A CORRELATIONAL ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN PURE SCIENCE SUBJECTS IN WAEC 2011-2013

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Every society, whether simple or complex has it’s own system of education of its youths, and education for the good of life has been one of the most persistent concerns of man throughout history. It is this concern that led to the proliferation of secondary institutions in Nigerian from the 1970’s to date. The aim of secondary education in Nigeria as observed by 1969 curriculum conference was two fold. One is to serve as preparatory level for those wishing to study beyond secondary school level, and the other is to serve as a point of discontinuity and basis for job seeking for those who want to remain at that level. The W.A.S.S.C.E result which this study intends to analyze is the concluding part of secondary education. Therefore, this is a worthy exercise. The importance of this examination for a person undergoing secondary education is obvious because of the importance attached to it by tertiary institution, public organizations as well as private organizations and other employers of labour.

The aim of this study is to unveil the degree of the relationship of WASSCE results in pure science subjects in the schools under study, so as to enable the researcher proer same suggestions for the enhanced usage of both schools. The institutions involved in this study are commonwealth comprehensive college and St. Michael’s college Jos. The importance of the pure science subjects cannot be over emphasized, as they are considered the back bone of technological advancement and development of every nation in the world. The two schools under study offer equal number of pure science subjects which include mathematics, Chemistry, Physics and Biology which are of interest to the researcher. Therefore the researcher is more willing to use available time and resources at her disposal to find out the co-relational performance of students in the selected institutions for the selected subjects and the period of time.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This research analysis is mainly directed to a critical survey of the main problems associated with the pure science subjects’ results in selected post primary institution. Since the analysis centers around only on pure science subjects’ WASSCE result from 2011 to 2013 of the two schools, the problem is therefore expected to lie around the same care. There are many factors that hinder students from getting good results and developing positive attitude towards pure science subjects. The problems making students to get poor results may come from dierent direction. Therefore the main problem confronting the researcher is what are the causes of this mass failure and inconsistency in the WASSCE results? Improper teaching methods and inadequately stocked laboratories does affect the students’ performance. If the teacher does not have the technical know how of the subject he/she is bound to misguide the students. Students have different levels of understanding, therefore the necessity of measuring and evaluating students in order to obtain accurate information about the individualities. The two statements above show that there are factors that are responsible for the poor performance. By making the co-relational analysis the researcher would definitely know the performance relationship between the selected subjects in the two schools.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

A correlation analysis of students’ academic achievement in pure science subjects in WAEC of common wealth comprehensive college and St. Michael’s college Jos. The basic aim of this study is to bridge the gap of performance in the two institutions selected by the researcher. The study is aimed at calling every responsible body to eliminate the problem that comes from their sides so that there would be an improvement in the students’ performance in the future. The study is also aim at providing useful insight in to the pure science subjects in every secondary school. Since the researcher is based on correlating students’ performance in pure science subjects’ WAEC results, it is therefore aimed to explore and identify some of the factors that are associated with the students’ academic achievements as measure by their WASSCE. The specific purpose derived from the above are: 1. To bridge the gap of performance in the institutions. 2. To access the existing relationship of the students’ performance in WASSCE.