Influence of Motivation and Academic Achievement on Secondary School Students in Enugu South Local Government Area
Chapter One
Purpose of the study
To determine the influence of student motivation on academic performance in public secondary schools in Enugu South LGA, Nigeria.
Objectives of the study
This study sought to
- To identify the factors that influence the motivation of students in public secondary schools in Enugu South LGA
- To determine the sustainability of these motivational techniques on student academic performance in Enugu South LGA
- To find out if lack of self motivation among students is a major cause of poor performance in academics in Enugu South district, Nigeria.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter is an overview of available literature related to motivation and academic performance. It covers the concept of student motivation in relation to academic performance, specific factors that affect student motivation, theoretical and conceptual frameworks of this study
The concept of student motivation on academic performance
Motivation is a process that begins with a deficiency that is psychological or a drive aimed at satisfying a goal (Okumbe, 1998). So it can be said that motivation is made up of needs (deficiencies) that bring up drives (motives) that then assist in acquiring the incentives (goals).
Motives are action-oriented while incentives do isolate a need. To Marques (2010) motivation can be said to be what is required for people to perform better in any activity .Every educator needs to be concerned about motivation. It is a quality that students, teachers, parents and members of the community must have if education system is to prepare young people adequately for the challenges and demands of the coming century.
How these various categories of individuals generate and utilize motivation differs to a great extent. For students motivation is necessary for learning to take place, parents need to be motivated to follow up on the academic performance of their sons and daughters, teachers need it to ensure all aspects of their schools continue to improve.
It is the role of the school administrator to initiate and nurture motivation among the various categories of individuals that participate in the educational process.
Motivation must be rewarded, increased and sustained at all levels.
However the school administration must not neglect their own, like other participants of the educational process they have to find ways to stay motivated in the midst of obstacles, distraction and what appears to be universal indifference.
Academic achievement/ performance is the outcome of education, the extent to which the student or institution has achieved their educational goals.
Academic achievement is generally measured by examinations or continuous assessment test. Individual variation in academic performance have been linked to differences in intelligence and personality.
For the entire past century academic performance has become the gatekeeper to higher learning institutions, defining career paths and individual life trajectories. Hence large quantity of psychological research has concentrated on pinpointing predictors of academic performance with intelligence and efforts coming out as major determinants.
Today academic performance continues to be understood as a precise proxy for aptitude and is a core determinant of career paths and status achievement even though some doubt its value ( chammore-premuzic & furnham, 2010)
Academic performance is vital to understanding the development of today’s well known psychometric “tool” : the intelligence test. Because academic performance was thought to mirror individual differences in ability, it became the top criterion for intelligence tests(Chamorro-premuzic, 2006)
Alfred Binnet(1857-1911) developed the pioneer intelligence test to identify children who were challenged by the school curriculum and their academic performance. Future ability tests continued to be validated by educational achievement as accurate measures of intelligence. Indeed if an intelligence test failed to account for individual differences it was not regarded as a meaningful measure of intellectual capacity(e.g Bolton 1892)
The association between cognitive ability and academic performance persists across educational levels although it tends to decrease in more advanced academic settings due to differential range restrictions. To concur with this research recently has assessed the degree to which individual differences in academic performance can be explained by personality factors.
Although intelligence is a vital predictor of academic success, recent research has shown that personality dispositions mostly traits assessing typical individual levels of persistence and hard work account for substantial amounts of variance in academic performance (O’connor & paunonen, 2007). For instance (Chammoro-premizic,2003) discovered that personality traits accounted for four times as much variance in exam results of elite college students than intelligence.
Theorists have developed several approaches to motivation which fall into four broad categories. Adopting these approaches can assist teachers in their endeavor to provide the right conditions for student learning. These view points on motivation are The behavioral view; the interpretation of motivation rests on skinners behavioral learning theories and focuses on the reinforcement of desired behavior through the use of extrinsic rewards. Biehler and showman (1993) showed that behavioral interpretations of learning help to explain why some pupils react favorably to certain subjects and dislike others. Social theorists such as Albert Benders emphasize the impact of student identification and imitation pointing out their positive academic outcomes.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter deals with the methods used to collect the data. It is organized into the following sections: research design, target population, sampling procedure and sampling size, research instruments, data collection procedure and data analysis techniques.
