Factors Militating the Performance of Students in Applied Electricity
Chapter One
Objectives of study
- Determine the influence of applied electricity practical activities on academic achievement of senior secondary students in applied electricity .
- Determine how teacher’s incompetence in the use of laboratory equipment affects student’s achievement in applied electricity .
- Determine how the student attitude towards applied electricity practical affect their achievement in applied electricity .
- Determine the influence of gender on academic achievement of students in applied electricity .
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
The view of literature for this study is organized under the following sections and sub-section conceptual framework, theoretical framework, review of related empirical studies and summary.
Conceptual Framework
- Concept of applied electricity
- applied electricity Practical Teaching
- Concept of Academic Achievement
- Concept of Gender
- Factors that Affect the Achievement of Secondary School applied electricity Student
Theoretical Framework
- Paiget’s Cognitive Constructivist Learning Theory
- Vygotsky’s Social Constructivist Learning Theory
Empirical Studies
Summary of Literature Review
Conceptual Framework
Concept of applied electricity
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. In early days, electricity was considered as being not related to magnetism. Later on, many experimental results and the development of Maxwell’s equations indicated that both electricity and magnetism are from a single phenomenon: electromagnetism. Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others.
The presence of an electric charge, which can be either positive or negative, produces an electric field. The movement of electric charges is an electric current and produces a magnetic field.
When a charge is placed in a location with a non-zero electric field, a force will act on it. The magnitude of this force is given by Coulomb’s law. Thus, if that charge were to move, the electric field would be doing work on the electric charge. Thus we can speak of electric potential at a certain point in space, which is equal to the work done by an external agent in carrying a unit of positive charge from an arbitrarily chosen reference point to that point without any acceleration and is typically measured in volts.
Electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies, being used for: electric power where electric current is used to energise equipment; electronics which deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies.
Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Even then, practical applications for electricity were few, and it would not be until the late nineteenth century that electrical engineers were able to put it to industrial and residential use. The rapid expansion in electrical technology at this time transformed industry and society, becoming a driving force for the Second Industrial Revolution. Electricity’s extraordinary versatility means it can be put to an almost limitless set of applications which include transport, heating, lighting, communications, and computation. Electrical power is now the backbone of modern industrial society.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter describes the procedures the researcher used in carrying out the research work. These include the design of the study, area of the study, population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, instrument for data collection, validation of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, method of data collection and method of data analysis.
Design of the Study
The design adopted for this research is descriptive survey design. This design is a useful way of obtaining information about peoples opinions, attitudes, preferences, and experiences simply by asking questions. This design was used for this study since a group of people have to be studied systematically by collecting and analyzing data from a chosen few considered sufficient representative of the entire population.
Area of the Study
The study was carried out in Bayelsa technical colleges of Bayelsa State. It covered all the ten (10) public secondary schools found in the local government.
Population of the Study
The population for this study comprised of all the public senior secondary school (SS2) applied electricity students in all the public secondary school in Bayelsa technical colleges of Bayelsa State which is one thousand four hundred and ninety one (1491) (Statistical unit PPSMB Bayelsa Education Zone 2017/2018).
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF RESULT
In this chapter, the results were presented in tables according to the research question.
Research Question One: To what extent do applied electricity practical activities influence students academic achievement in applied electricity ?
Table I: Mean scores on the influence of applied electricity practical activities on academic achievement of students in applied electricity
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, RECOMMENDATION AND SUMMARY
In this chapter, the researcher discussed the results of findings, conclusion, implication of the study, recommendation of the study, limitation of the study, suggestions for further studies and summary.
Discussion of the Study
From the finding, practical activities influence student academic achievement on applied electricity in senior secondary school in Bayelsa L.G.A. This is in agreement with that of Kiladare and okoro(2007) who established that student understands better when they involves themselves in practical experiment, thus matching theory with practical. This also affirmed that fact for an effective teaching to take place, the theoretical aspect must go inline with the practical aspect so as to attain a positive behavioral change in the life of the learner(s). Students understand well when they are been taught with practical. applied electricity practical helps to make abstract ideas more concrete for learners, such that basic concepts could be understood. The use of practical work in teaching applied electricity and other subjects make learning interesting and fun, keeping the student active, create a conductive atmosphere for a participation class during teaching, making students to discover facts and new ideas by themselves. The finding revealed that despite the importance of the use of practical work in the teaching and learning of applied electricity in senior secondary schools in Bayelsa . There are some problems that are still militating against it the problems are teachers incompetency in the use of laboratory equipment, student wrong attitudes towards applied electricity practical, inadequate supply of applied electricity equipment and poor method of teaching in senior secondary school.
From the finding applied electricity teachers are still unable to prepare and design a robust practical or experiment for the applied electricity lesson. applied electricity teachers should proficient on how to plan better steps. According to Erin and Alicia (2009) designing learning instructions, setting goals and structuring teaching steps are important; the study shows that teachers are still inefficient in handling laboratory equipment and could not manage a systematic and effective experiment.
