TEACHERS PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD IMPROVISATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES IN TEACHING BIOLOGY

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TEACHERS PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDE TOWARD IMPROVISATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES IN TEACHING BIOLOGY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Education is a major tool for individual empowerment and National development. A National educational system is vital because it produces the personnel that are required to function in various facets of national life and development process. Gray (2001), notes that

―the goals of wealth creation, employment, generation, poverty reduction and value reorientation can be effectively pursued, attained and sustained only through an efficient, relevant and functional education system.‖ Education has been accorded a high rating in Nigeria, and the demand for education is popular because of the desire of members of the society to give their children a better chance in life. The demand for education has become explosive and one which no government can afford to ignore. Education in Nigeria has reached a cross-road that demand a change in direction, a change in our understanding and acceptance of what educational standard and quality are, the high demand of education in Nigeria give rise to the expansion of education.

Educational adjustment of the child is conditioned by the nature and demands of society to which the child should be adopted and attained. The most distinctive feature of modern society is its science – based technology. Thus, the Nigerian National Policy on Education (2004, revised) states that ―The Government recognizes education as an instrument per excellence for effecting national development.

Education is a fundamental human right enshrined by United Nations and the need to provide quality education among youth and the need to provide them with necessary skills for increased economic productivity has been of great concern world – wide, (Peter, 2005:7). Taneja (2004) says ―Education is the deliberate and systematic influence exerted by the matured person on the immature through instruction and discipline.‖ The essential elements in

the education process are a creative mind, a well integrated self, useful purpose and experiences related to the interest, need and abilities of the individual.

Teaching involves a teacher trying to teach someone something somewhere. Pratt (2008), views teaching as the activities of educating or instructing; that impact knowledge or skills written or spoken directions for carrying out a procedure or performing a task. Teaching is one of the oldest and probably most respected professions playing an important role in the preservation of societies, teaching is a series of observables action which can be reviewed, enhanced, changed, and repeated for effective learning achievement. Teaching is a form of public service which requires of teacher‘s expert knowledge and skills, acquired and maintained through rigorous study -UNESCO and the ILO cited by Baikie (2002). This definition of the teaching-learning process shows that the act of teaching is full of activities that a teacher must engage in for successful implementation of teaching learning process.

The artistic aspect of teaching was liken to the activity of a symphony conductor, draws upon a repertoire of skills and orchestrates a highly complex process. Teaching, Eisner (2004), also argues is much like the work of the artist than the scientist. Teaching involves complex judgment that unfolds during the course of instruction. Teachers must deal creatively with the unexpected. Furthermore, the most important goals of teaching are those events (e.g. critical thinking, analytical reasoning and /oral communication) that occur during the process. The outcomes are often embedded in the learning process itself.

The increased awareness of the role of teachers makes the development of teacher education programme an important component of an education industry (UNESCO, 2005). The quality of teaching is a crucial factor in promoting effective learning in schools. Effective teaching requires individuals who are academically able and care about the wellbeing of children. In every instructional setting; a teacher may be confronted by students with varied

learning abilities, and topics that require many hours of preparation, and a limited amount of resources.

The teacher‘s role in the learning process is changing as new technologies are introduced into the classroom, (Smith, 1999). The increased awareness of the role of teachers makes the development of teacher education programme an important component of an industry (UNESCO 2005).The quality of teaching is a crucial factor in promoting effective in schools. Effective teaching requires individuals who are academically able and care about the wellbeing of children. In every instructional setting, a teacher may be confronted by students with varied learning problem, and topics that require many hours of preparation and a limited amount of resources. Sherlock, (2000) states that ―an effective teacher must possess the skills of a detective in an instruction setting, to overcome such obstacles, a teacher must use observation, knowledge and skills to create instructional treatment that goes beyond simple memorization of facts to create new level of understanding within the learners.‖

The increase in the percentage of what is learned and remembered is greatly influenced by the judicious use of instructional materials to task the various sense organs of the learners. Instructional material is one of the primary tools in the hands of the teacher for effective teaching in the class room. Its importance is demonstrated in the popular adage that when we hear alone in the class, we forget much of what we heard, while when we hear and see we forget much less and recognize better, but when ever we hear, see and do, the rate of forgetting is significantly lowered (Sunday Jacob, 2007:197). Ekpo (2006), advised that the modern day teachers should not attempt teaching without a careful selection and use of instructional materials. Olaitan and Aguisiobo (2008) considered instructional materials as any device pieces of equipment, graphics representation and illustration designed and used to help learners learn meaningfully.

Students (e. g. Biology students) study hard because they are internally motivated to perform high standards in their study while other students study hard because they want to make good grades or avoid parental disapproval. Students learn when their thoughts and expectations interact with materials, ideas, and people; such interactions gives learner meaningful developmental learning experience. Improvised instructional materials give teacher/students the pride of using their talents, allows a teacher to reproduce his potentials, in concrete form and increase teacher‘s knowledge of the subject matter. The use of instructional material in teaching could extend the scope and power of instruction. It could also help to bridge the gap between the teacher and students in terms of understanding different concepts in the lesson, thereby making learning more immediate and more relevant.

