JSS THREE STUDENTS PERCEPTION OF THEIR MATHEMATICS TEACHERS AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENT IN MATHEMATICS IN YAKURR LOCAL GOVERMNENT AREA OF CROSS RIVER STATE

CHAPTER ONE

Mathematics as the bedrock of other science discipline needs much consideration and concentration to achieve the scientific and technological goals and development of any nation.

The whole world is becoming mathematically inclined because human being depend on it eliminates bias.

The application of mathematics spread to all facts of life; consequently it has become necessary for people to become mathematic literate and functionally acquainted with mathematics and its processes.

Engel (1969: 258) captured this when he stated that “The world is becoming more and more complicated we are rapidly approaching an unbearable and even dangerous situation, mathematics is the only discipline that is broad enough to prevent this societal issues from decaying the future of fundamental science which provides indispensable mode of thinking and tools to cope with the real world, the physical world and the man – made world.

The implication of Engels statement is that mathematics has become a dominant subject capable of solving the world challenging problems through it modes of thinking, methods and its logical reasoning.

Mathematics is an excellent medium for a happy living. It helps people to learn how to think and how to organize their ideas logically it makes people to be furious about their environment and to seek answer to their day to day problems of life. it is a medium use operationally to conceptualize the “ laws of the universe “ over the years, the poor performance of Nigerian secondary school students in mathematics has generated great concern among well meaning Nigerians, especially educationalist, and parents.

This in turns has given rise to many suggestions as to what factors contribute to the low performance in the subject.

Many people blame mathematics tutors for the failure of students in mathematics. Others are of the opinion that students do not like the subject because of peer group influence.

Instructional materials are another thing lacking in the teaching of mathematics, poor teaching methods and poor mathematics background from primary schools as well as poor funding of schools by the government.

While many works have focused on these variables, the role of perception, that is how students perceive the subjects and the subject teachers has targets been neglected in our research efforts. Since perception is known to affect behavior, it is reasonable to assume that student’s perception of mathematics teachers would influence their perception in the subject.

This project is thus intended to find out JSS III students perception of their mathematics teachers and their achievements in mathematics.

The theory behind this study is behaviorist theory of “stimulus”-response” parlor (1927) a Russian scientist succeeded teaching his dog with the result that the dog could associate the sound of a turning fork with food. Whereby it could salivate when hearing the sound of the turning fork without seeing food. He called this conditioning.

Classical conditioning has been promoted most extensively by Pavlov and skinner among others.

The belief is that an individual is a product of his own conditioning. Conditioning means establishing conditional reflexes or manipulating the unconditional reflexes or natural reflexes (Denga 1986).

This belief also portrays that learnt behavior can also be unlearnt. This approach to learning posits man as reacting in a certain predictable way to any given stimulus depending on the type of training or learning processes he/she has undergone.

The basic equation of behavior is given as B=(F) that is to say behavior is function of a stimulus. It is then believed that if students are presented with correct stimuli, the will be able to learn effectively.

Behavior is determined in large measure by its consequences .It behavior has the effect or consequence we want, we cause it to repeat itself. If any behavior does not have any pay off, we cause it to be discontinued.

We cause behavior to repeat itself by rewarding it.

We cause behavior to be discontinued or disappear by not rewarding it.

Rewarding behavior is known as rein-enforcement.

Disappearance of behavior is known as extinction.

Since reward constitute the most valuable tools for changing or modifying behavior, it is important to know now frequently we should administer rewards and what type of reward we should adopt as reinforces.

The teacher plays a vital role in teaching and learning situation especially in the subject like Mathematics. He is said to be the “engineer” in the implementation of pedagogical and administrative plan. Etuk (1986) .As far as individual difference in human being is concern, it is necessary for mathematics teachers to know as much as possible their student, their level of maturity and their interest and have some knowledge of acceptance procedure for evaluating their progress.

However, it is likely that students who perceive their mathematics teacher as friendly tend to develop positive perception towards the learning of mathematics. This could be due to good report created by their subject teacher of mathematics. commenting on this Kagan and Havemana (1980:213) assorted that “social relationship make up such a large extent of our daily life ,the way we perceive others and the way others perceive us affect our behaviour in almost everything we do in school” especially in the learning of mathematics .

