Project – Influence of business studies teachers roles in teaching of business studies in public secondary schools

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Education is the most powerful instrument for social progress. Education is recognized as the answer to socio-economic problems and for the fullest realization of potentialities and aspiration of the people. It is the greatest power yet known to man for his own improvement.

A number of scholars in the field of education have tried to give a working definition of education in recent years. Many of such scholars attempted to relate education to culture. They therefore defined education from the sociological point of view claiming that education is a process of cultural transmission and renewal.  Education is seen as a tools used for the integration of the individual into the society so that he can achieve self-realization, develop national consciousness, promote unity, and strive for social, economic, political, scientific, cultural, and technological progress.

The Oxford Learners Dictionary described education as “systematic training and instruction or the act of giving intellectual and moral training to another person”.  From the definition above, knowledge, characters, and abilities are the major ingredients of education.

Education is the process that transforms the life of the individual from that of a helpless and dependent creature to self-reliant, rational, and skillful person who can contribute to the development and progress of his society.

James Majasan(1967), defines education as the act of learning. Osokoya   (1987), in his own contribution defines education as a continuous process which the society establishes to assist its members to understand the heritage of the past, and to participate productively in the future. He went further toexplain that education is the leading out of the – inborn powers and potentialities of the individuals in the society and the acquisition of skills, aptitudes, and competencies necessary for self-realization and coping with life problems.

Joad (1964), gives a three-fold purpose of education, namely:-

1. To enable a child to make a living
2. To equip the child to play his/her part as a citizen of a democracy
3. To enable the child to develop all the latent powers and faculties of his nature and so enjoy a good life.

Also, Mugenda and Mugenda (1999), opines that education is widely regards as a basic human right, a key to enlightment, and a source of wealth and power. Education is critical to industrial and technological development with the history of developed nation bearing records of this, developing nation aspiring to realize the same status have to put a premium. Education is the direct way to literacy. It can also be seen as the manifestation of life itself, thus the objectives of education is to produce pupils with the means for understanding their society and culture. People get educated every day in their day-to-day transaction especially in the business world. Business in the order hand, it is the ability of making buying, selling, or supplying goods and services for money. Business in education as a broader and in-depth meaning to the peripheral meaning of business.

To start with, what is Business Studies? Business Studies is literarily defines as a vocational subject that comprises other discipline or subjects like typewriting, shorthand, computer study,and so on.

Business Studies is a type of education that prepares the students not only for a specific business occupation in the community but also for a general understanding of the business activities of that community. Business Studies in Nigeria was regarded as the learning and teaching of some business subjects, either in an organized or unorganized school system.

Osuala&Anao 1996, was of opinion that Business Studies is the sum total of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that acquire not only for successful, promoting and administering a business enterprises  but also for entry into an advancement in jobs.

Business Studies is divided into Education about Business and Education for Business. The Education about Business phase includes both personal and societal economic, while the Education for Business phase includes instructional design to make people suitable for gainful employment in distribution and office occupations. Since business is education and education is a profession to others, then the function of a teacher is no exempted in the educational field. Teaching as existed for ages so that it is rather difficult to trace its origin. As an activity, it consists of a body of actions intended to induce learning through the conscious and deliberate effort by a mature or experienced person.

Literarily, a teacher can be described as a social catalyst and a promoter of social change in the deprived community. Without the former school system, the teacher is the one professionally prepared to promote the social and academic development of the young and old through a patterned curriculum. He is fountain of knowledge and a builder of the society. A teacher is a professional trained person, who has the responsibility of imparting knowledge on students. A teacher is a person who provides education for students. According to Oxford English Dictionary, a teacher is a person who teaches, especially in a school to impart knowledge into the students.

Teachers have been recognized as indispensable human resources and indeed, the single most important element in the school system, more important than the role of equipment and materials and the level of financing. (US Department of Health Education and Welfare office of Education, 1970), teachers are very important. On account of the importance, the education law in Nigeria provides that teachers are leaders. As research as shown, teacher role is an important factor in determining gains in student achievement, even after accounting for prior student learning and family background characteristics. Predictors of teacher role have typically included factors such as class size, certification, type of qualification, teacher’s characteristics, degree earned, or years of experience.

The performance of every student in any subject could be easily traced back to the teacher and this is where the issue of being a qualified teacher comes in.

According to Darling – Hammod  (1998), defines well qualified teacher as one who was fully certified and held the equivalent of a major in the field of being taught. Although, the formal qualification of a teacher is an important indicator for their knowledge and competence in teaching. It has only limited utility in analyzing how well prepared teachers are for what they have to teach in schools.

Akinsolu (2010), asserts that, availability of qualified teachers determines the performance of students in school. Coonen(1987), emphasizes that teacher s involved in in-service training were more effective in classroom as compared to teachers who had not undergone training. Teachers have a lot of influence on their classroom practice. Teachers should have and apply specific abilities without which their influence may not be reflected in their student’s performance in the subject.

Role is the pedagogical knowledge of teachers. Pedagogical knowledge refers to the specialized knowledge of teachers for creating effective teaching and learning environment for all students. This project focuses on the pedagogical knowledge based on teachers and the knowledge dynamics in the teaching profession in order to examine their implications for the instructional process and to derive evidence – based suggestions for educational policy.

For many years, educators, administrators, or managers, researchers have debated over which variables influence student’s academic performance. A growing body of evidence suggests that schools can make a difference in terms of students’ academic performance and a substantial portion of that difference is attributable to teachers

Every educational system at every level depends heavily on teacher for the execution of its programs. Obadara (2005), viewed teachers to be highly essentials for a successful operation of the educational system and as a key to the educational development. Without teachers with relevant behavioral traits, educational facilities cannot be used to facilitate academic performance of students.

Undoubtedly, the success and role of every educational system depends on the role of teachers input into the system. Content based pedagogical knowledge (Sandt 2007), can be described as practical knowledge of teaching. It includes knowledge of approaches to school topics, teacher’s knowledge of teaching procedures such as effective strategies for planning classroom practice, behavioral management techniques, and different ways of presenting facts. He described pedagogical knowledge of teachers as of special interest because it identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It presents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems or issues are organized, represented, and adopted to the diverse interest and abilities of learners and presented for institution. Pedagogical content knowledge is the categories most likely to distinguish the understanding of the content specialist from that of the pedagogue.

Teachers therefore have been identified as the heart of educational process and the main determinants of role and effectiveness of its result. The main bottleneck to improvement of students’ academic performance is recruitment of good and role teachers. He noted that teacher’s behavior is not only influenced by their beliefs but also by their attitudes towards teaching. Attitudes are defined as internal beliefs that influenced personal action and are learned indirectly through ones experience and exposures.

Teacher’s attitudes towards teaching include the following:-

1. Work value
2. Teachers self esteem
3. Teachers self-efficacy
4. Teachers expectation
5. Teachers’ commitment and so on.

Attitudes teachers hold regarding students could be attitudes towards individual learners, group of classs of learners. This could include liking (affection towards learners) enthusiasm to teach these specific learner(s). teachers are made likely to exhibit more enthusiasm in preparation and presentation of lessons where they are affectionate towards learners than when they are apathetic or indifference towards the student could be formed due to characteristics exhibited by the student (such as low social–economic status, poor discipline, physical appearance or special educational needs e.g speech difficulties (Dada and Alani,2007), that teachers personally find acceptable or unacceptable or attractive or repulsive.

It thus appear that teachers behavioral trait such as demographic traits, qualification, teaching process, teaching attitudes, and job satisfaction are important variables in teachers productivity and students’ academic performance.

When student in Business Studies could not perform very well, it invariably posit that the method of teaching and teachers qualification of personal characteristics should be subjected to empirical investigation in other to verify whether teaching methodology and teachers personal characteristics influence students’ academic performance.

Teachers’ method of teaching is a global approach to teach a particular lesson act as the objectives of the lesson. According to Stella (2000), she posited that the methodology sets the objectives of the lesson; act as thestudents’ motivator and consist of patterned behaviors that are definite step by which the teacher influenced learning and academic performance of students.