Research design
Research design refers to plan indicating the approach used in the research process. This study used the survey research design. A survey consists of a predetermined set of questions that is given to a sample with a representative population that is part of a large population. From this response the researcher can gauge the attitudes of the population concerning the research problem. Surveys are a common way of conducting quantitative research involving use of questionnaires and interviews. The usefulness of a survey is that the information obtained is standardized as each respondent is answering the same question. However surveys may fail to present the whole picture of the research problem(Burnaford et al, 2001). This has to do with the fact that the respondents give their opinions to what has been asked which may not be objective enough.
The survey design is suitable to the study as it involves experienced teachers who have observed and assessed students performance over the years.
Target population
Mugenda and Mugenda (2003) defined the target population to be the population which the researcher wants to generalize the result of a study. The study was concerned with Enugu South LGA that has 12 public secondary schools and 264 teachers (Enugu South DEO’s office, 2014)
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS, PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
Introduction
This chapter deals with the analysis of the data generated from the respondents filling the questionnaires. The results from the study are presented and projected in graphical and tabular formats.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION
Introduction
This study sought to establish if student motivation has any effect on academic performance. Generally the objective of the study was to find out if various motivational techniques used by teachers have any impact on their students academically Responses from the filled questionnaires formed the basis of analysis. This chapter summarizes the findings, comes up with conclusions and makes some recommendations
Summary of findings
This research was concerned with four factors on student motivation alternatively termed motivational techniques. It is their effect on academic performance that was the focus of the study. The feedback concerning these variables is as follows
Findings on giving of prizes
. As to the most effective of these techniques a slight majority of 53% identified prizes given to students to be most effective. This is in line with common practice in schools where there are prize giving days where top performing students are awarded with various prizes. This has the effect of recognizing and encouraging the students.
Findings on reinforcement
Reinforcement refers to anything that increases the probability of an organism repeating the desired behavior. In this context it implies how a teacher communicates to the students that a certain action/ behavior is good and it can take the form of positive compliments after answering a question or awarding good grades after a class quiz. The fact that about a fifth (19%) of teachers identified with this is surprising given that it is also common for teachers to give positive compliments in class
Findings on classroom competition
Classroom competition also gathered a similar score and is common practice in most schools. The competition can naturally exist among the students or it can be created by the teacher. This method is somehow similar to giving of rewards and so the two can be hard to distinguish. This may have confused some of the respondents and affected the scores.
Findings on teaching methods
Teaching method refers to how the teacher presents the material to the learners. Only 7.6% of the respondents identified this as a method to motivate learners effectively. Most of respondents added that if the learners are very uninterested then no matter how good the teaching technique motivation are occur.
Going back to the most effective technique of prizes a great majority of respondents(73%) indicated that they regularly give material rewards to their students. This appears to be a time tested method although not all who practice it are confident in its effectiveness.
Findings on sustainability of motivational techniques used
This part of the research focused on the time period which the motivational techniques could have an impact on academic performance. The length of time that these methods remain effective depend on both the teachers and the students, both parties have to be consistent. When this issue was asked a slight majority of 57.6% felt that indeed the motivational techniques used on students can work for long while the remainder 42.45% felt that these generally techniques are not sustainable.
As in regards to the specific methods 46% of the respondents were of the opinion that prizes have the highest durability as a motivational technique while second place belongs to reinforcement(27%). About 19.2% felt that classroom competition can last while 7.6% identified teaching method.
Findings on effect of lack of self motivation
This section of the study sought to establish if students who are naturally self motivated have a tendency to perform well or not. When this query was presented to the respondents a commanding majority of 84.6% felt that indeed self motivation among students is a perquisite to good academic performance while the remaining 15.4% did not think so.