Biology is unique given its orientation. It emphasizes the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. It fosters the development of spontaneity, self-reliance, flexibility of mind, critical thinking, tolerance, initiative, ability to solve problems creativity and a sense of purpose and direction in life. Biology was seen as a problem-solving discipline (Otuenu, 2011). She declared that biology as a discipline, if properly programmed and effectively taught, will help to solve social problems that are facing developing countries like ours (Nigeria) where the old norms are fast losing their grips and no effective substitutes to replace them. Bayero (2007), opined that biology is the sum of learning derived from the various aspects of human thought and experience for the purpose of solving man‘s intermediate problems.

Biology, is a corrective study; its purpose is to remedy any educational and societal ills at all times. It seeks to replace irrelevant learning experiences with relevant ones. It places emphasis on the objectives to be achieved in the course of teaching. Biology according to Nwosu (2004), is primarily concerned with human relationships, man’s relationship with his social and physical environments. It concerns with the knowledge of how

man is influenced by his environment and how he in turn alters his environment to satisfy individual and group needs, how man is attempting to deal with certain pertinent questions, issues and problems and how he draws upon his experiences to plan for the future. Similarly, Kissok cited in Okojie (2007:11) address Biology as ―a programme of study which a society uses to instill in a students the knowledge, skills, attitudes and actions it consider important concerning the relationship human being have with each other, their world and themselves.

From the definitions giving so far, it is clear that biology is organized as a school subject to serve two closely related purposes:

1) To guide learners towards understanding people at various distance from them, the conditions in which people find themselves and the method they employed to cope with the problems;

2) To guide people in ways of reaching to and interacting with people‘s conditions and actions to ensure the survival and growth of themselves as individuals in the society.

It is well known among educators that, the educational experiences involving the learner actively participating in concrete example are retained longer than abstract experiences. Instructional materials add element of reality by providing concrete example to learning. Many authors have written on the use of instructional materials both in teaching biology and other related subjects in order to enhance teaching for desired social and behavioural change. They all pointed out the need for development of skills by teachers so that they could be able to use a wide variety of materials in teaching sufficiently well. Harts (2000) points out that,

‗instructional materials are used in teaching and learning process to support various activities among students.‘ Students learn effectively when such learning experiences and activities are illustrated with instructional materials.

The information explosion has forged a new dynamic role for the teacher to engage fully in creative thinking. Creating a learning environment where constructing and sharing knowledge, skills and understanding is valued and a goal that every teacher must strive to reach. Therefore, the use of appropriate instructional materials is a ticket to success in the classroom. Today, the world is changing rapidly; teachers must venture on their own creative thinking in building a life-long mastery with technology. Teachers must develop their potential abilities to defeat the accompanying challenges. The need for new techniques in teaching and learning will continue to grow stronger and faster.

Educational materials in teaching according to Babatunde (2005) helps to increase learners motivation, recall earlier learning, activate learner‘s response, give speedy feedback and encourage appropriate practice. Educational resource materials store lessons that can be marched to the learner‘s characteristics, contents, objectives, instructional approach and evaluation techniques as well as principles of learning. Instructional materials are essential aid to effective instruction but are not commonly found in contemporary schools in Nigeria due to;

i High cost of production;

ii Faulty development of curriculum- rushed coverage of syllabus; and

iii Teachers reluctant to spend their time, effort and money on improvisation.

In view of the above, this study was embarked upon in order to stimulate teachers to search for creative ways to beat technological imitations in order to challenge student‘s mind. This can be done by encouraging and supplying teachers the necessary materials needed to improvise.

1.2 Statement of the problems

Education sector in Nigeria has series of challenges. One important area of the challenges is lack of availability and utilization of instructional materials in the post–primary

school level to cope up with the modern technological challenges. According to the World

Bank Report (2003), the quality of education in most developing countries is low, coverage is insufficient, and literacy level is low especially in the area of teacher quality, materials production and utilization. Improving quality in education requires adequate resources, competent teachers, appropriate facilities, materials and methods which are lacking, these form part of the problems in the study. Thus, the major challenge for the educational system in contemporary Nigeria is the lack of qualified teachers to teach at various levels of education (Hamza, 2010), this also has adverse effects on the teachers‘ improvisation of instructional materials for teaching at all levels, which also affect the quality delivery of educational institutions, teachers‘ training and production. The scarcity of instructional materials in junior secondary schools is a problem to students learning, they do not learn at the same space (UNESCO, 2004). The poor quality or lack of instructional materials for different levels of learning increases the teacher‘s difficulties in teaching (UNESCO, 2004).

