• No results found

1957 XVII 623 - 627

1. Allen, G. 1971 QE Cit

2. Katahn , H. et al

1966 2E. ill.

3.

HcManus, M.

1971

..QJ2. Ci t.

4.

Mitchell, K. and Ng. K.

1972 QE

Cit.

5.

Donner, L. and Gnerney, B.

19692E..

Cit.

6.

Jolmson, S. and Sechrest, L.

1968

Cit.

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reinforcement group counselling in forstering academic performance.

HYPOTHESES FOR 1RE STUDY

This s~udy seeks to test the following null

hypotheses:-(1) There will be no significant difference in the academic performance of subjects in the experimental group and those subjects in the control group

(2) There win be no signific::mt difference in the degree of academic involvement of subjects in the experimental group and those in the control group.

(3) There will be no sigi;ificantdifference in the academic performance of subjects treated under model-reinforcement group counselling and those subjects treated under

desensitization group counselling.

(4)

There will be no significant difference in the degree

of academic involvement of subjects treeted under

model-reinforcement group counselling and those subjects treated under desensitization group counselling.

(5)

There will be no significant djfference in the degree

of academic involvement of those subjects treated in general groups, triads and dyads.

All hypotheses to be tested at.OS level.

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., 730

SIGNIFICANCEOFTHESTUDY

A knowledge of the (;!ffects of group counselling on acedemi,c pe.rf'orrnance , obviously has potential value from <'1 number of view poirrt.s , One can expect on a vt.':rygeneral level:

that te:'lchers and counse Ll.ors would benefit from an Incr-eased understanding of the dynamics of group counselling strategyo From this study, it is hoped thi.4.t the findings will equip te;lchers, educat.LonaL psychologists and guidance counsellors with some of the t.herapeutic packages that could as si.s+ students in Lncreas i.nq the degree of their academi.c involvement, thereby improving th.:=ir academic perf ormance,

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METHODOLCGY

DESIGN

The study is a 3x3x2 filctori.'ildesign consisting of three levels of treatment modality - model-reinforcement

group counselling, systematic desensit.ization group counselling and the control, used on three forms of group dynamics - general groups, triadic group and dyadic group, Eirrengedon the basis of sex male and female (Figure 2}o The design,

theoretically g~ve rise to eighteen c~lls, however, with a colLcpsIb.Lecontrol, there were blelve trec-tmentgroups and four control groups to work witho

F'IGURE 2

EXPERIMEf'...'TALDESIGN (3x3x2) FOR THE STUDY

'..

r-/; ,\ : f.::'.'

Ilr· ...

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75.

SAMPLE

Subjects = To have a wide and representative sample, the school rec,:)rdsfrom classes one to four students from two

co-educational secondary schools of gralieone statu89 in Ijebu-Ode a town in Ogun state of Nigeria, were examined. The t~)tal

percenta;~'emarks in the last sessional examinations were convorted into standar-dscores. The standard acor-es were later arranged in a descending order; the t~p students up to 0.82 standard score were taken as high achievers and bottom students with less than - 0.82 standar-d scores were considered as low achievers. From this group of low achievers, the final sample thus arrived at, for

convenience of the study consisted of randomly selected 72 male and 72 female class four students. Their age ranged from 13 to 17 years with a mean and standa.rd deviatinn of 14.90 and 1.92 years respectively.

INSTRUMENTS

The measuring instruments used in conducting the study are:-(1) Self Appraisal of Academic Ability Scale.

(2) English Achievement Test (3) Mathematics Achievement Test

(4) UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY

Progressive Matrices Test.

