ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AS DETERMINANT OF STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 Literature Review
This chapter review relevant and related literatures of various researches in an attempt to relate their work to this study.
The sub-topics discussed in this review include the following
i. The concept of environmental impact on academic performance and that of environmental problems.
ii. The sociological and psychological perspective of environmental impact on student’s performance.
iii. The impact of home background on the academic performance of student.
iv. Adolescence social life
v. The family and changing social expectations
vi. Summary of reviewed literature.
2.2 The Concept of Social Life
The ideal make of the society is such that individuals and groups in the social system should co-exist in peace and harmony without the threat to social harmony.
A social problem is a concept that is often misconstrued by many. This assumption is true because conditions that may see as environmental problems harm some segment of the society but are beneficial to others. Some other people are not able to draw the line between the effect of environment in academic performance and that which affect us personally and the ones that effect us socially.
This group of people sees social problem as problems that affect us personally, for example if a boy resumes late for school daily, it is a personal problem but if fifty-eight (58%) of boys in the school in that area go to school late on a daily basis it is a social issues. This perspective faults the opinion of those who sees social problem as personal issues.
Over the year’s sociologist and psychologist have built up a body of basic knowledge about environmental impacts on students performance and how it help us get a perspective on conflicting and how it help us get a perspective on conflicting claims about our social problem. Sociologist sees a set of social role that every set of individual must play and these role are played in real life situation.
The school environment which include the classrooms, libraries, technical workshop, laboratories, teachers quality, school management, teaching method, peers, are variables that affect student’s academic achievement, (Ajay, 2001 and Oluchukwu, 2000). Hence the impact of the environment remains an important area that should be studied and well managed in the higher institution to enhance students academic performance. The issue of poor academic performance of students in Nigeria has been of much concern to the government, parents, teachers and even students themselves. The quality of education not only depend on the teachers as reflected on the performance of duties that also in the effective coordination of the school environment (Ajao, 2001) the school environment which include instructional spaces planning, administrative places planning, circulation spaces planning, spaces for conveniences planning. The extent to which student learning could be enhanced depend on their location within the school compound, the structure of their classrooms, availability of instructional facility and accessories, it is believed that a well planned school will gear up expected outcome of education that will facilitate good social, political and economic emancipation, effective teaching and learning process and academic performance of the student.
Relating this study to international occurrences are the assertion of Williams Persuad and Tunner (2008) quoting Marsden classroom environment (aspect of instructional space), school facilities (accessories) were significantly related to students academic performance in schools. The three (3) researchers also quoted Glassman (1994) ascertaining that a comfortable and a caring environment among other treatment help to contribute to the students academic performance. The physical characteristics of the schools have a variety of effect on teachers, students, and learning process, poor lighting, noise, high level of carbon dioxide in classrooms and inconsistent temperatures making teaching and learning process difficult. Poor maintenance and ineffective ventilation systems lead to poor health among students as well as teachers. These factors can adversely affect students behavior and lead to high level of frustration among teachers and poor learning among student.
2.3 The Sociological and Psychological Perspective of Environmental Impact on Students Performance
Sociologist use some broad theoretical perspective to explain the concept of the impact of the environment on students performance. They divided the macro-level society into 2 broad perspective namely the functionalism and conflict theory. And the level of analysis and also the internationalist theory, a macro level analysis which is by far the most influential of the social psychology theory in sociology (Coleman and Gressey, 1990)
From the functionalist perceptive, the society is like living organism, just as people have a heart and circulatory system, muscles blood and a brain, a society i.e the environment has a set of economic, political, religious and family. In this regard every individual has a functional role to play in the society. The structure of the environment promote integration, stability consensus, and balance in the society.
When theorist from the conflict perspective look at the environment which is also the society at which the school operates they see a diverse collection of social group all struggling for wealth, power and prestige, they see the society as less as cohesive system and more of an arena of conflict and power struggles instead of people working together to further the goals of social system. People are seen as achieving their will at the expense of others. This is what explain oppression, selfish will and intolerance in the society. Conflict theory emphasizes the importance of interests over norms and values. Conflict theory insist that social order is maintained more by authority back by the use of force.
The feminists theory is a group of theories that share a concern with the same basic question (Coleman 1999) the lesson from feminism is that while treating environmental problems. It is important to give attention to the adverse it on the reverse side of it.
2.4 The Impact of Home Background in the Academic Performance of Student
There have been several studies done within and outside Nigeria, on the effect of home environment as well as the socio economic status of parents on academic achievement of students in the higher institutions. Research has found many factors that impacts home well a student does in school and the amount of confidence the student have for themselves. However in Nigeria like other growing economics, families are finding it more difficult to stay connected with their children education. Parents are becoming isolated from their children and finding it difficult to keep a careful watch on what need to be done to help their children succeed in schools with changes in the family life, and indeed the societal makeup, schools are now finding it difficult to keep parents informed of and actively engage them in the day to day progress of their children (Bertrand 2005).
Teachers and administrators are discovering that the support that once received in getting students to do their homework is not there, because the parents are not home to insist that students complete their assignment.
Families faces various problems causing emotional disturbance among their children, this will in turn affect the academic performance of the students in general. This factor shows how important the home background affect the performance of student. The impact of home environment in students education has been a major topic of study for the later part of the 20th century.
2.5 Adolescent Social Life
The concept of social life of adolescents is associated with the way they live their lives in various communities, to adapt to various rules and regulations of the socially balanced if he experiences no difficulty in adjusting to the rules and the norms of the society where he find himself, but when reverse is the case the social problem arises therefore the adolescent whose social arises therefore the adolescent whose social life is free of problem will be adjusted.
Adolescent need to make some adjustment for example the transition from secondary school to the secondary school system coupled with the ability to grapple with the numerous subjects they are to take and different course teachers, the problems of emotional disturbance emanating from home, the school itself and their peers will cumulatively lead to educational deficiency such as poor study habit, under achievement, low self esteem and lack of motivation to learn.
In the school environment an understanding of the fact that the adolescent is not just a passive but an active recipient of whatever the school participant in the actual social situation, who may or may not decide to cooperate at the level required (Osareren 2002).
2.6 Adolescent Academic Performance and Psychological development
Academic performance of student in the classroom is very important as this is capable of determining whether the student is doing well or not teachers, school administrators attach much importance to students academic performing well academically, then they see all other efforts of the students in school programme as a total waste. Academic performance defines the totality of the child in his school life.
The school authority i.e. the secondary school system measures academic performance in several ways which include, number of standardized test and even examination, by this method areas of strength and weakness in a student academic career is determined and elevated in order to improve the learning process of the students. From research some factors which impact students academic performance include hard work and discipline, family income, parents education, previous schooling and self motivation. Aside students academic performances the psychological development in and out- of school environment is also very critical. Psychological development and academic performance go along with each other, as one will either affect or compliment the other, psychological development is the psychological process through which people manage or cope with their demands and challenges of everyday life (Kelvin and Robert 1991). The concept of adjustment is associated with what maybe called living system, like system of an organism group or individuals and social system such as social organization. The personal aspect of adjustment can be determined by asking the person about his feelings, attitudes, cognitive and behavoural characteristics, only the individual can subjectively access the degree of adjustment and satisfaction experienced (Hannah and Mildiarsky 1999).
In general terms adjustment refers to an individual general adaptation to his environment and the demand of life such and as the way he relates to other people that is inter-personal behavour, handle his responsibilities, deals with stress and meet his own needs and life satisfaction. The society is dynamic and change is the constant thing, so the individual ability to review his attitude and behaviours per time is an essential ingredient of adjustment.
2.7 The Family and Changing Social Expectations
The families have often been regarded as the cornerstone of the society. In pre-modern and modern society alike it was been seen as the most basic unit of social organization which carries out vital task such as children socialization.
Some form of family is universal to others, it structure and tradition varies enormously from one place to another. Some have seen that these changes as a symptom of greater individualism within modern societies, others have lamented the changes and worried about the effect on the society and most especially the school environment. That is why some group of sociologist argue that the family has lost a number of its functions in modern industrial society. Prior to industrialization, the family was a self supporting productive unit, children receive their education within household and learn all they need to know from their parents or older brothers and sisters.
The family is a primary site for social capital, the family factor plays an important role in student academic achievement (Coleman 1999, Pacel and Duffer 1998). This family supply students for education in schools it is the family that possesses the fundamental interests in the educational enterprise at all level in every society. The numbers of sibling also affected academic performance, as the numbers of siblings increase, individual academic performance decreases (Downey, 1995).
Parental involvement have been said to affect the academic performance of students. Students who have well educated parents and parents with high educational expectation contribute largely to students educational attainment. Specifically a fathers involvement in school work has positive effect on their children’s academic performance/success (Alderman-Swain, 2000).
2.8 Theoretical framework
This study was guided by Systems theory of organizations as advanced by Ludwig Von Bertalanffy in 1951. This theory contends that all parts of an organization are interrelated such that changing one part of the system in a school affects other parts as well. The theory views school organization as a complex social system whose properties cannot be known from analysis of the constituent elements in isolation hence for effective management of the teaching-learning process, emphasis should shift from part to whole. As applied to this study, the systems theory holds that the different factors in the system that influence the teaching-learning process must be managed together paying attention to all of them without overlooking some factors over the others in order to produce a common whole which in this case is effective teaching and learning. The performance of a system depends on how the elements work together and not how each element works independently.
For effective teaching–learning process, all factors that influence teaching-learning process at school must be looked at. In this study, the independent variables are environmental factors. These are the inputs which must be looked at to facilitate the process which is teaching-learning and the output which is reduced rates of dropouts, absenteeism and repetition.
2.9 Summary/Appraisal of Literature Reviewed
This chapter attempted to review several empirical studies to demonstrate the impact of the environment of students academic performance in the higher institutions. The consensus was the environmental problems are created by the failure to close the gap between the environment and the academic performance of students. The adolescent social life is associated with the way they live their lives in various communities and their ability to adapt to various rules and regulation of the society brings psychological development.
On academic performance of student the reviewed showed that some factor which impact students academic performance include hard work and discipline, family income, parents education, previous school and self motivation. The family and changing social expectations, it was discovered that over time the industrial revolution has transformed family life (Wilkins 1979). The problem of emotional disturbance emanating from homes, the school environment itself and peer impact may cumulatively lead to educational deficiencies such as poor study habit, under achievement, low self esteem lack of motivation to learn. Eventually all these complexities may lead to poor performance of students in their academic endeavours or pursuits.