FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH MASS FAILURE OF STUDENTS IN BIOLOGY IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

ABSTRACT

The non-proficiency of Nigerian students in Biology has been a major concern of the research. Therefore, the researcher problem into the causes of mass failure in Biology in senior secondary schools in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State.

The research was carried out in five secondary schools in Logo Local Government Area. Questionnaire was designed for the purpose of data collection from a hundred students chosen at random with twenty students from each school. The simple percentage and frequency distribution tables were used to analyse the data.

The study revealed that the students believed that Biology is an interesting subject to study, but that lack of qualified teachers, inadequate teaching materials, bad reading culture, parents’ illiteracy, bad attitude of students to Biology, poor environmental conditions, overpopulation in the classroom, laziness of teachers to work, and truancy on the part of the students cause failure in Biology.

From the findings, if the recommendations are carefully considered and employed by the teachers, school authorities and government, mass failure among students in Biology would be reduced.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The teacher of Biology has been facing a lot of problems especially in secondary school in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State. The problems at this level had resulted into many other problems confronting the students of higher institutions of learning, with what has been experienced in the past and present about the side of seriousness of the students to Biology motivated me to focus attention on the problems encountered by the students and teachers alike as regards Biology.

Also, this will involve the enumeration and analysis of the problems facing the teaching of the subject, suggested solution will also be given. Many students count Biology as a difficult subject in secondary schools nowadays due to their negative attitude to it. Also, many students find it difficult to read Biology textbooks because they have no time to read. Many students have this to say about Biology, ‘I have interest in other subjects but not Biology’. The reason for this could be traced back to students’ poor foundation in the study of Biology. Therefore, if students in higher institutions of learning can go on complaining that Biology is difficult to comprehend, what then will be the fate of secondary school students who depend so much on the students in the higher institutions.

In fact, many students fail their final year examinations both at junior and senior secondary schools in Biology due to one reason or the other such as parental responsibilities, students’ factor, schools’ factor, government factor, lack of motivation, lack of relevant materials as well as inadequate curriculum. This has therefore motivated me to investigate the problem encountered by Biology teachers in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State. The negligence of Biology has driven many students in the past to mass failure in the final examination. Many people read Biology for examination purposes only.

1.2 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM

A lot of problems have contributed to students’ mass failure in Biology in Logo Local Government Area of Benue State. Many parents blame the teachers’ negative attitude to work while many pupils’ negligence of their class work contributes to failure as well. This research work purposely assesses the causes of the problems confronting students in Logo Local Government Area. So many scholars have written a lot about the problem of Biology in our secondary schools but work is very scanty on that of Logo Local Government Area. So it gives me a great concern to look at these problems and suggest possible solution to them.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

Many scholars have written on Biology and its importance in the school curriculum. This project is an additional effort in this direction. It will go a long way to assist the teaching of Biology in Logo Local Government.

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The Local Government headquarter is at Ibona where the secretariat is situated. Secondary schools were from different areas of the Local Government. The names of the schools chosen are:

St. James Grammar Schools, LogoØ

A.D.S Grammar School LogoØ

Anglican Grammar School, LogoØ

Islaudeen Inter. school, LogoØ

Logo Community High School, IbongoØ

The reason for selecting only these five secondary schools for this project work was due to some problems encountered during the research period. The problems included inadequate finance, transportation problem, and inadequate supply of information from the school principals.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTION

For the course of this study the research formed some basic question that will help the researcher obtain a result to this research work, questions which will be administered to the respondents and they are.

1.What made you fail biology as a subject in the school and pass others well?

2.Apart from the fact that you fail biology, is biology one of your favorite subject?

3.If yes, what is the reason behind it and if no what made you not to like it at the first place

4.Are they qualified teachers in you schools who teach this subject?

5.How many times do you have a class for biology study within a week as compared to other subjects?

1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

1.Ho:Biology is not an interesting subject to the students

Ha:Biology is an interesting subject to the student

2.Ho:Lack of qualified teachers can not cause failure in Biology

Ha:Lack of qualified teachers can cause failure in Biology

3. Ho:Inadequate teaching materials can not cause failure in Biology

Ha:Inadequate teaching materials can cause failure in Biology

4.Ho:Bad reading culture can not cause failure in Biology

Ha:Bad reading culture can cause failure in Biology

5.Ho:Parents’ illiteracy can not cause failure in Biology

Ha:Parents’ illiteracy can cause failure in Biology

6.Ho:Environmental conditions can not cause failure in Biology

Ha:Environmental conditions can cause failure in Biology

1.7 RESEARCH LIMITATION

The fact that, Logo local government area of Benue state is a big local government area as far as Secondary schools are concerned, it is impossible for the researcher to research in all the Secondary schools within the local government area due to financial, economic and other constraints, the research or study therefore covers only five selected Secondary schools within the local government area.