'I'his study Wi:~.S conduc+od in two parr.s0 'I'h,~first part consisted a preliminary valiJation and stand;)rdizi'lb_on of the

instruments for meesurLnq thl2 (~egree of ,~ciJdemic involvement and te2cher made ;,.chtev2IDcnth:sts. Tht~S0C()nr~part forrned the major studyo

ThE:rreliminc>ry study attemph=;d to expLore some of +r.osc pez-soneLi.t.y and environmental fact.or-s influencing ac::;.dl.-'mic pl2rformance -3.ndthus used such information to stand;rrdize and validate t.he Lns+rurnent; for obtaining the c}O'qreeof "lc·2.dEmic Lnvo.Ivment., the acc.~·_;pnjc: i;:nage and the ,mvironmental press on achievinq .md 1':)\.\7 - ach i.evtnq stuc1f:ntso 'I'he instrument is coILed ·:the Self Apprai.seL of i\c<Cl.-iemicAbility SCFde" (S,~,"~j\S)o

The long sear-ch :for cor!:''21;'.h:s of thE!unaccounted for var i.ance in academic pcrforrnance , ho.:; E'ore recently led to

TL:acheriS corarncrrt s in report cards are one index of student - teacher interactiGD which may be reI :'l.tcdto var Lance in academic p--zf•..rmcncc not

acoounted Tor [X! .,hility tests alone" One .)th>:'r f;'l.ctor

'I'hc attitude which

·the Lnd.i.viduaL has tow..l:d :-;imsel£ CIS '3. student .'mdtoward

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11.

education as an activity is important.

strang et al1 indicate that they

find:-"Many poor academic performers are held back by fear •••••••• A vague anxiety may give rise to feelings of inadequacy, help lessness and hopelessness. Their idea of themselves is permeated with lack of self confidence and self esteem."

Fernald2 has emphasised the need for self-confidence and feelings of success as a necessary component of academic improvement and involvement.

Changes of attitude in students who have undergone

educ8tional group counselling session are detectable. Students indicate effective changes through statements

as:-"I never cared much for reading before, now I find that is stimulating"

"I never read to prepare for a t st.or examin2.tion but now I know the importance of preparation for examination."

"The counselling session really helped me, I'm now getting much more out of school".

---.---1. Strang, R. et ale: Problems in the Improvement of Reading New York; McGraw Hill

1955.

2. Fernald, G.: Remedial Techniques in Basic School Subjects;

New York, McGraw Hill

1943.

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suggest a favourab.Le change in attitude toVJ?rc educational pnde~vour1 but nre they vdlid measures of chnnge in feeling?

,.I.. _ l:]-.c changes signific'1nt1 In which areas specifically do

.;tudents chenge their attitudes as a consequt=ncecf counselling?

T'his prelimini'lry study <lttempts to i.lnSHertht.::sequest.Lons t.hr'ouqh an explanatory study of those personality traits of passing and failing students; and also using such infor'11.::ltion to devoLop, st.andaz-dLze and veLi.d-at.ea new instrument in

obtaining the degree of 'lci1demiclnvolvernent of Achieving and non·-achieving students. The instrument, of course, will be an inventory to measure cer t.arn non-intellectual fact.or s as socLat.edwith aca.lemi,c succes s,

'J1]--:-ing the pilot study, an open endec1questi.onnat.re was

-..__.:.._~•.•(:.L_./. ),:c or.:: hundr-edclass four student.s of a

co-educational secondary school ~ in Abeoku+a , Ogunstate of

and Englisho Theywere :'lsked to list nll the reasons !:"esponsible

for +hei1:' ';;Y.";>.ri.eso Over three hundr-edst.at.ements were received.

The r2searcher then prepared a frequency distribution of the

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79.

d.istinct statements and edited items suggested by at least sixty students (Le. having at least 3Y!ofrequency). These reasons were analysed to have centred around three main factors

namely:-(i) persistence (ii) independence

(iii) interest (i.e. attitude. to school)

A tota,lof thirty statements were thus classified into

three categories of personality traits - persistence, independence, and interest. Each of these categories consists of a set of ten statements relating to each of the personality trait used in the final scale called "Self Appraisal of Academic Ability Scale" (SAAAS).

The SAAAS consists of two parts (A) and (B). P'-3,rt"A"

deals with the respondents' particulars (name, sex, class, school and age). Part "B" is a 30 - item questionna.ire.