From the finding the word gender does not mean that there are clear difference between female and male on academic achieved in applied electricity . If there are difference, they are based on hierarchical structures within the culture of what is suitable for male and female respectively.
Considering the findings of different people, it is clear that there is not yet a consensus as to whether gender influences academic achievement in applied electricity .
Conclusions
The conclusion of the research were as follows:
- Influence of applied electricity practical activities increase student academic achievement in applied electricity in Bayelsa technical colleges of Bayelsa
- Teachers incompetence in the use of laboratory equipment negatively affect students achievement in applied electricity .
- The wrong attitude of students towards applied electricity practical influence them in a negative way within the area.
- Influence of gender on academic achievement of student in applied electricity .
Implication of the Study
The finding of this study have some educational implications for students, teacher and government. Active participation of the students in the class and retention makes the lesson more meaningful. This is because as the student participate and manipulate equipment/materials, they apply their five senses and other skills to their
lessons more than when they would have learned in abstraction or remained less active in class.
The finding of this study have implications on the teachers who should adopt practical activity method of teaching which is the student centered method. Students learn better when they are involved in the laboratory activity. Activity-based methods enhance understanding of biological concepts and increase the ability to acquire scientific skills by the learners.
Furthermore, the finding of the study showed that there is no clear different between female and male on academic achievement in applied electricity . The implication of this finding is that most instructional approach used in teaching applied electricity does not take care of gender difference in student. Therefore gender has to be considered during instructional delivery so that both male and female students will have equal opportunity to learn.
The finding of this study also have implication on the curriculum planners who are expected to plan for conceptual change over period of years. This is because learning involves the restructuring of prior knowledge to gain new ones for effective learning to take place. Therefore, since the use of practical activities enhances students’ high performance in applied electricity , it follows that curriculum planners can create the awareness of this method in teachers by including it in the applied electricity curricula. Also they should include within the existing subjects contents of the applied electricity curriculum, some corresponding indigenous knowledge. They can do this by re-examining existing units of the subject matter taught in schools and identifying their corresponding indigenous knowledge and instructional materials. This will make the teaching of applied electricity interesting and more meaningful.
Recommendation of the Study
Based on the finding, the following recommendations were made:
- Teachers should encourage students to develops interest in practical activities by engaging them in practical and providing instructional materials that will challenge them to be actively involved during practical lessons.
- Ministry of Education and professional organization like STAN should organize workshops, seminars and conferences for applied electricity
- applied electricity concepts should be taught with practical activities so that the students will do science instead of learning about science.
- the government/ministry of education should provide more adequate qualified competent applied electricity teachers to all the public secondary schools in Bayelsa technical colleges .
- The government should provide fund for schools so as to enable them procure the relevant resources for effective teaching and learning of applied electricity in all the public secondary school in Bayelsa technical colleges .
Limitation of the Study
The generalizations made with respect to this study are however subject to the following limitations.
- Since different teachers were used for different groups, it could be assumed that they might not have been of equal attributes in terms of cognitive, personality and affective functioning, this might have introduced error in the study.
- There was also the problem of absenteeism among the students. The fact that some students skipped classes may have influenced their performance.
Summary of the Study
The study investigated the influence of applied electricity practical activities on academic achievement of senior secondary school. Four research question guided the study.
The review of literature in the study was organized under conceptual framework, theoretical framework and review of empirical studies. In the conceptual framework, concept of applied electricity was reviewed, applied electricity practical teaching and concept of academic achievement was reviewed and factors affecting the achievement of secondary school applied electricity students. Pieget’s cognitive constructivist learning theory and vygotsky’s social learning theory were also reviewed under theoretical framework. The empirical study examined studies on influence of applied electricity practical activities on academic achievement of student in applied electricity , and studies on gender and academic achievement in applied electricity .
Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The study was carried out in Bayelsa technical colleges of Bayelsa state. The sample for the study comprised of one hundred and fifty (150) students drawn from the population of study using simple sampling techniques. The instruments for data collection in this study is questionnaire and analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The results revealed that students understand better when they involve themselves in practical experiment, thus matching theory with practical. applied electricity practical activities, stimulate creating, curiosity and critical thinking, there is no clear different between female and male on academic achievement in applied electricity . The studies also revealed that there are some problems that are still militating against it, the problems are teachers incompetence in the use of laboratory equipment, students wrong attitudes towards applied electricity practical and inadequate supply of applied electricity equipment.
In line with the finding of the study, the educational implications of the findings were highlighted and the recommendations were equally proffered among others that science (applied electricity ) teacher should encourage students to develops interest in practical activities by engaging them in practical and providing instructional materials that will challenge them to be actively involved during practical lessons, Ministry of Education and Professional Organizations like STAN should organized workshop, seminar and conferences for applied electricity teachers, the government should provide more adequate qualified competent applied electricity teachers to all the public secondary schools in Bayelsa .
Finally, the limitation of the study and suggestion for further studies were equally made.
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