Ineffective methods of teaching coupled with absence of instructional materials were some of the factors responsible for students‘ inability to keep to the desired behavioural changes in the teaching and learning process (Jibril, 2006). Traditionally, in the schools system today, instructional materials might not be available or the skills of using them is missing among the teachers, in such cases, looking for an alternative might be the best way to get them to solve the additional problems in the schools‘. The poor quality and uneven development and utilization of instructional materials for different levels of learning increase the teachers‘ difficulties in teaching (Baikie, 2002). Despite the effort made so far to achieve these objectives by the government, there is the issue of ―Falling standards‖ of education which manifested in students poor performance in public examinations. The lack of adequately trained and qualified teachers‘ right from primary school system to secondary school level have resulted in the children being ill—educated and ill—prepared to junior secondary schools, (Baikie, 2002). This has affects every sector of Nigerian education system. The issue is more

apparent at the secondary school level with the broadened curriculum brought about by the introduction and implementation of the 6.3.3.4 system of education in the year 1982.

Educational resource center is conceived as a central teaching, training, research and service unit through which a variety of instructional resources can be harnessed to identify and solve educational problems. The function of the center is to acquire produce and distribute different kinds of educational materials to schools for the enhancement of quality instruction. The center according to Hamza (2010) is established as an integrated approach for raising the quality of education through a better and more coordinated use of various resources. The increasing need for instructional materials in Nigerian junior secondary schools is in response to the challenges posed by the numerous problems associated with increases in student‘s enrolment shortest of qualified teachers and materials in most of the schools.

Hence, the study is out to determine the effects of improvised instructional materials on the academic performance of Junior Secondary School students in Biology in Kaduna state.

1.3 Objectives of the study

The objectives of this research are to:

1. determine the effects of improvised instructional materials on the academic performance of Biology students taught with improvised instructional materials to those taught without improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

2. compare the academic performance of boys and girls taught biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

3. determine the mean performance scores of students taught Biology in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State without the use of improvised instructional materials.

4. explore the difference between treatment effects for the students taught Biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated in order to obtain answer to the problems under investigation:

1. To what extent are the effects of improvised instructional materials on the academic performance of Biology students as compared to those taught without improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State?

2. What are the comparative mean performance scores of boys and girls taught Biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State?

3. What is the mean performance scores of students taught Biology in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State without the use of improvised instructional materials?

4. What effect does the treatment have on the students taught Biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State?

1.5 Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses were formulated for this study:

Ho1 There is no significant difference in the academic performance of Social studies students taught using improvised instructional materials and those taught without improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

Ho2 There is no significant difference in the mean performance scores of boys and girls taught Biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

Ho3 There is no significant difference in the mean performance scores of students taught Social studies in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State without the use of

improvised instructional materials.

Ho4 There is no significant difference in the treatment effect for the students taught Biology using improvised instructional materials in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State.

1.6 Basic Assumptions

The following basic assumptions were formulated to guide the conduct of this study:

1. All teachers in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State, Nigeria can produce locally made instructional materials in teaching biology.

2. There is availability of ready made instructional materials in all junior secondary schools for teaching biology in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

3. That government makes fund available for teachers‘ improvisation of instructional material in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State, Nigeria

4. That teachers have the needed basic skills to produce instructional materials for teaching Biology in junior secondary schools in Kaduna State, Nigeria.

1.7 Significance of the Study

The need to undertake this study is to determine the effects of improvised instructional materials on the academic performance of Junior Secondary School students in Biology in Kaduna state. The suggestions that will be effected from the findings may be of great benefit to the teachers if properly utilized.

The findings from this study shall provide relevant information as regards to the skills of producing and utilizing locally made instructional materials to the classroom teachers for effective teaching-learning process in Biology. The research is also a documentary evidence of what is available and the deficiencies, at present in terms of teaching materials in most of post-primary schools.

Findings from this study will be very significant to government as it will help them to identify where, when and how to assist and motivate teachers in the improvisation of instructional materials in teaching of biology.

Also, the curriculum planners will benefit from this study as the study will enable them to make provisions for teachers in the production of instructional materials in biology curriculum.

The research work will enable students to appreciate the importance of locally made instructional materials in learning biology. It will also motivate the students to increase their performance in biology.

Parents whose children are in junior secondary school would benefit from this study because they would be enhanced on their great impact towards effective biology acknowledgement by their wards. Similarly, parents will benefit because their wards when they are effectively taught through improvisation of instructional materials, this act of improvisation will make their wards prosper and succeed in their study. Thereby reducing financial wastages on their parents.

Likewise, fellow researchers in related topic will see this study as a source of material that can be used for the study. More so, the study will help parent to draw the attention of the school authority to the needs for proper improvisation of instructional materials in the junior secondary schools.

Finally, the study will make recommendations on the types of local instructional materials suitable for teachers to utilize effectively in the teaching and learning process.

1.8 Scope of the Study

The study is to determine the effects of improvised instructional materials on the academic performance of Junior Secondary School students in Biology in Kaduna state. An in-depth research of all the secondary schools in the state cannot be conducted due to

financial constraints, instead a few secondary schools students were selected from Zaria, Giwa, Kudan and Bomo Educational Zones for the study where Biology students responded to the test instrument after the eight weeks of classroom teaching-experiment.

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