What .~Jherespondent does, is simply to Lndf.c= te how far he thinks, each statement applies to himself by putting a .ircle round the number in front of each statement (Appendix A). The final score for each trait will now be the algebraic total of all the

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ten statements.

The Psychometric Properties of SAJ~S

The 30 - item questionnaire had a test retest reliability of

0.78

within one month apart. This, apparently shows, that the students' responses were tolerably stable over time.

The nature of the scale makes it impossible to arrive at a definite conclusion about its validity. 1

Validity, Mooney said must be determined in terms of the particular purpose and the particular 9ituation. While it is probably true

that conventional measures of validity are difficult to obtain for an instrument of this kind, it appe8rs nevertheless that the SAAAS should at least satisfy three minimum

requirements:-(1) students recognise their own personality traits, (2) students find these traits listed on the scale

0)

students are willing to record them.

This study assumes that if these three conditions are met, it should be possible for students to assess themselves within the frame work of their academic ability. Hence for the validation of this instrument the following assumption was made.

The low achieving students would have low academic assessment of themselves than achieving students.

1. Mooney, R. L.: "Exploratory research on students'

problems" Journal of Educational Resoarch,

1948, 37 218 - 224.

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81.

Validation of SAAAS

In valid2ting the SAAAS, the subjects used, consisted of

407 secondary'students in Classes four and five of a - co-educa.tional insti tution in Abeokuta, Ogun state of Nigeria. 'I'heschool which they attended is one of the larp;estco-educ?tional secondc:.ry school in Abeokuta municipality. The city popu Lvt.i.cn is highly heterogeneous in terms of tribe, religion, and local government origins, and this heterogeneity is reflected in the school

Approximately, one - fourth of the schc.oL pupulaticn was sampled. The questionnaires were administered by the researcher during the school break timeo This period was chosen for the administration of the questionnaires, because that is the only time, students are free "Tithin the school period. In this way, it was possible to secure a rea sonably representative sample whid.0 retaining the administrative convenience of the school.

In questionnaire of this kind the problem of a student's honesty is a serious one, particularly when there is a chance, as here, tha,t somebody else may check his ,responses. As an example, Olson1 using the "Woodworth - Mathews Pez-sona.l

1. Olson, W.: "The waiver of sLgria.turx-a in per-sonal, data repo:rts"•

.Journalof tlpp] jed Ps¥cbc1 o~ 1936 20 442 - 450.

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questionnare was left unsignedo Ther.8for~, in this pilot study, a supplementary instruction sheet was attached to the qUEstionnaire explaining that the study was being conducted to gather information on l~~ students perceive their academic abilities and instructing them not to put their names on the questf.onnai.re, They were~ however, to put their names on the instruction sheets and this handed in for attendance record. A system of,discrete pinholes picked through both the instruction sheet and the questionnaire made it possible to later, match the two and identify the

questionnaire 0

Information on the relevant variables were abstracted from the students· records in the school. Only two of these variables require further definition. These are:

(1) low achieving students and (2) uchieving students.

The measuromcrrt of school achievement itself is a difficult problem, since standardized tests of attainment are not available in the country. Consequently, end-of-session examination results for each of the first three years in the secondary school were used. ThE: low achieving scudent;s are those in lowest or fourth

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83.

quartile of the class with a scholastic average of

25%

or less. On the other hand, the achieving students are those in upper or second quartile of the cla.ssvIith a schola.stic aver-age of

75%

and above.

The final score for each trait was the algebraic total of all the ten statements in ea.chof the three categories i.e.

persistence, independence and interest. The mean socre

was computed for each of the variables and personality traits which was relevant vfith respect to assumption earlier stated.

The assumption W8,stested by computing the t-test of the difference between the means of low-·achieving and achieving students:

(i) Persistence t value is

2.14 .05

Achieving

(x

=

3.3

SD

= 00$)

LO\-1Achieving (x

= 2.6,

SD =

.04)

(ii) Independence t value is

3.39 .05

Achieving (x

=

3 •

.?~

SD

=

O.?)

