CONCEPT MAPPING STRATEGY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOL IN UYO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The essence of education is to become functional to the society and build a sustainable structure for life and development. Education as an instrument for excellence becomes the foundation for self and National Development. An educated “man” showcase an educated mind showing self confidence in all undertakings. Government is an important discipline in school. Its study creates awareness of the foundation, organs and functions of government as well as economic development of government. The study of government enables one to study and examine the direction of governance, principles and policies guiding any governmental administration. It is therefore, very pertinent that an individual becomes aware of the structure and how to adjust to government policies and functions. Government can be used to analyse the sequence of administration and study of specific regions. The study of government therefore promotes understanding of what is going on within the governmental setting. (The knowledge of government is to foster peace, patriotism and stability).
The consistent poor performance of students in government and lack of interest and attitude to the subject attest to the fact that is teaching has not been effective to guarantee academic performance of students. Regular observation shows that only a handful of students offer their subject and write at the school certificate level. It is pathetic to observe that despite the efforts of teachers and the fascinating nature of governmental agencies, there is a growing decadence in the teaching and learning of the subject in secondary schools and in Uyo Local Government Area in particular. History lessons have contrast to its fascinating nature.
Teaching methods fall into major categories teacher entered and students centred and approaches. Traditional classroom has been too teacher centred, dull and full of verbalism. It becomes therefore doubtful if practicing teachers are aware of the procedure for selection, combination and adoption of teaching strategies for effective and efficient teaching. Lecture method and the exposition talk and chalk teaching strategies are mostly adopted by government teachers.
Concept mapping is a set of structural or diagrammatic representation of concepts in hierarchical manner such that there is connection between two or more concept. Concept mapping is used to organize related information in a visual manner. Structuring the map allows students to see interrelationships in the information. Concept mapping instructional strategy can also be used to examine if students interest, attitude and performance can be improved in schools. Teachers role therefore become very important and involve leading the students to knowledge, and helping them to explain and sustain their interest in learning. Unfortunately, the way government is taught in secondary schools does not seem to meet the requirement of the National Policy on Education which demands for the knowledge of government e.g
- The training of the mind for the understanding of the world and the environment.
- The inculcation of National consciousness and National unity
- The acquisition of appropriate skills and the development of mental, physical, social abilities and competencies as equipment for the individual to live in and contribute to the development of the society (National Policy on Education, 2004).
Understanding between teachers and students for the purpose of modeling and sharing knowledge. The concept mapping can be illustrated in graphical tools and representation of knowledge e.g in enclosed circles, boxes and relationships between concepts indicated by a connection line liking two or more concepts together. There are two features of concept maps that are important in the facilitation of creative thinking namely, the hierarchical structure that is represented in a good and the ability to search for the characterize new cross links. Concepts are presented in hierarchical manner, the most general are positioned in the supervisor part of the map while the specific concepts and less general ones are positioned in the lower part of the map. It is believed that one of the reasons concept mapping is so powerful for the facilitation of meaningful learning is that it serves as a kind of template or scaffold to organize knowledge and to structure it even though the structure must be built up piece by piece with small units of interacting concepts and prepositional framework. Many other instructional strategies have been used in the instruction with little or no improvement in the learning abilities of students. This study is therefore conducted to find out if concept mapping strategy can facilitate teaching and learning and subsequently improve academic performance of learners.
CONCEPT MAPPING STRATEGY AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOL IN UYO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA