School Social Environment and Students Academic Performance
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In recent times, concern about the fallen standard of education has been on the increase and the poor performance of students in our different secondary schools. School social environment revolves around persons who get in contact with the student such as the teacher, student to students (peers) and others are the physical environment that may influence the school social climate like market, stadium, parks, hotels, event centres, open space etc. (Matsushita, 2019). These may be unwanted and distracting phenomena to academic performance.
Environment according to Longman dictionary of contemporary English is defined as the situation, event or people that influence the way in which people live or work. According to Mach (2011), school environment is referred to as the school culture or the school climate. The emphasis here is on the individual or students operating within a given educational content. According to Adeyemo (2019), environment is the total circumstance surrounding a group under two features, the social features consisting of the culture, beliefs, ideas, ethics, and attitude of people operating in the environment, and the biological features. For the environment to be considered good and conducive, these factors must be well articulated.
The environment can be named in relation to where people are found, for instance the home, church, school, village and town.
According to Nicholas (2012), the school is the first environment that provides the child with the opportunity to interact with a large number of people outside the home environment. It is the place where the child spends a sizeable amount of time when he wakes up in the morning, he goes to school, stays there till late in the afternoon.
School Social Environment and Students Academic Performance
Above all, school social environment is the learning environment for the child and other socialization experience. The primary purpose of the school as an organization is to provide learning experience for the child, which aims at promoting the total growth and development of the child. It should be noted that the school environment can help the child to actualize his\her objectives or it can hinder the realization of these goals.
According to Nicholas (2012), environment may be loving or frightening, stimulating or boring, conducive or inhibiting to the development of educational goals, the form and structure of a school is dictated by the buildings, therefore, the materials used for the building should be strong and reliable, the architectural design should also be considered in order to give the school a beautiful outlook.
Social interaction is conceptualized as an exchange of ideas, thought or feelings between two or more individuals which can be studied in group of two, three or larger social group (Ibia, 2016). He opines that by interacting with one another, people design rules, instructions and systems within which basic seek to live. These interactions form the basis for social structure between members and the groups.
Social environment is a combination of human made while environment itself is one of the most important gifts of nature to man, it supplies the resources needed by man for his existence and comfort (Colewell, 2010).
Meanwhile, the school one attends is the institutional environment that sets the parameters of a student’s learning experiences. A school can either open or close the door to academic achievement (Johnson, 2014). The school social environment is influenced by various elements such as; school organization and management, school climate, attitude of both teachers and students, and the school socio-economic environment.
According to Herbert (2019), the distinctive characteristic of social interaction among people, is that human beings “interpret or define each other’s action instead of merely reacting to each other’s action,” as interaction emphasizes the meaning that we attach to people’s behavior shaped by our interaction with the larger social society.
The relationship between teacher and student in learning environment influences a student to develop either positive or negative attitude toward school. Students are motivated to learn if the learning environment is safe and supportive. This means that positive relationship between teacher and student will lead to developing a positive attitude toward school while a negative relationship leads to a negative attitude toward school. The teacher needs to develop a caring relationship with their students in order to develop in-depth students’ understanding of learning and positive attitude toward school (Labaree, 2010).
Luckmann and Berger (2016) stated that social reality is literally constructed from our social interactions. Most importantly, the school buildings should be taken away from the main street to prevent accident. But the building should be of moderate distance to the children (Flavell, 2011).
Isangidighi (2018) stated that if a child decline is likely to be partly caused by the event of the school that orient him for failure. Many children do not do well in school because of what events in their respective schools mean to them and learners are uncomfortable with the ways instructions are given out, which the tone of social interaction is not visible.
The assumption of this study is that school social environment variables are important factors which influence student’s academic performance. It is against this background that this study undertakes to investigate how student academic performance in government is influence by school social environment variables in secondary schools in the study area.
School Social Environment and Students Academic Performance
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Since quality education is a product of learning environment or institutional setting that will definitely elicit a positive impact on the learner educational achievement in life, the environment is believed to provide a practical avenue for the child learning outcome to prevail.
An attitude toward educational excellent here centres on the positiveness of children’s feeling, perceptions and beliefs about school and the various learning tasks. To be able to adjust adequately and participate in learning and social activities, children have to relate well with their teachers. This is more so because of the role teacher play in the life of learners. This is why William (200), opines that a conducive environment enhance effective learning outcomes. If the teaching role is well articulated, the academic good will be achieved.
The need to investigate how students’ academic performance in government may be influenced by the barrier of school social environment variables, is vital since it is common knowledge that students academic performance in the subject still remains low at various examinations. Students declining performance in the subject of government is a healthy situation for the development of socialization of citizens. Many fathers may be alluded by the poor state of students performances in various examinations in government.
It has been established that peer group interaction plays an important role in the academic achievement of students (Ife, 2002; Okon, 2003). The task of this research study is to investigate the role of school social environment variables typified by peer group interaction, teachers-students relationship and school management styles in the secondary school students in the academic performance in government.
