CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUTION
Background to Study
Science is very important in the modern technology. Like every other things, science has brought a lot of improvement to the life and property of all inhabitants of the earth. It must be emphatically said that the survival of man and all that man has depends heavily on is science. It is a useful tool which is capable of keeping and sustaining the world.
In recognizing this emphasis in science education has been on the increase. The fact has been evident in the high priority accorded to the teaching and learning of science subjects both at primary and secondary school levels. It’s importance led to the introduction of Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN), comparative Education Study and Adaptation Centre (CESAC) and Mathematical Association of Nigeria (MAN) to foster and increase science education in Nigeria.
Federal, State and Local governments have over the years done quite much to encourage the teaching and learning of science. This is demonstrated in various ways. Such as government budgetary votes, scholarship grants, quiz and other forms of science competition, organization of science seminar workshops and symposia, establishment of University of Science and Technology in various parts of the country and even admission policies into institutions of higher learning, yet achievement in science education especially in chemistry, is low.
Many educationists, scientists have attributed the poor achievement in science education especially chemistry to; lack of professional chemistry teachers, lack of instructional materials, poor methods of instruction, quality of teaching and teacher’s experience among others. These are what constitute teacher’s characteristics.
In Nigeria, there has been live and cry by members of the public over what is regarded as falling standards in education. One notices that such lives and cries come immediately after the release of the yearly senior school certificate examination results. It stands to reason therefore that the notion of the falling standard of education could not be anything else other than the inability on the part of secondary school students to pass the school certificate examination (Oteze, 2009).
Arzi, White and Fensham (1987) identified that one of the causes of poor performance in science education (chemistry) is poor teaching methods employed by teachers. He maintained that teaching means learning with full meaning but oriented towards memorization and recall of facts.
Furthermore Urevbu (1984) identified that lack of instructional materials is also a bane. He explained that due to lack of instructional materials, teachers only carry out experiments while students watch and take notes. Some teachers place students in large group, which does not give room for real participation by all. Thus, often leads to a situation where students abandon the scientific way of thinking in favour of the learning of definitions and standard procedures. He concluded that there is a belief that real science can be found only in the laboratory amidst fancy and expensive equipment and not among the ordinary everyday things of life.
He also stated that lack of qualified teachers militates against high performance of students in sciences especially in chemistry, he noted poor staffing, not taking into consideration on the compatibility of the teacher with the learner as well as teaching the subject they are not at home with and not giving the teacher training opportunities within and outside the country. Teaching depends on education who deeply understands subject matter and how to teach in ways that motivate children and help them learn, this is known as pedagogical content knowledge.
Acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge is within the limits of teachers’ preparatory programmes which in Nigeria includes Colleges of Education and Universities at the respective science departments leading to the award of NCE and B.Sc. (Ed) degrees. (These preparatory programmes admit and graduate thousands of trained teachers annually yet the poor performance of science subjects especially chemistry persist.
Today, the knowledge possessed by chemistry teachers is not quite clear. Some have pedagogical skills as a result of their teacher preparatory programmes, while others had never offered a course in pedagogy. Thus, this study takes an in-depth analysis of assessing teacher’s characteristics on student’s academic achievement in chemistry.