment as the extent of usage of school buildings, laboratories, library, assembly-ground, flower garden, school garden, volleyball field, chairs, desks, chalkboard, and so on. However, too much pressure on their use could result in over utilization, a situation that could lead to rapid deterioration and breakdown. For instance, when a classroom built to accommodate 40 students is constantly being used for 60 students then the returns from these facilities may not be maximized in terms of teaching and learning. Comfortable learning facilities will not only boost the morale of teachers and students but will also ensure the realization of the set educational objectives in secondary schools.
Self-esteem: The concept of self-esteem is omnipresent in contemporary life. In classrooms and workplaces, sporting events and music recitals, people generally assume that high self-esteem is critical to success in that domain. Indeed, the promotion of self-esteem, and the prevention of low self-esteem, is widely perceived as an important societal goal that merits widespread interventions to boost self-esteem levels in the population. Yet until recently, the scientific literature provided few insights into the nature and development of self-esteem. In the past several years, a large number of longitudinal studies have significantly advanced the field. What is the typical, or normative, pattern of self-esteem changes from adolescence to old age that is, at which stages of life do people typically show increases or decreases in self-esteem? How stable are individual differences in self-esteem across long periods or, put differently, is self-esteem a stable trait like shyness and intelligence or a transient state like feelings of fear and embarrassment? And finally, is self-esteem truly consequential does it influence important life outcomes? Self-esteem refers to an individual’s subjective evaluation of his or her worth as a person (Donnellan, Trzesniewski, & Robins, 2011; MacDonald & Leary, 2012). Importantly, self-esteem does not necessarily reflect a person’s objective talents and abilities, or even how a person is evaluated by others. Moreover, self-esteem is commonly conceptualized as the “feeling that one is ‘good enough,’” and consequently, individuals with high self-esteem do not necessarily believe they are superior to others (Rosenberg, 1965, p. 31). Thus, self-esteem involves feelings of self-acceptance and self-respect, in contrast to the excessive self-regard and self-aggrandizement that characterizes narcissistic individuals (Ackerman et al., 2011).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
In Nigeria, many schools both primary and secondary are situated at various places by private individuals, government, corporate and religious organizations. Thus, the process of teaching and learning takes place under different environment. Every school possesses different kind of facilities and classroom structures at divergent functional levels. All students are expected to sit for the same examination at the final year of either their junior or senior secondary school education (Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination at junior level and Senior School Certificate Examination at senior level). It is therefore expected to have a similar performance from all students since they were taught with the same curriculum and syllabus. In reality, some students in some schools perform better than their counterparts in other schools. This indicates there are definite determinants that influence the success or failure of students in examinations. A particular example of such definite determinants is school environment. Students taught in a conducive environment tend to perform better than their peers taught in an uncomfortable environment. To this end, it is apt to examine the impact of school environment on the academic performance of students and on their psychosocial development.
1.3 OBECTIVE OF THE STUDY: INFLUENCE OF SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT ON STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND SELF-ESTEEM: A CASE STUDY OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IKENNE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA.