An Evaluation of the Attitude of Students Towards Teaching and Learning of Health Education
CHAPTER ONE
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes of students towards teaching and learning of health education in Lagos state secondary schools.
The specific objectives of the study will include
- To find out whether attitude of students will influence the teaching and learning of health education.
- To find out whether the attitude of teachers will influence the teaching and learning of health education in Senior Secondary Schools.
- To examine whether motivation will influence the attitude of students towards teaching and learning of health education in Senior Secondary Schools.
- To investigate whether teacher’s personality will influence the attitude of students towards teaching and learning of health education.
- To find out whether the teaching methods of health education will influence the attitude of students towards the teaching and learning of health education in schools.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Conceptual framework
A major area of interest in health science research is the teaching of science through inquiry. Research findings and the national reform in health science overwhelmingly support this notion. The US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation (1992) endorse health education and science curricula that promote active learning, inquiry, problem solving, cooperative learning, demonstration, and other instructional methods that motivate students. The publication entitled National Health science Standards (National Research Council 1996) states that science teaching must reflect science as it is practiced and that one goal of health science is to prepare children to understand and use the modes of reasoning of scientific inquiry. NSES presents inquiry as a step beyond process that involves learning, observing, and inferring.
Inquiry-oriented instruction engages students in the investigative nature of science. As Novak in Zhao, (2003) suggested, inquiry is a student behaviour that involves activity and skills, but the focus is on the active search for knowledge or understanding to satisfy students‘ curiosity. In inquiry, educators should not expect children to discover everything for themselves; rather, they should focus on relating new science knowledge both to previously learned knowledge and to experiential phenomena, so students can build a consistent picture of the physical world. Science teachers can facilitate this process in several ways. For example, when children show an interest in learning more about a bean plant or a nearby tree, the teacher should ask questions to determine what each student already knows. In this way, teachers can modify learning experiences and classroom settings to best meet individual needs.
One way to involve students in inquiry is through problem solving, which is not as much a teaching strategy as it is a child behaviour. As with inquiry, the driving force behind problem solving is curiosity-an interest in finding out. The challenge for the teacher is to create an environment in which problem solving can occur.
Problems should relate to, and include, the children‘s own experiences. From birth, children want to learn and they naturally seek out problems to solve. Problem solving in the prekindergarten years‘ focuses on naturalistic and informal learning: filling and emptying containers of water, sand, or other substances; observing ants; or racing toy cars down a ramp. In kindergarten and the primary grades, adults can institute a more structured approach to problem solving (Hurd, 1989).
Problem solving can be a powerful motivating factor to learn science. When students perceive the situations and problems they study in class as real, their curiosity is piqued and they are inspired to find an answer. Searching for a solution to a question or problem that is important to the student holds his or her attention and creates enthusiasm.
Sprenger (2005) admonishes educators to vary teaching styles and learning opportunities in order to embrace a variety of learning styles. ―Our students have different ways of learning. Some of them are visual learners, some auditory, and some kinaesthetic or tactile. These learning preferences or learning strengths may influence what our students are paying special attention to‖ (p. 26).
Attitude plays a major role in students learning (Ajewole 1990). Simpson; Wilson; Soyibo, in Dyel (2011) reported that, student‘s positive attitude to science correlate highly with their science performance. He maintained that Attitude was found to have a direct effect on science performance among American high school students. In Nigeria,
Balogun (1975), reported that, in general, the attitude of Nigeria students towards the health educations tend to decrease in the order of Biology, Chemistry, Physic and health education. Oyedokun (1998) noted that attitude to science generally account for between 20% to 25% variations in the academic performance in science. Although students differ in degree in their attitudes towards different subject taught in the school curriculum, a person generally perform better in any discipline to which favourably he/she is disposed.
Despite theorists‘ differences concerning the manner in which students acquire knowledge, instructional graphic can be utilized to foster learning no matter the learning style preferred by the student.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
According to Sendel (2017) defines research design as the overall strategy to answer the research questions. Kervin (2008) indicates that the research design is the model for the researcher to achieve its objectives and answer questions (Kervin, 2008). A research design generally understand how to be discarded data, what are the instruments, how the instruments and the means for analyzing the collected data will be used.
Population of the Study
The Population for the study comprises of all the 25 Junior Secondary Schools Students (JSSS) in Mainland Local Government Area Lagos State of Nigeria that study Health education during the 2012/2013 academic year.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Data Analysis and RESULTS presentation
INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with presentation and analysis of data collected from the field by questionnaire. It also includes the discussion of findings. Presentation of data using simple percentage and analysis of result.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary of the Study
The purpose of this study is to determine the attitude of students on learning and teaching of health education in some selected Secondary Schools in Mainland Local Government Area Lagos State, with the view to offer recommendation where it is necessary. This summary chapter describes the highlights of this research work, the general introduction, which is the background of the study, the objectives of the study significance of the study, research questions, and the scope and delimitation of the study.
Chapter two of this study entailed the literature review on the concept of graphics, types and application of physical exercise, cognitive theories relating to physical exercise, theoretical basis of Health science, science content and cognitive capacity, gender differences and academic performance in science, attitude and academic performance in science and empirical support for physical exercise.
In chapter three, descriptions were made on the methodology adopted in the course of this study. As a consequence, research design, population of the study, sample and sampling technique, Health education topics selected for the study, instrumentation, pilot testing, as well procedure for data collection and data analysis were elicited. Chapter four also contains data and result presentation, hypotheses testing and summary of the findings and discussion.
Conclusion
The following conclusions are drawn based on the findings from this study. Students exposed to physical exercise learning strategy performed significantly better in Health education than those exposed to the lecture method of learning instruction. Also, physical exercise learning strategy is gender-friendly in enhancing the performance of male and female students in Health education. Male and Female Students‘ attitudes are positively affected as well as positively related by the physical exercise learning strategy.
Generally, physical exercise learning strategy has the potential of enhancing Basic
Science students‘ performance and attitude. Using this teaching strategy for the improvement of Health science at the JS level is therefore a welcome idea.
Recommendations
From the findings of this research work, the following recommendations were made for the purpose of improving positive attitude of students towards health education instruction, reducing gender related problems to health education and enhancing student‘s academic performance in health education test as well as providing a framework for further research work.
- Health education Teachers should make all efforts, where necessary, to deliver their lessons with the available but relevant physical exercise. This will improve student‘s positive attitude towards health education and consequently, improve the academic performance of Health education Students.
- When physical exercise are developed by a researcher, there is the need to evaluate the model by testing the ability of the students.
- The state ministry of education should train and retrain Health education teachers on how to developed and apply physical exercise in Health education instructions.
REFERENCES
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- http://aimlab.memphis.edu/amyscogpaper.pdf
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- Ajewole, A.G. (1990), Effect of Guided Discovery and Expository Instructional Methods on Students‘ Transfer of Learning. Journal of Science Teachers Association of Nigeria. 22(2) 59-66.
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