Low-Achieving (x

= 2.4,

SD

= 0.4)

(iii) Interest - t value is

2.11 .05

Achieving (x

= 3.5,

SIl

= 0.8)

Low - Achieving

(i = 2.8,

SD

= .03)

The assumption for the validation of the SAAAS was confirmed, since the differences between these means were

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3ig::':_~icant at

0.5

level of conf'Ldcnce , It is therefore concluded that thr,se findings pr-escrrt prima facie evidence f0r the construct volidity of the scalG.

CONSTRUCTIOG Al\TD Vl.,LID.}TION OF AClfL2.:VCI!ENTTESTS IN EN.BLISH .•

m:c

I''L4.THEJV1LTICS

Academicachievomunt is measur-ed in a var-i cty of vlays.

Some of the differences in fi.ndLn=smaybe attributable to those variations. In aomeva+ud'i.oe , ach i.ovemen'b is measured by objective tests of Cnglish cmd Mathematics, in others, verbal reasoninr: tests are used. i\. few stud i.ea have reported anaLyses based on pexf'orrnane-e in programmedlearning t.asks, in which the time allowed for these t?_sks maybe an .impo.rtarrt consideration in itself. External and/or internal eXGmination marks are found frequently in the literature.

vJhile all these measures may \oJe11show'fairly high inter-correlations, they still represent alternative definitions of ach i.evemorrt , which COU,:;''';' nave rather different personality

correlat;;S. Academic achievement , surely 'impli8s th;:~.tstuclents have been assessed in t8rms of their per.f'ormance on thl~ courses they have

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actually t.aken in school. Thus, tests \ of v~rb81

as.

reasoning, though correlated \.;ithacademic achievemerrt , are not direct measur-es of success in schooL Similarly, Objective tests of English and Hathematics provide only two components of school achievement, but then, the two contribute substanti2l1y

in determining the academic attainment of any student. Passes in these two subjects are needed in pursuing any course, at the post secondary sChool level, h8nce t~sts .inthe two subjects are taken as measures of academic achievemento

In st.andar'dIzLnq the achievement tests in English and MathemJtics, thirty class four students of ~ co-educational

secondary school Abeokuta, Ogun Stat8 of Nigeria, were used in the studyo Since marks in t.heSChool examinations are based on the question papers which differ from school to school, the subjective evaluation may differ from teacher to teacher; the researcher employed the use of multiple choice e>bjc:ctive

questions based on five - response type of the cognitive content of the instruction activity in Mathematics and English, to be respectively called Mathematics achievement test (r~T) and

English achievement test

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(EAT)o

The test items of MAT and EAT were developed by a team of qualified and practising teachers of Mathematics and English respectively. The questions were based on the specific instructional objectives used to teach these subjects in classes one to four in the secondary school, so as to ensure the content validity of the tests. A panel of aSS8ssers, in addition, established a face validity for these tests by simply inspecting their contents before and after the tests were taken. They made sure that the contents of the achievement tests reflected those in the West African Secondary School leaving certificate syllabus.

The procedure of standardization involved the administration of the achievement tests in English and Mathematics to the thirty class four students randomly selected for .the study. Using the t0st-retest method of determine the reliability of the achievement tests, the same tests were administered again to the subjeoto, a month later, without notifying them about the repeated tests.

The subjects' marks in the tests were compiled for the two attempts. Their mean scores were computed and their

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scores on the two attempts weze subjecb:~d to cor.reIat.LoneL analysis to give the followinq

r(:;sults:-(1) English r\chiev'2ment :rest

Female Students - ~1;70.0; ~2=7100; r Mixed - Xl

=

64.0; )(2 =67.0; r (2) Ma:chem2ticsAchi.evement; Test.'

