Influence of Motivation on Interest and Attitude Towards Civic Education Among Secondary School Students in Jalingo, Taraba Nigeria
Chapter One
Preamble of the Study
Children at their early stage in life appear to be propelled by curiosity, driven by an intense need to explore, interact with, and make sense of their environment. According to Piaget theory of cognitive development, children between the ages of 7 to 11 years are in the concrete operation level. They can comprehend the principle of conservation which permits them to grapse M.W.Enose (2010). As they grow older learning, especially mathematics, becomes associated with drudgery instead of delight. Nicolaidou and Philippou M. Nicolaidou (2003) stated when children first go to school they usually have positive attitudes towards mathematics. However, as they progress, their attitudes become less positive and frequently become negative at high school Gottfried, et all (2001) found that from the ages of 9 to 16 years (although there was a slight increase for 17-year olds), children’s overall intrinsic motivation for academic learning declined, with particularly marked decreases in mathematics and the sciences.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Concept of Motivation
According to Harin (1972), motivation is difficult to define. The word “motivation” comes from a Latin word “movers” which means to move. Bernard (1983) defines motivation as those phenomena which are involved in the stimulation where there were little or no movement towards goals. Jibrin (2008) defines motivation as inner state of need or desire that activates an individual to do something that will satisfy that need or desire. Brown (2001) defines motivation based on behaviouralistic and cognitive definition. Based on behaviouralistic, Brown defines motivation as anticipation of reinforcement which is powerful concept for the classroom. Based on cognitive definition, Brown classified motivation definition into three categories. First, based on drive theory, motivation stems from basic innate drives. So motivation has been in existence since we are born. Second, based on hierarchy, motivation is something that comes from individual needs. Third, based on self-control theory, motivation is something that appears if there is opportunity to make some one to make own choices about what to pursue and what not to pursue (self-control) (Brown, 2001:73-75). So, motivation is one of the influential factors in learning that drives learners to struggle to reach their goals in learning process and can become a stimulus in learning process. For example, a learner who is motivated to study Economics because he wants to get a gift from his teacher will try to study hard to get the gift, that is, as a stimulus in the learning process. Therefore, motivation is one of the most influential factor in teaching and learning process.
The Role of Motivation on the Academic Performance
According to Theall (1996), teachers have a lot to do with their students’ motivational level. A student may arrive in class with a certain degree of motivation, but the teacher’s behaviour and teaching style, the structure of the course, the nature of the assignments and informal interactions with students all have a large effect on student’s motivation. We may have heard the utterance, “My students are so unmotivated”, and the good news is that there is a lot that we can do to change that, which include:
- Giving frequent, early, positive feedback that support students’ beliefs that they can do well.
- Ensuring opportunities for students’ success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
- Helping students find personal meaning and value in the materials.
- Creating an atmosphere that is open and positive.
- Helping students feel that they are valued members of a learning community.
Attitude towards Civic Education and Academic Performance
Fishbein (1975) explained the relationship between attitude and academic performance; he constructed a value-expectancy model by arguing that a person‟s attitude determined his/her intended behavour, which could ultimately affect the outcome. Based on the model, he stated that a person would hold certain attitudes towards an object by evaluating it. After going through this process, the person then decides whether to hold a favorable or unfavorable view towards it. Indeed, such a positive or negative attitude could further influence the person intentions to engage in various behaviour with regard to that particular object. (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). Based on the persons intended behaviour, this could be regarded as a significant predictor of the academic performance.
According to Reynolds and Walberg (1992) there was a general consensus that attitude could be regarded as a significant predictor of one‟s academic performance. Most of these researches illustrated the more positive ones attitude towards an academic subject, the higher the possibility for him/her to perform well academically. Their research also shows that student‟s attitude was highly correlated with their performance in college.
Even though most of the studies suggested that there was a positive relationship between attitude and academic performance, there were other researchers arguing that student‟s attitude might not be a significant predictor of their academic performance. In a study conducted by Mickelson (1990) he stated that whether attitude could significantly predict ones academic performance it depend on a number of variables, particularly the ethnic background and social class. Correspondingly, Dhavale (2011) also argued that the statement “attitude was a significant predictor of academic performance” was indeed a paradox.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
The target population of the study was the senior secondary school students in Jalingo, Taraba Nigeria. Twelve Senior Secondary Schools were randomly selected and 30 students were randomly selected from each of the schools. A total of three 360 students were used for the study. A self- designed four-likert scale questionnaire titled “Students’ Motivational Factors and Attitudes toward Civic Education Questionnaire” was used to gather information from the students. The questionnaire was divided into two sections. Section A was titled Students’ Motivational Factors and it was sub-divided in to five (5) sub-sections – Intrinsic factors, Home factors, School factors, peer Group factors and Teacher factors. Section B of the questionnaire was titled “Students’ Attitudes toward Civic Education”. Cronbach Alpha Formula using SPSS 20 was used to establish the internal consistencies of the two sections of the questionnaire and the reliability coefficients of 0.81, 0.75, 0.73, 0.73 and 0.87 were obtained for intrinsic, home environment, school environment, peer group and teacher factors respectively. A reliability coefficient of 0.87 was obtained for students’ attitudes toward Civic Education. Out of 360 questionnaires administered while 317 were finally used for analysis. Pearson Moment Correlation and Regression Analysis were used to analyse the data gathered.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results
Table 1 reveals that intrinsic factor, teachers’ and home environment factors have positive relationship with the students’ Interest and attitudes toward civic Education while the peer group and school environment factors have negative relationship with the students’ Interest and attitudes toward civic Education. The relationships between intrinsic, home environment and school environment factors and students’ Interest and attitudes toward civic Education were significant at p<.05 while the relationship between teachers’ factors and students’ Interest and attitudes toward civic Education was marginal. The table also shows that all the motivation factors are positively related and the relationships are significant at p<.05 except the relationship between intrinsic factor and school environment which is negative and not significant at p<.05.
Table 1. Correlation Matrix of the Relationship between the Motivation Factors and Students’ Interest and attitudes toward civic Education and among the Motivation Factors
CHAPTER FIVE
Discussion
Effects of Intrinsic Motivation on Students Interest and attitudes toward Civic Education:
The results of the study revealed that intrinsic motivation has high significant relationship (.588) with students’ Interest and attitudes toward Civic Education and has positive effects (.611) on students’ Interest and attitudes toward Civic Education. The results also indicated that intrinsic motivation has the highest contribution (.813) to the prediction of the students’ Interest and attitudes toward Civic Education. These results corroborated with C. Liu (2002) and J. Fabien (2013) assertion. Interest motivation has direct (the most significant) effects on students’ subject learning Interest and attitudes. J. Fabien (2013) asserted that “the most powerful motivation, however, is intrinsic motivation for no matter how favourable external factors are, unless a student has set goals that he is determined to achieve , he can easily be side tracked by factors such as peer pressure, complacency or simply his own indecisiveness”. The implication of these results is that intrinsically motivated students are conscious of their set goals; hence they tend to develop the right attitude that would help to achieve their set goals.
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that students’ intrinsic motivational factor, students’ home environment and teacher factors have positive direct effects on students’ Interest and attitudes toward toward Civic Education in senior secondary school. Students’ intrinsic motivational factor is having the strongest and most significant positive effect on students’ Interest and attitudes toward toward Civic Education. It can also be concluded that poor learning environment and peer group influence can have negative effects on students’ Interest and attitudes toward toward Civic Education.
References
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