Evidence however abound that students are not performing well enough in Business Studies  as this research will be on the influence of teachers pedagogy and personal characteristics on academic performance of Business Studies students. As a student of Business Studies in Nassarawa  L.G.A, of Kano State, I have come to realized that students are not performing well in my department and this has become a problem for me to research on. This research work shall be researching on some factors that are likely to be considered as the cause of this predominant problem.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study was aimed at finding out influence of business studies teacher’s roles in teaching of business studies in public secondary schools in Nassarawa Local Government Area, Kano State.

The guest of this researcher was to investigate the problems facing teaching and learning in Business Studies Department.

Focusing its light on factors like:-

1. Teachers’ instructional role.
2. Teachers’ personal characteristics.
3. Teachers’ academic qualification.
4. Teachers’ professional qualification.
5. Teachers’ methods of teaching.
6. Teachers content knowledge.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between teachers personal role and students’ academic achievement. Hence, it aims at enhancing better and effective teaching and learning in Business Studies Department.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. How important is teacher’s rolein raising student achievement?
2. What are the roles of effective teachers towards student’s academic performance?
3. How important are teachers’ years of teaching experience to student’s academic performance?
4. How important is teachers content and mastery of knowledge to students’ academic performance?
5. How important are teachers’ professional certification and training to students’ academic performance?
6. What influence do teaching pedagogy and teachers personal characteristics have on students’ academic performance?

1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

HYPOTHESIS 1:-

HO: There is no significant relationship between teachers’ roles and students’ academic       performance.

H1:-There is significant relationship between teachers’ roles and student’s academic     performance

HYPOTHESIS 2:-

HO2:- There is no significant relationship between teacher’s years of teaching experience and students’ academic performance

H2:-There is significant relationship between teachers’ years of teaching experience and students’ academic performance.

HYPOTHESIS 3;-

HO3:- There is no significant relationship between teaching pedagogy and teachers personal characteristics on student’s academic performance.

H3:- There is significant relationship between teaching pedagogy and teachers personal characteristics on student’s academic performance.

1.6 SIGNIFICANT OF THE STUDY

The importance of this study is study lies on the fact that, it will enable student to identify those factors that hinder their excellent academic performance. To enable student yield positively and to upgrade their performance.

Also, the research work will give teachers the opportunity to apply teaching methodologies that would bring about high academic performance and also to play their own roles. It will enable the teachers to make use of good teaching techniques and attitudes towards teaching that is, adequately and competency in their method of teaching.

Furthermore, parents are their children’s first and most influential teacher. There are many different approaches to home education. An exploration of the teaching methods will help the parent to own educational goals for their children, and most importantly, their children’s individual learning styles, interest, and compatibility with the methods they have tried.

In addition, student will be useful in the society with the help of their academic performance as a result of their natural traits. A society with sound and mannered students will be free of hoodlums that is, a violent criminal especially one who is part of gang, and corrupt students.

1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study was limited to teachers’ role and personal characteristics just to enable the researcher to adequately collect accurate data for the study.

However, the study was limited to Business Studies student in Nassarawa Local GovernmentEducation alone because of limited time and expenses in producing the questionnaire and the time lag of making the instruments available to other schools in different institutions.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

For the purpose of this study, the following terms are defined as follows:-

Influence: The effect or impact that something or someone has on the actions, behaviors, attitudes, or outcomes of others. In the context of your research, “influence” refers to the role and impact of business studies teachers on the teaching and learning process of business studies in public secondary schools.

Business Studies Teacher’s Roles: The responsibilities, duties, functions, and behaviors exhibited by business studies teachers in the classroom and educational environment. This includes instructional practices, curriculum delivery, student assessment, classroom management, and other activities related to teaching business studies.

Teaching of Business Studies: The process of imparting knowledge, skills, and understanding of business-related subjects, concepts, principles, and practices to students in public secondary schools. This involves various instructional strategies, resources, and approaches employed by teachers to facilitate learning and achieve educational objectives in the field of business studies.

Public Secondary Schools: Educational institutions that provide secondary education and are funded and managed by government authorities or public entities. These schools cater to students typically between the ages of 12 to 18 and offer a standardized curriculum established by educational authorities.

Project – Influence of business studies teachers roles in teaching of business studies in public secondary schools