Teacher’s Methods of Teaching and Performances of Financial Accounting Students in Senior Secondary Schools
CHAPTER ONE
Aims and Objective of the study
The general purpose of the study was to find out the teacher’s methods of teaching and performances of financial accounting students. Specifically the study intended to determine:-
- the relative effect of collaborative and competitive learning methods on students’ interest in financial accounting.
- the influence of gender on students’ interest in financial accounting under collaborative and competitive learning methods.
- the interactive effect of learning method and gender on students’ interest in financial accounting
- the relative effect of collaborative and competitive learning methods on students’ performance in financial accounting.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter reviews the literature on Teaching methods and it’s effectiveness in the teaching of financial accounting and effect on students‘ academic performance in senior secondary schools in Sokoto state.
Nature and Relevance of financial accounting Education
financial accounting, as a school subject is a multidisciplinary subject that cuts across a wide range of subject areas. Basically, the subject entails the study of the natural environment and its relationship with man, hence the nomenclature of physical and human financial accounting. The term financial accounting has differing definitions each trying to portray the nature of the subject. Kofo (2011), defined financial accounting as a distinct and dynamic science and or social science discipline that deals with the study of man and his physical environment. It is also seen as study of aerial differentiation. financial accounting is concerned with the study and description of the earth‘s surface. financial accounting is offered both at senior secondary level and at university and other higher institutions. The core subjects at senior secondary school level as given by the FRN (2004) are as follows:
1.Mathematics
2.English language
3.One Nigerian language
4.One of physics, chemistry and biology
5.One of literature in English, history and financial accounting
6.Agricultural science
Financial accounting as a school subject is one of the important subjects at senior secondary level. The subject has particularly been enriched by numerous volumes of local studies dealing with what may be described as micro-region in contra-distinction to macro-region of yester years (Ajibade & Raheem, 2010). financial accounting deals with physical, human and practical aspects of man-environment relationships. All the aspects are studied by the senior secondary students who registered the subject.
Financial accounting education was included in the secondary school system because of the importance of the subject in equipping students with necessary knowledge to help them understand both natural and human phenomena within their immediate environment and beyond. With specific reference to secondary school education, Akintade (2011), summarized the importance of financial accounting as school subject, in his words:
Financial accounting generally helps children as well as adult to understand the concept of man versus his environment in his struggle to survive and overcome the problems militating against his progress. It also helps people appreciate the value of their natural resources, which when developed with care and diligence often help to improve their standard of living. financial accounting has a large role in government at local, state and national levels (p. 134).
The aims and objectives of financial accounting education as given by NECO (2012) are to:
- understand the concept of different characters and the spatial relationship of the features on the earth surface;
- understand the concept of man-environment relation, that is, to examine and explain the interaction of man with his physical and cultural environment;
- acquire the basic knowledge of the nature and function of physical and human environments and understanding of their inter-relationships on the resulting issues;
- organize and formulate principles according to acquired geographical concepts and apply these principles to interpret and analyse spatial problems in the immediate and wider environment; and
- develop skills and techniques for accurate, orderly and objective geographical investigations to be carried out both in the classrooms and in the environment.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
The chapter presents the procedure adopted in carrying out the study under the following subheadings; Design of the Study, Area of the Study, Population of the Study, Sample and Sampling Techniques, Instruments for Data Collection, Experimental Procedure, Trial Testing, Reliability of the Instrument, Method of Data Collection and Method of Data Analysis.
Design of the Study
The design of the study was quasi-experimental design. Specifically, it was a non- equivalent control group design. According to Nworgu (2006), this research design is used to establish cause and effect relationships between two or more variables. The design was chosen because it was aimed at establishing the effect of learning method on students’ interest and performance in financial accounting. Also, class activities were not disrupted during the experimental treatment as intact classes were used.
Population of the Study
The population of the study consisted of all upper basic students in public secondary schools within southern senatorial zone of Ebonyi state. According to the Ebonyi State Post Primary Board (TSPP, 2012), there are fifteen thousand one hundred and eight (15108) male students and eight thousand, four hundred and fourteen(8414) female students summing up to twenty three thousand five hundred and twenty two(23522) upper basic students in the Zone.
Sample and Sampling Techniques
A sample of two hundred and ten (210) male students and one hundred and eighty seven(187) female students making a total of three hundred and ninety seven (397) students randomly drawn from 8 intact classes constituted the sample of the study.
The multi – stage random sampling technique was used in constituting the sample for the study. In the first instance, one education zone was selected from the two education zones in the southern senatorial zone of Ebonyi State through simple random sampling technique.
From the four (4) schools, two (2) intact classes were selected through random sampling technique, to make a total of eight (8) intact classes. All the students in the selected eight (8) intact classes constituted the sample for the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
This chapter is concerned with the presentation of result from data analysis. The results are presented in tables according to the research questions and hypotheses that guided the study. Research Question 1:
What is the relative effect of Collaborative and competitive learning methods on student’s interest in financial accounting?
The result presented in Table 1 shows that the group taught basic science under collaborative learning method had an interest pretest mean of 51.36 with a standard deviation of 15.46 and an interest posttest mean of 67.58 with a standard deviation of 12.68. The difference between the pretest and posttest interest mean for the collaborative group was 16.22.
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION, AND RECOMMENDATION
In this chapter, the findings of the study based on the four research questions and four null hypotheses that guided the study were discussed
Discussion of the Findings
The discussions of the findings were made
The Relative Effect of Collaborative and Competitive Learning Methods on Students’ Interest in financial accounting
The result of this study showed that collaborative learning method had significant effect on students’ interest in financial accounting. The group exposed to collaborative learning method which is the collaborative group performed better with a mean interest score of 62.58 than the competitive group that went through the competitive learning method with the mean interest score of 58.45. Hence the collaborative learning method appeared to have facilitated the development of interest in financial accounting among the students more than the competitive learning method. However, result in Table 7 indicates that the difference in mean interest score was significant. The null hypothesis (H01) which stated that there is no significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught Basic science under collaborative learning method and those taught under competitive learning method is rejected, implying that there was a significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught financial accounting under collaborative learning method and those taught under competitive learning method. This finding is contrary to the findings of Lawrence (2004) who stated that competitive learning increases interest. In the same vain, the result of this study did not agree with the view of Fasli & Kopoules (2005) which revealed that competitive learning method provides incentives for students to develop interest in science.
This finding is consistent with Ardodo & Gbore’s (2012) view that students’ interest could be enhanced through the use of good innovative methods that will stimulate their interest. The result of the study also revealed collaborative learning method as a method that has the potential of exposing students to different types of scientific activities which are reflected in their development of interest in science. Justifying the above statement, Obioha as cited in Nworgu (2004) opined that the way in which the science teacher handle students in an instructional setting in a science class goes a long way in helping them to develop interest in science. This showed that the teacher was able to motivate students to develop interest in financial accounting by identifying and catering for the needs of the students, by acknowledging their little successes, by making the classroom students friendly which attracted them to the activities in the classroom and also by recognizing and respecting students’ views which led to boosting and developing confidence in the students. Therefore, with collaborative leaning method, learners are subjected to activities that aid the development of interest. This explains the overall higher mean score of students exposed to collaborative learning method over competitive learning method. However, result in Table 7 indicate that the difference in mean interest score was significant. the null hypothesis (H01) which stated that there is no significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught Basic science under collaborative learning method and those taught under competitive learning method is rejected, implying that there was a significant difference in the mean interest scores of students taught financial accounting under collaborative learning method and those taught under competitive learning method..
The Influence of Gender on Students’ Interest in financial accounting
Gender does not have significant influence on students’ interest. The result obtained from the study showed that male students under collaborative learning method had interest mean score of 57.67 while the female students had interest mean score of 59.34. For the competitive group however the male students had an interest mean score of 52.69 while the females had an interest mean score of 49.88. This showed that female students under collaborative learning method seemed to have higher interest mean score than their male counterparts but a lower interest mean score than their male counterparts under competitive learning method. However,
data in Table 7 indicate that the gender differences are not significant, since the calculated probability of 0.38 is greater than 0.05 level of significance. This implies that the gender gap is reducing. This is in line with the view of Martins et al, (2008) who submitted that differences between boys and girls in the area of interest in science are now very small.
The findings of the study also showed that the reduction in gender gap is due to the teachers’ effort in presenting well-designed tasks to the students which in turn challenged the female students to give their best through the use of collaborative and competitive learning methods thus reducing the gender gap. This Indicates that the use of the learning methods under study, did not only reduce the gender gap but also transformed the gap in favour of the female gender. This is not surprising because Nworgu (2004) observed that exposing students to appropriate activities reduces gender gap in science.
From the fore going, it could be deduced from the findings of the study that female students developed a seemingly higher interest because the classroom was student friendly and their little effort and successes were acknowledged. It could also be attributed to the fact that their views were recognized and respected which have boosted and developed their confidence in their ability to develop and apply collaborative and competitive learning methods in the learning of financial accounting. However the gender influence on interest of male and female students taught basic science using the two methods was not significant.
The Interactive Effect of Gender and Learning Method on Students’ Interest in financial accounting
Gender and learning method does not have significant interactive effects on student of basic science. The result of this study showed that the mean gain for males and females under collaborative learning method were higher than that of those taught financial accounting under competitive learning method even though the interaction was not found to be significant. The findings of this study agree with the view of Weinstein (1998) who opined that learning method influences how the learner process information. It is assumed that human beings processes information and that learning involves such information processing. Research has also shown that learners have their own methods for transforming information into knowledge.
The findings of this research is consistent with the view of Otuka (2004),who submitted that learning method enables students to develop interest in the task presented to them which is exhibited through their active participation in the given tasks. However, since the interactive effect of gender and learning methods were not significant in this study, this implies that any observed difference in students’ interest in financial accounting may have been as a result of chance. Therefore both male and female students could be motivated to show interest when either collaborative or competitive learning method is employed. This means that although each of the learning methods has it’s own peculiar characteristics, the teacher encourages both male and female students to source information from different sources such as text books, internet as well as the teacher. Both male and female students in the two groups worked hard to enhance their level of interest in financial accounting.
The Relative Effect of Collaborative and Competitive Learning Methods on Students’ Performance in financial accounting
Data in Table 4 indicate that Collaborative learning method has major effect on students’ performance in basic science than the competitive leaning method. The data revealed that the posttest performance mean score for both collaborative and competitive learning groups to be greater than the pretest performance mean score with the students under the collaborative
learning method having the highest performance mean gain. This indicates that positive method has positive effect on students’ performance in financial accounting.
The above finding is further confirmed by data in Table 8 whose result showed that Collaborative learning method has significant effect on students’ performance in basic science. With an F-ratio of 17.540, significant at 0.00 level, which is less than the set 0.05 probability level, the null hypothesis of no significant difference in the mean performance scores of students taught financial accounting using collaborative and competitive learning methods is rejected.
The findings of this study is in line with the view of Tabesh (2006) who observed that collaborative learning method leads to greater students performance as there are more winners in a team since all members reap from the success of an performance. Jorgensen (2009) also supported the use of collaborative learning method in the learning process because he believed that the method thrives well with many indigenous “ways of knowing”. This Indicate that learners are mostly familiar with the use of collaborative leaning method in solving problems since it is basically the type of method employed in handling issues at home and the society at large. Therefore, as the teacher assist students to arrive at the objective of the lesson through asking thought provoking and leading questions, students were able to construct meaning out of various tasks assigned to them in a more relaxed and conducive atmosphere than those using competitive learning method. Also, students were able to achieve better under collaborative learning method because they were able to interact actively by sharing asymmetry roles. Students’ active participation in financial accounting activities under collaborative learning method accounts for the superiority of the method over competitive learning method.
Conclusions Reached from the Findings of the Study
Based on the findings of the study, the researcher drew the following conclusions.
1) The use of collaborative learning method in learning financial accounting concepts leads to increase in students’ interest in financial accounting more than the use of competitive learning method.
2) Although differences seem exist in the mean interest score of male and female students, gender is not a significant factor affecting students’ interest in financial accounting when taught under collaborative and competitive learning methods.
3) There was no interaction effect of learning method and gender on students’ interest when taught financial accounting under collaborative and competitive learning methods.
4) The use of collaborative learning method results in students’ higher performance than the use of competitive learning method.
Recommendations
The following recommendations have been made based on the findings of this study.
- financial accounting teachers should endeavor to develop and adopt collaborative learning method as it would enhance overall interest and performance in science as well as help reduce gender gap in financial accounting.
- Regular sensitization workshops should be organized by the Universal basic education commission to retrain financial accounting teachers on the development and use of collaborative learning method.
- Pre- service teachers should be trained on how to develop and employ the use of collaborative learning method.
- Government, in conjunction with other professional bodies, should sponsor further research on the use of collaborative learning method.
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