The variable in this research work are interwoven. The teacher is the “bridge” that links other variable such as perception, how student perceive him and mathematics, and the other, their academic achievement and how perception affect their performance.

It is on the basis the researcher is set out to investigate on junior secondary school three (JSS III) student perception of mathematics teachers on their academic achievement .the researcher also hope that the finding will help future prospective mathematics teachers to achieve better result in the teaching and learning of mathematics.

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It has been generally known that one’s perception exert great psychological influence on student, it is perception therefore has effect on ones performance in mathematics in Junior Secondary Schools Three (JSS III) students again has been stated above. Junior secondary school three (JSS III) perceptions in mathematics in some list primary schools may either be encouraging or not, depending on the general perception of student in mathematics teachers.

The persistence poor performance in mathematics in secondary school has given the public teacher and all those involved in the educational system much concern. Many people think that student perception of mathematics teachers contribute to academics performance in Mathematics.

Government effort to improve the quality of teachers by a way of in service training programmes, payment of mathematics allowance and the provision of textbooks does not seem to have solved this cute problem.

Consequently, it is has become necessary to investigate the extent to which perception of the subject teachers contribute to the poor performance by Junior Secondary Three (JSS III) student in our schools.

1.4 PURPOSE FOR THE STUDY

The purpose of the study is to investigate Junior Secondary School Three (JSS 3) students perception of mathematics, their mathematics teacher and their academic achievement on mathematics.

1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In order to find solutions to the problems of this study, the following research questions were raised.

1. Is there any difference in Junior Secondary Schools Three (JSS III) students perception of mathematics and their achievement in the subject?

2. Is there any difference between Junior Secondary School Three (JSS III) student perception of Mathematics and achievement in the subject.

3. Is there any sex difference in Junior Secondary School Three (JSS III) students perception of their mathematics teacher and their achievement in mathematics?

1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

In order to carry out this study the following hypothesis were formulated.

1. There is no significant difference between student with high perception of mathematics and those with low perception of mathematics.

2. There is no significant difference between student with positive perception of Mathematics teachers and those with negative perception of the subject teacher.

3. There is no significant sex difference between students’ perception of Mathematics and academic achievement.

4. There is no significant sex difference between students’ perception of Mathematics teachers and their academic achievement in Mathematics.

1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

A successfully research is often assumed to contribute to existing knowledge and possibly create channel for further studies.

On the basis of this assumption, the study intends to contribute to the factors affecting the poor performance of Secondary School students in Mathematics.

By so doing, it is hoped that it may help in promoting effective learning of mathematics in secondary schools in the area the research was conducted and beyond.

The study may also enable the teachers to know how their students perceive them, thereby enabling them to adjust for the overall benefit of their students.

Finally, the result of this finding may laid a solving foundation for further research work of this kind.

1.8 ASSUMPTION OF STUDY

The following assumptions were made in carrying out the study:

1.9 SCOPE OF STUDY

Although this research is intended to cover all the Junior Secondary Schools in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State.

Owing to cost in time and money, only six (6) Secondary Schools in Yakurr were sampled for the study.

1.10 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The limitation of this study includes financial constraints, time constraints. There were also some problems that were experienced with the administration of the questionnaire. The researcher was faced with much financial constraints which influence the choice of population and sample.

Time was grossly inadequate for a more extensive study. As a result of this, the students sample was small. A larger sample could fully represent the chosen population of study.

On the administration of the instrument the problem experience include that of fewer students in the sampling population as opposed to the projected figure. This made the number of students to reduce to 30 per students.

1.11 DEFINATION OF TERMS

This study is based on the effect of Students Perception of Mathematics Teachers and Academic Achievements.

For clarification purpose, term like; perception is clearly explained as there is used in the study.

Perception:

For the purpose of this study, we refer to perception to mean what students observed, felt, apprehend and remembered about their mathematics teacher and mathematics as measured by the instructors.

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