CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE SUBJECTS IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN IJERO LOCAL GOVERNMENT, EKITI STATE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Today's world is described as this science and technology. Therefore, literature in science is very essential for both men and women. It is on this note that the federal government stated in " the National Education Policy "(2004) that a goal of education should “indicate to the child the spirit of inquiry and creativity through the exploration of nature and the local environment”. He further argues that secondary education should empower students to live effectively in the modern era of science and technology.
When students seek admission to high schools, students and their parents normally neglect schools without science in their curriculum for those with science in their curriculum. Similarly, they seek admission to schools with adequate science teachers. The belief is that today's students who are also tomorrow's leaders should have a background and a background in modern science. Thus, students should do science, they should not be informed about science.
It is a known fact that one cannot understand the concept and phenomenon in scientific subjects without a set of high-powered mathematical tools (Adeoye, 1991). This was realized and clarified by Adeoye when he emphasized that science is a single channel on which the development and progress of the individual and the nation depends. It is like the legs by means of which we get on the environment materials of life. This definition considers science as a concept and a product.
Core scientific subjects include physics, chemistry and biology. They are considered hard sciences. Other scientific subjects otherwise known as soft sciences include Agricultural sciences, Health sciences, etc. all subjects have been observed that nearly half of the subjects who sit on the Upper Secondary Certificate exam each year performed miserably in them and most of the students who fail these subjects also fail mathematics. In a paper presented at the 25th Annual Conference of the mathematics Association of Nigeria (MAN), Aqwan (2001) noted that research in recent years stated that the failure rate in mathematics in the West African School Certificate exam in Nigeria was 80%. He listed the following as problems responsible for the poor teaching of mathematics.
The inadequacy of the number of qualified and competent teachers of mathematics in schools of effective teaching of mathematics, the inadequacy of the provision of teaching materials for the effective teaching of mathematics, the disposition of teachers and their consequences in the teaching of mathematics, the lack of opportunities for professional growth and the acquisition of new skills and knowledge for the effective teaching of, the absence of opportunities for professional growth and the acquisition of new skills and knowledge for the effective teaching of mathematics. Numerous surveys have shown that high school students are not very interested in science-oriented subject matter, especially mathematics, and it is necessary to conduct surveys on the relationship between student results in mathematics and scientific subjects in the upper secondary examination.
There are several reasons for poor performance in subjects, but the most often mentioned factor is the negative attitude of students to the subject. Therefore, these called for the improvement of the current interest and level of students in mathematics and science, which could be done by examining the problems that students face. To do this, it is necessary to learn about the performance of students in these subjects on the Upper Secondary Certificate exam.
The statement of the problem
Most high school students performed poorly on the final exam, especially in mathematics and science (Aremo, 1997). This situation has existed for the last three decades (1985) and the situation has not improved, it is deteriorating. Thus, the basic problems of the study is to measure the relationship between the performance of students in mathematics and science in SSCE (whether the relationship is positive or negative) and also to show how strong or weak the relationship in upper secondary schools in the Local Government of Ijero.
In addition, some students are observed to do well in some science courses while they have found wanting in others needed for a good combination of subjects for other studies in their careers. All these observed anomalies are caused by certain factors that this study intends to reveal or resolve at the end of this work.
Purpose of the study
The aim of this project is to identify the performance of SSCE science subjects in mathematics and science subjects in Ijero Local Government Senior Secondary Schools. More precisely the study will discover
* If there is a significant relationship between the results of students in mathematics and science on the upper secondary school certificate exam
* if there is a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and physics
* if there is a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and chemistry
* if there is a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and biology.
Research Questions
The study will focus on finding answers to the following questions.
* Is there a significant relationship between student achievement in mathematics and student achievement in science on the upper secondary examination?
• Is there a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and physics?
• Is there a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and chemistry?
• Is there a significant relationship between student performance in mathematics and biology?
Research Hypotheses
To facilitate the study of the problems of this study, the following basic research hypotheses were formulated;
HO1 - there is no significant relationship between the performance of students in mathematics and scientific subjects on the secondary certificate graduate examination.
HO2-there is no significant relationship between the performance of students in mathematics and physics.
HO3-there is no significant relationship between the performance of students in mathematics and chemistry.
HO4-there is no significant relationship between the performance of students in mathematics and biology.
The significant of the study
The importance of studying the relationship between the performance of SSCE students in mathematics and other scientific subjects in Ijero Local Government Senior Secondary Schools cannot be overemphasized, given its advantages. The study provides a spotlight on areas of student weakness in scientific subjects for the state education authority to recommend standard textbooks to eliminate the problem.
The work serves as a useful resource for education students and the many educators already on the ground in the quest for an effective educational development of the nation.
It also provides education authority to date adequate performance knowledge to students. The study provides thoughts and opinions of several researchers through their past work as a literature review in Chapter Two of the study.
Delimitation of the Study
The study intend to discover and find out the correlation between student performance in mathematics and other science subjects in senior secondary schools in Ijero Local Government.
It also makes attempts to determine the relationship between their performance in mathematics and other science subjects.
Although, there are over seventeen secondary schools in Ijero Local Government, but only four (4) will be chosen randomly for sampling.
Definition of Terms
Performance-: Measurement of academic intelligence of students in the science class.
Science Subjects-: These are subjects that are taught and learnt with basic scientific principles based on experimentation and validation of findings. This can be as natural science or physical science such as physics, chemistry and biology.
SSCE-: Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination normally written at the end of student’s sixth year in secondary school.
Mathematics-: Mathematics can be defined as a science of numbers/figures.
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