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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLECTUAL ACHIEVEMENT ORIENTATION AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS AMONG BIOLOGY STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

This study is designed to find out the relationship between intellectual achievement orientation and academic success among Biology students in College of Education, Ekiadolor-Benin. It is the purpose of this study to find out how intellectual achievement orientation of students help them to attain academic success. Students are usually at the end of the year moved to the upper class which is superior to the end. It proceeds on the best of his performance in the examination. Good teachers are always judge by the worth and the achievement of students.

Students in various schools come from diverse home background and environments. There are children of high ability with apparent ideal environment who fail to achieve what is expected of them. By what is expected it is meant a standard against which the child’s achievement is measured and this standard is of the level of innate ability of the child. When there is upward movement there is academic achievement by the students. The greater the understanding of the child of his various innate or inborn capacities and his potential capabilities, the better equipped will be, not only in teaching him but in estimating how much we can hope to achieve by our teaching. The first essential thing in all good teaching and classroom work is that the teacher understands the capabilities and background of his students.

Students’ capabilities to learn have been hinged on the concept of intelligence. Has been a great concept of significance in psychological theory and education practice. Intelligence according to James Elliot (1979) determines the child’s basic capacity to learn, while achievement deals with the acquiring of knowledge and skills resulting from teaching and learning. It is one basic fact that children or individuals driver fundamentally and so it is never possible to predict exactly how a human being will react to any given situation. If any one observes the people around and thinks of the motivation for their behaviour, one is also sure to be struck by the fact that every person varies or differs from time to time. This depends on what is being around. According to Hebbe (1949), there are two meaning of intelligence; ‘A’ represents the innate potentials the capacity for development, a fully innate property that amounts to the possession for good brain. The other intelligence ‘B’ is all round in everyday life at school or at work.

Intelligence ‘B’ results from the interaction of the innate with the environment and is unlike intelligence ‘A’ which is observable and measurable. Intelligent behaviour is therefore partly acquired characteristics. The efficiency of the learning process will depend on two things.

1.    The level of innate potential.

2.    The amount and quality of stimulation which the environment provides. If either restricted or inadequate, it will set limit to level of efficiency is something directly given in nature which we can succeed in isolating. It is a concept found useful in describing human conduct.

Different opinions have their views about intelligence but is agreed that is required to do well at school and in fact in intellectual undertakings or work of any kind with an outstanding high degree of success. In intelligence, there are the following abilities-verbal fluency, numerical ability, perceptual ability, memory and inductive abilities. All these abilities when present help in developing a high resounding scholastic ability, which helps in achieving high academic success.

          Different abilities are inherited but developed through exercise with appropriate material and then shown by environment pressures. According to Venrnon (1972) attainment is channeled by the content of the curriculum and the kind of training the school provides and this depends to a greater extent on interest and on personality quality and industry on the part of the learner.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

It is largely observed in the classroom especially today that students do not have equal anxiety towards learning. The level of achievement is not the same because some are noticed to be high achiever while some are low achievers owing to various factors that are either internal or external to the learners. The truant, the drop out and the carefree students are glaring problems in the classroom. It is mentally very important that few professionals who are mentally balanced and alert to influence these aforementioned groups. The problem of this study is therefore to sample the views of students as to know how various factors responsible for academic success. It is in light of this that the following questions are thought necessary for consideration.

1.    Is happiness responsible or significant for this academic success?

2.    Does high intellectual achievement orientation lead to high academic success?

3.    Does high academic achievement affect ones emotions?

4.    Does differences in sex play any significant role in determining one’s intellectual achievement orientation?

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The primary purpose of this study is to find out the relationship between intellectual achievement orientation and academic success among Biology students in College of Education, Ekiadolor-Benin. The study will in addition focus attention on how intellectual achievement orientations of students affect their academic performance and their emotions. To achieve these objectives attempt were made to:

1.     Determine whether there is any significant relationship between intellectual achievement orientation and happiness, academic success and sex of the respondents.

2.Make recommendation regarding the role intellectual achievement plays in determining happiness and academic success among Biology students in College of Education, Ekiadolor-Benin.

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

For the purpose of this study, the following assumptions have been made:

1.    There is no significant relationship between happiness and academic performance.

2.There is no significant relationship between high intellectual achievement and high academic performance.

3.There is no significant relationship between high intellectual achievement orientation and emotion.

4.There is no significant relationship between sex and academic performance.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of this study will serve as an eye opener for teachers, parents, and the society at large to factors which play important functions in determining the academic success of students in schools. When teachers are aware that students are differently oriented academically even though the capacity to achieve academically is in the child, they will be in better position to help and such students to academic success.  This study will be of great value to teachers because they will be able to take into consideration individual differences arising from intellectual abilities and environmental pressures. The study will also suggest ways of solving the problems emanating from individual’s home that militate against his achievement in school work.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Improper filling of questionnaires by students posed a great problem of getting the projected number of questionnaire. Some students either by omission or commission left some questions unanswered. Information on academic achievement and emotional state were unanswered by some students. This affects the number of response expected. This study covers the whole College of Education, Ekiadolor-Benin. The following Biology Department were chosen.

1.    Biology/Mathematics

2.Biology/Integrated Science

3.Biology/Computer Science

This was done to get information from these departments in the College. These departments were selected to evaluate how much students in these different categories of the Departments are oriented towards academic achievement.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Academic success:- For the purpose of the study, academic success means passing examination.

Academic achievement:- This is the attainment or ability to perform schools tasks which may be general or specific to a given subject matter. Academic achievement is broken into four levels to serve the purpose of this study.

i)             Excellent

ii)            Good

iii)          Not so good

iv)          Poor

Internal control:- Refers to the perception of positive or negative events as being a consequence of one’s own action and under personal control.

External control:- Refers to the perception of positive or negative events as being unrelated to one’s behaviour in certain situations and therefore beyond personal control.

Intellectual:- Appealing to requiring the exercise of intellect giving to mental pursuits.

Orientation:- Bring into clearly understood relations to know.

Success:- Attainment of position.

Intellect:- Knowing and reasoning faculties of the mind.

Academic drive:- The tendency to work with energy and persistence at something deemed important academically.

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