Conclusion
The research study was able to conclude that motivational techniques used on students have some degree of influence on their academic performance. What brings about academic motivation in students is sustained task management that is ensuring that they remain interested in their studies. Learning like any other human behavior is nor random. It occurrence is strengthened if there is some reward or feeling of satisfaction that accompanies it
schools that perform well are known to have unique characteristics some of which are obvious while others are not. One characteristic that stands out is the attitude that both the students and the teachers have towards not just academics but school life as a whole. Such group of characteristics have been termed “corelates of an effective school”.
Education is best seen as an investment. Therefore for consistent good academic performance schools have invested in various ways to motivate students. This study focused on four motivational techniques; prizes, classroom competition, reinforcement and teaching method.
This research sought to find out if there is any effect of student motivational techniques on their academic performance. The study was guided by several research objectives: whether motivational techniques can affect academic performance in any way, the sustainability of these techniques and whether lack of self motivation among students is a factor in poor performance.
A great majority of the respondents indicated that motivated students always have improved academic performance. As to the specifics of the various techniques used to motivate students opinion, as expected was divided. It was surprising that teaching method got the least score in terms of effectiveness of the four techniques surveyed. It appears that the respondents who are all teachers feel that the method they use to present the syllabus to learners has the least impact. This has to do with the fact that teaching the same syllabus year after year is more or less routine work and most teachers may not attach much importance to their choice of teaching method.
Most of the respondents predictably identified awarding of prizes as the most effective motivational technique. This is in line with psychology of motivation where organisms behave in ways that lead to satisfaction or reward. Therefore ensuring that students feel rewarded for their efforts actually sustains their academic achievement. However as psychologists have pointed out excessive use of rewards may have side effects such as resentment, dependency on teachers and viewing learning as a means to an end.
Classroom competition and reinforcement received similar scores from the respondents. Both have a similar effect to prizes as they also elicit a feeling of satisfaction. In the case of classroom competition the good feeling that students get when they triumph over their rivals is psychologically rewarding. Reinforcement which implies giving positive feedback after desirable behavior also has motivational effect on the students. However the effectiveness of these techniques lies not only in how they are applied but also in the relationship between the students and the teacher. Therefore it is important to create a positive environment for the both parties to interact properly.
A related issued that the research covered was the sustainability of these motivational techniques. A slight majority of respondents indicated that the effect of these methods can last some time. Like even tangible goods this form of motivation being extrinsic has an expiry date. This may be greatly due to the reason that learners may rely so much on these external conditions that they forget that their own enthusiasm also matters. Even in the case of classroom competition if a student tops the rest they may become complacent and relax thus the competitive environment then diminishes. In addition , these techniques consume much of the teachers time and resources hence even the teacher may give up or slow down after sometime.
Finally the question of whether lack of self motivation constitutes a major cause of poor performance had an overwhelming answer that indeed it is. This is in line with studies that have been done which indicate personality traits have four times an effect on academics than intelligence. Personality dispositions mainly traits assessing individual levels of persistence and hard work account for substantial amounts of variance in academic performance. This is an indicator that motivating has to start from within before external conditions can provide enhancement.
Recommendation of the study
The researcher makes several recommendations for future research in relation to this area
1)This study focused mostly on extrinsic motivation and the conclusion being that the motivational methods indeed have a positive impact. However the durability of extrinsic motivation is temporary and is affected by several factors. A potential area of further research would be to find out how these techniques can be sustained for longer.
- Intrinsic motivation being inbuilt is known to be more reliable. Therefore future research should focus on how exactly it relates to academic performance. Since self motivation is a personality trait it can be beneficial to discover how it can be nurtured in those individuals who have it.
- Academic performance being integral to future career prospects, it is also crucial for researchers to come up with how curriculum content can be delivered in a more stimulating way. This is because currently even teachers find the syllabus a bit cumbersome and this contributes to lack of interest by the learners.
- Therefore further research should touch on making learning to be fun and relevant.
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