CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Geography is a branch of environmental sciences.  According to Adekanjo, (2002), Geography plays a vital role in providing knowledge of relevant concepts, environmental and natural phenomena, like; why we have day and night, the reason for rainfall, the ozone layers, avoidance of over exploitation of the natural environment and most importantly, protecting our environment for the future generation. It helps to develop environmental process skills like; classification, description, observation, inference and measurement David, (2000). All these importance of geography notwithstanding, students perform poorly in Geography Dakun, (2001). The West African Examination Council Chief Examiner’s reports (2006) indicates that many students lack the expected geographical knowledge.  According to the same source, this contributed to their poor achievement.  This poor achievement in geography among secondary school students has made a number of geography educators to study the problem empirically with the hope of finding causes and plausible solutions.  Some of the causes identified according to Grossman, & Adam, (2000) are poor background, lack of teaching and learning materials, poor method of teaching, lack of experienced and qualified teachers, insufficient supply of laboratory equipment and teacher behaviour.

In addition to these factors listed above as responsible for poor achievement of students it is suspected that student’s classroom-learning environment may contribute immensely to poor achievement especially in geography. Researchers False; (1990), Talton, and Simpson, (2007) pointed to some environmental factors such as; home and the school environments as some of the major factors that influence students outcome in the subjects. Learning has been known to be influenced by the type of environment, in which an individual learns Osewaren, (2006).  Randhawa, and Michayluk, (005) found out that the inclusion of environment as a variable makes a major difference in the prediction of human characteristics such as general intelligence and school achievement

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Geography is a branch of environmental sciences.  According to Adekanjo, (2002), Geography plays a vital role in providing knowledge of relevant concepts, environmental and natural phenomena, like; why we have day and night, the reason for rainfall, the ozone layers, avoidance of over exploitation of the natural environment and most importantly, protecting our environment for the future generation. It helps to develop environmental process skills like; classification, description, observation, inference and measurement David, (2000). All these importance of geography notwithstanding, students perform poorly in Geography Dakun, (2001). The West African Examination Council Chief Examiner’s reports (2006) indicates that many students lack the expected geographical knowledge.  According to the same source, this contributed to their poor achievement.  This poor achievement in geography among secondary school students has made a number of geography educators to study the problem empirically with the hope of finding causes and plausible solutions.  Some of the causes identified according to Grossman, & Adam, (2000) are poor background, lack of teaching and learning materials, poor method of teaching, lack of experienced and qualified teachers, insufficient supply of laboratory equipment and teacher behaviour.

In addition to these factors listed above as responsible for poor achievement of students it is suspected that student’s classroom-learning environment may contribute immensely to poor achievement especially in geography. Researchers False; (1990), Talton, and Simpson, (2007) pointed to some environmental factors such as; home and the school environments as some of the major factors that influence students outcome in the subjects. Learning has been known to be influenced by the type of environment, in which an individual learns Osewaren, (2006).  Randhawa, and Michayluk, (005) found out that the inclusion of environment as a variable makes a major difference in the prediction of human characteristics such as general intelligence and school achievement

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