.860; /. 005 dG5; , DG5

MC'lleStudents

Nixed

Xl = 64•.0; 1-:2=68.0; r = .920; _.005 A1=6300; )(1=6300;X2=6500; r=0870;i.o05 Female Students

The statistical packaqe 0f PC,,"lrsoncor reLat Lonwas used, and the correlation s tat.LstLceL significc:mce of .05 level W"lS

chosen, The data were contiroLl.ed fr.)r the sex of the subjects e That is, the results obtei.ned for the males and females ",;ere Co~pi'lreGto see whether or not sex contributes to the observed degree of correlations. The obtained corrc::lation coefficients for each subject is high and sicnif Lc.mt , indicating that there is signific'O'.nt correlation between the performance 0f the subjects in the teacher madeachievement tests in English and Mathematics;

adrninish:red in the first week and their per+v-rmance in the same tests, a monbhLat.cr, ':.':·,ereliability of t:te d("'nievemcntt~~sts

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is therefore c()nfirmedo

The Ei,T consist.ed of 50 muLti.pLc ch .Lce Lt.ems, whLch W2reJi viC~d into three main types t(' ~c scor c.t separi"t:::ly - rei'lding comprehensLcn , voc-zbul.ary nnd work knowLedqe ; usage, inculding spelling, punctuaticn an(l rhymes (Appendix i3) 0 The MI\Tcovered both traditLmal mathematics and modern mathemat.Lcs , AlISO items in the test were intercorrelated and subject to principal component; analysis (AppendLx C). The first five components were rotated oy varimax teChnique an~ two of them were found not to differentiate rather clearly b2tween the trc_ditional end modern types. One should therefore not

r0gard "traditional" and "modern" as :",10 ,Jistinct branches of Mathematics0 Indeed, the cor reLat Lon within the types

,.-)f itE.::mswere mcstLy vsitive

Pru..-;nssive Hatric2s Test (PMT)

hs s+ud.Lcs had shown that intelligence is known

to contribute substantially to dCeJJ,emicper:"nrmance, it thus follows that, f()r one to know the true effl~ct ',if any therapc:utic package, on aCdd0micpprfJrmance, one needs to central for mental abi.lity. FIJr this reasc.n, t.he use of "l'\avenr:'r:)grcssive

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Ma.trices Test" in this study is to act RS moderating variable.

Progressive Matrices Test (PMT) developed by J. C. Raven,1

in England is made up of maxtrix items presenting to the

subjects many two-dimensional analogies problems of increasing complexity. These problems require analyticRl and intergrating opeza't iona of the kind called "insight throueh visual survey";

Raven, following Spearman's theory, desired to measure the abili ty to perceive relationships. Factor-i.a.l stu-Ii.es of the test suggest that it is a meRsure largely of a "general

factor" which is interpreted by Raven as "Spearman's education of relations and education of cOl-'relates".

Since its public~tion in 1938, the test has been very widely used in England as well as other countries with a wide variety of groups - children, adolescents ann adults, both normal and abnormal. Freeman2 holds that the test

appears to be among the most promising of the non-verbal tests and according to Anastasi3, this test is

regarded by most British psychologists as the best available

1. Raven, J. C. - Gu~de tc Progressive Matrices: Set A, B. C, D, E Hand K Lewis and Co. London 1960

2. Freeman, F. S.: Theory and Practice of Psychological Testing Holt; Rinehart and Winston Inc.

1965.

3.

Anastasi, A.: Psychological Testing (Jrd.). New York:

Macmillan

1968. 261 -

263.

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measure of "g".

In Nigeria. while some attempts were made to adapt

this test, a number of rose:-;rchersused it, as it is, and widely different views have been expressed by them about the validity of this test. In a preliminary study by this

researcher an attempt was therefore made at estimating the validi ty of the PHT. The validity of the PMT has been assessed by using two criteria - (a) age and (b) school examination marks, and the reliability has been determined by spilt-half technique; using a sample of Nigerian students.

The sample consisted of 100 boys and 100 girls from two different schools (Age 12 - 16 years). students in each age group were selected randomly from the sch 01 popuhtion but the schools were selected incidentally.

Means were very low compared to Raven's 50th percentile norm for British pupils but they increased with increase in age, and compared well with those obtained by other Nigerian investigators for the same ages. The correlation between PMT scores and age, and marks, were signific~t in all cases.

That is, the validity co-efficients do speak v'~ry high of

the test.

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