Social Groups and Student’s Attitude towards Agricultural Science in Public Secondary Schools
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Attitudes comes from the mind and it is through education that they right attitude is pass onto individuals. Thus, education is the process of learning to live a useful and acceptable life in the society. This means that education is a means of passing on good attitude such as honesty, diligence, patriotism, good human attributes and also education discourages negative attitudes such as dishonesty, laziness, absenteeism or truancy,. Poor study habit and general indiscipline among student (Fatal, 2005). According to Eddie (2001), education play important role in the molding of an individual student to become a responsible citizen. It equips the student with knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of the past that are cherished and valued by the given society so that they may be preserved from generation to another.
Equally, Educated individuals would be able to contribute positively to the economic development and growth of the society. Thus, in the successful study of agricultural science in school, the positive students attitude is require because it can enable them to have a good result at the end of the course of their study. However in the course of learning agricultural science in school, social groups do greatly influence students attitude towards the learning of the subject in the schools. As conceptualized by Udoh (2011), a social group is made up of two or more people who interact with one another, share similar characteristics and collectively have a sense of unity. A social group exhibits some degree of social cohesion and is more than a simple collection aggregate of individuals. According to the source, the characteristics shared by members of the group may include interest and values. Social groups come in the myriad of sizes and varieties, example a peer group can be viewed as a small social group. Udogi and Ivowi (2005) observed that social group can be negative as well as positive. Accordingly, social groups in the negative encourage socially unacceptable behaviors like cheating, absenteeism or truancy, examination malpractice, poor study habits, bullying and general indiscipline among its group members.
Members of the social group in school can form and also lead truants students and they may decide to stay away from school thus absenting themselves from class. This attitude discourages learning and has negative attitudes towards the study of agricultural science in secondary schools. Social group members attitude can go contrary to what the school value highly wish is discipline and high academic work. In the positive, social groups play a dominant role in a student’s socialization process. Social group are people with the same social standing, thus a child would behave the way age mates, classmates or group mates behave in a given situation. Hallahan and Kuaffman (2002) noted that members in the social groups experiment group tutoring and this made it possible for the weakest students appear to experience the biggest positive impact from having higher quality members in their groups. They further established that the highest ability students actually benefit significantly from mixing with students of middle ability. While low ability students appear to benefit significantly from having top quality group members.
Social Groups and Student’s Attitude towards Agricultural Science in Public Secondary Schools
Santor (2003) maintains that a student’s social group greatly influences other attitudes towards the study of agricultural science in secondary schools. Accordingly, members of a social groups can resort to cheating, abusing fellow students and even teachers, indulge in other social vices and exhibit delinquent behaviours, the spend their time playing and playing truant. All these will eventually kill their interest towards the study of agricultural science in schools. Olaitan (2004), specially notes that social groups formal by students are the most importance factor that influenced students attitude towards the learning of agricultural science in schools. Thus, participating in social group activities can lead to poor attitude towards the learning of the subject and can lead to poor academic outcome depending on the type of social group a student belongs to or mingle together. Because social groups are the key part of the developmental process they can have a negative effect on young people due to social group pressure.
However, Adah (2011) noted that social group pressure which is an individual student to participate in certain activities that are practice by their social group, have shown to increase the like-hood of risk taking behaviors indirectly affecting student academic performance in a negative way, for example, a student who associate with group members who take risky behaviours such as substance abuse and sexual activity can exhibit poor attitude towards the learning of agricultural science in school. In addition, social group members who exhibit poor study habits, absenteeism form school, lack of attending class activities and exhibit delinquent behaviors can exhibit negative attitude towards the study of agricultural science in secondary schools. It is with the above background and more that the study examine the influence of social groups on students attitude towards agricultural science in public secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In recent past, agricultural science students in our secondary schools have shown negative attitude toward study of the subject in schools. This has lead to students’ poor performance in external examinations like West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), National Examination Council (NECO) and National Technical Education Board (NATEB) (Egun, 2007). One factor responsible for the poor performance by these students is social group influence . most students of agricultural science in our secondary schools today joined and belong to social groups which inturn influence their attitudes towards the learning of agricultural science in schools. Students strive to conform to group norms, values and behaviours. They prioritized entertainment and please at the expense of their books.
Students who are members of a social group also embraced poor study habits, absenteeism or truancy, delinquent behaviours like bullying, fighting, stealing and destruction of school properties. Indiscipline in itself is the state of disregard to laid down rules and regulations which produces disorderly behaviours among agricultural science students in secondary schools. In addition, it is common nowadays to observe that students openly challenges and quarrel with their teachers.
Again, there has been a general perception of agricultural science by an average Nigerian students, that it is a course that is dominated with practical. Social group negative influence make students resort to cheating when the time for test, assignment and examination comes. All these have negative influence on their attitude towards the learning of agricultural science in our secondary schools. Having critically examine social group influence on students attitude towards agricultural science, the question now is: Does social groups influence students attitudes towards agricultural science in public secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to examine the influence of social groups on student’s attitude towards agricultural science in public secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area.
The specific objectives of this study includes:
- To examine poor study habit on students attitude towards agricultural science in public secondary schools.
- To determine social group absenteeism from school on students attitude towards agricultural science in public secondary schools
- To investigate social group indiscipline behaviors on students attitudes towards agricultural science in public secondary schools.
1.4 Significance of the Study
This work will be of immense important to teachers especially those teaching agricultural science in our secondary schools and the parents in general. To the teachers, the study will help them to tackle decisively social group influence among students in the school. It will create awareness to students one the need for them to show a very positive attitude to the study of agricultural science in the schools. To the parents, the study will aid the parents to instill in their children/wards the right attitude to study and embracing hard work. They will also tackle social group influence on their children by advising them to embrace a positive group that they can benefit from. The study will also give the decision makers in the education ministry and community leaders the foresight to properly enact rules and regulations to guide our children and to make them to be disciplined. Finally, scholars/educationists interested in researching more about social group and students’ attitude towards agricultural science and other school subjects may find the results of this study useful material.
1.5 Research Questions
The study will attempt to provide answers to the following research questions:
- Does students study habit influence their attitude towards agricultural science in secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area?
- How does students’ absenteeism from school influence their attitudes towards agricultural science in secondary school in Etinan Local Government Area?
- Does students social group indiscipline behaviours like fight, bullying any influence on their attitude towards agricultural science in secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area?
1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
The following research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study
- There is no significant relationship between students study habits and their attitude towards agricultural science in secondary schools in Etinan L .G .A.
- There is no significant relationship between students absenteeism from school hand their attitude towards agricultural science in school in Etinan L .G .A.
- There is no significant relationship between students social group indiscipline behaviours and their attitude towards agricultural science in secondary schools in Etinan Local Government Area.
MATERIAL DETAILS
No Of pages – 60
Type – MS Word
Amount : ₦3000
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