1957 XVII 623 - 627
4. Weiner, UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY B.: 1972 Ibid
mediate between perception of an achievement task and the final performance. In another study by Falbo1 individuals have been
shown to view the causes of their successes and failures as principlally being due to their ability, their efforts, th e difficulty of the task and/or bad lucke
Other studies on academic performance include those of Bakare2 who was interested in finding the relationship between anxiety and performance; he observed that it-does not
appear that test anxiety plays any role independent of general anxiety in the determination of academic performance. Durojaiye3 studied, the differences in the cognitive abilities of students of African and European parentage and noted that there was no significant difference. Akinboye
4
on his own ~1. Falbo, T.: "The achievement attributions of kindergarteners".
Developmental psychology
1975 11
2. Bakare, C. G. M.: Phenomenal self concept, anxiety and academic performance, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis.
Columbia University
1969.
3.
Durojaiye, M.O.A.: A New introduction to educational psychology; Ibadan Evans1970
4.
Akinboye, J.O. study Habit Modification: study attitudes change and academic performance UnpublishedMasters dissertation, University of Ibadan,
1974.
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
studied habit modification, attitude changes and academic performance.
His inference was that, if study habits of individuals are oorre{;"";~y modified, then, the level of their academic performance would increase.
In another separate study Morakinyo1 investigated students' attitudes towards education and how these relate to their academic and
psychosocial problems in the learning process. He was able to find that negative attitude towards education are related to poor academic performance and poor psychosocial adjustements in schools.
. 1
Akinade recently studied the influence of peer group on performance and observed that social acceptability, adjustment to school
environment and self-acceptance affect academic performance.
From these studies, one comes to the conqlusion that several variables are related to academic performance.
1. Morakinyo, A.: Students' attitudes towards education their problems in th8 learning process and academic performance. Unpublished M.Ed.
dissertation, University of Ibadan,
1978.
2. Akinade, E. A.: A study of peer-group influence on self-acceptance9
adjustment, and academic p'erformance of some N!geria~ secondary school students. Unpublished Master's dissertation University of Ibadan,
1982.
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
31.
Empirical Studies on Academic Performance
The problem of poor academic performance has existed in
schools for many years; and the problem has been open to investigation and much research has been conducted. Teacher's evaluation of pupil performance has long been a subject of interest to educators and those interested in academic achievement. Ideally, the marks assigned by teachers are solely a function of assessed performance in the
classroom. In actual practice, howe~er, teacher's assessments are influenced by a wide variety of variables other than the pupil's academic performance. According to Bloom and Peters 1 there are
three sources of variation in academic grades:
(i) errors in judgment
(ii)
differences among students in achievement motivation and (iii) differences in standards from teacher to teacher and fromschool to school.
Errors in judgments of teachers provide a major difference in conceptualising marks. Thus, th e teacher assigns marks on the basis of her perception and evalua.tion of the child's performance
---,---1 • Bloom, B. S. and Peters, F. R.:
prediction scales
The use of academic for counselling and selecting college
The free Press of
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
in the classroom. Such evaluations include not only the teacher's perception of the pupil's academic p,;rformance; but also his non .•.
academic beha.viour including such variables as personality
characteristics, appearance, interpersonal interaction with peers and the teacher, classroom manners. etc.
Thus, one might expect some difference between teacher's assessments of grades and achievement test scores despite the fact that they both measure school achievement. A number of prior studies support this notion, finding relatively low correla.tions between achievement test scor~s and marks received.
In a study by Miner1 the structure of achievement assessments
has been studied empirically by subjecting twenty different achievement measures to a factor analysis; which ¥ielded a clearly defined three - factor structure. From her analysis, it would appe2x that pupils are assessed relatively independently on each of these factors:
(a) objective achievement defined by all the intelligence measures and most of the standard achievement test scores.
(b) early citizenship defined by early measures of citizenship and marks,
---1. Minner, B. C.: "Three factors
0"
school a.chievement"The Joumal of 6duca tional Research 1967
60, 370 - 376.
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
33.
(c) high school achievement defined primarily by class marks.
A pupil in the classroom may fail or succeed on tests given by the teacher. It is assumed that the teacher searches for causes that explain the outcome achieved by the pupil. The ca.uses that the teacher uses to explain the outcome may,have an effect on his or her expectation concerning the pupil's future achievement, as pointed out by Bar-Ta11 and Dweck2• In another study Rosenthal and Jacobson
3
noted that the teacher's expectations may in turn influence pupils' achievement beheviour.---1. Bar-Tal, D.: "Interactions of teachers and pupils"
in E. Frieze, D; Bar-Tal and J.S. Carol (Eds) New approaches to social problems;
Applications of attribution theory. San Francisco 2. Dweck, C. S. a.nd Gretz, T. E.: "Attribution and Le-vrned
helplessness" in J.H. Harvey, \'T. Ickes and R. Kidd (Eds) New directions in attributions research 2 Hillsiale N. J. Lawrence Elbaum Associates
1978.
3.
Rosenthal, R. and Jacobson, L.: PYgmalion in the Classroom.New York: Holt, Rinehort and Winston.
1968.
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN LIBRARY
A number of studies have investigated. the effects of a pupil's performance on the teacher's perception of causality. The results obtained in these studies were somewhat conflicting. ~lhile Johnson,
1 2 3
et al ; Beckman and Ross et al found that the pupils' performance may lead teachers to somewhat biased causal perception of the pupils' success and failure; Beckman
4
Brandt et 8.15
and Ames6 did not find any bias in teachers' causal perceptions. The first thre,estudies found thatteachers tended to take credit when the pupils performed well and tended to attribute the responsibility to the pupil when the pupil performed poorly. The latter three stud.ies showed that teachers tended to take the responsibility for pupils' failure and to give credit to
1. Johnson, T., Feigenbaum, R. and vleiby,M.: "Some determinants and consequences of teacher's perception of causation" Jo~al of Educational Psychology
1964, 55, 237 - 246.
2. Beckman, L.: "Effects of Students' performance on teacher's and observers' attributions of causality", Journal of Educational Ps~chology,
1970, &1, 76 - 82.
3.
Ross, Lo Bierbraner, G. and Polly, S.: "Attribution of educational outcomes by professional and nonprofessional instructors" Journal of Personality and Social Psycholo .~.
19.14, 29 609 - 619
4.
Becklllar.,L.: "Teacher's and observers' perception of causality for child's performance." Journal of Educational Psychology1973 65 198 - 204.
5.
Brandt, L., Hayden, M., & Brophy, J.: "Teachers' at.tdtudcs and ascription of causality" Journal of Educational Psychology1975 52 61 - 70
6. Ames, R.: "Teachers' attribution of responsibility: Some unexpected non-defensive effects" Journal of Educational Psychology
1975 67 668 - 676
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35.
the pupil, if the pupil succeeded.
These studies have several common characteristics. All the studies created artificial situations in a laboratory to teach one or two children for a short period of time (a maximum of thirty minutes). In studies conducted separately by Johnson et al1
2· 3
Beckman and Brandt et al the pupils were fictitous and the subjects did not even see them. In other studies, the subjects could see the pupils but did not interact with them. In addition, the studies by Ames
4
and Brandt et al5
the subjects were college stud~nts who did not have any teaching experience.Another area where extensive studies had been done with respect to academic performance is the prediction of academic success. In general however, most of these studies have concerned themselves with the rela.tionships between college grades and such factors
---
---1. Johnson, T. et al: "Some determinants and consequences of teacher's perception of causation" Journal of Educational Psychology
1964 55 237 - 246.
2. BeCkman, L.