CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
The desire of any educational system is to produce students who are sufficiently trained to contribute meaningfully to the development of the system and the society in general. The trend in the academic achievement of primary school pupils in Kokokuma/Opokuma local government area of Bayelsa State in the last two decades has become a major source of concern to all stakeholders I the education sector. This is so because of the great importance that education has on the national development of the country. There is a consensus of opinion about the fallen standard of education in Nigeria (Adebule, 2004). Parents and government are in agreement that their huge investment on education is not yielding the desired dividend (Adegbije, 2005). This is giving great concern to educators, parents, students, school administrators and the general public.
But in this century, intelligence and success are not viewed the same way they were before (Goleman, 1995). New theories of intelligence were introduced and are gradually replacing the traditional theory. The whole child or pupils has become the centre of concern not only his reasoning capacities, but also his creativity, emotion and interpersonal skills. Apart from the traditional IQ, emotional intelligence (EI) is seen by researchers to possess the ability to fully explain performance outcomes. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotion to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action (Salovey and Mayer, 1990). There is a connection between emotion and cognitive. Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2009) viewed emotion as one of the three fundamental classes of mental operations which include motivation, emotion and cognition. There is the notion that positive quality emotions and feelings help students to achieve and give their best potential in the classroom (Fozura and Ghazali, 2010). As such teachers should understand that any stress on the domain of the learners would affect their cognitive domain in classroom. As such teaching emotional and social skills at school is important as these skills have long term effects on achievement. Also, research n brain based learning suggests that emotional intelligence is fundamental to effective learning. Hence, Emotional intelligence is being incorporated in the school curriculum and training programmes in some organizations to achieve their objectives. According to Coleman (2010), IQ alone is no more a measure of success; it accounts for 20% and the rest (80%) goes for emotional, social intelligence and luck. These statements have attrite attention of educators and educational policy makers.
In Nigeria, not much attention has been focused on exploring emotional intelligence in the school system many teachers, educationists, schools and pupils in Nigeria have little or no idea of emotional intelligence and its effects on learning. The consideration of factors affecting success in primary schools in Nigeria often neglects the role of non-cognitive variables including emotional intelligence, hence emotional intelligence is not part of the curriculum of any subject this gap in knowledge exist in the midst of poor academic performance of pupils in the school. Academic performance is an achievement that is adjudged by the examiner as falling below an expected standard. Academic failure is not only frustrating to the pupil, and the parents, its effects are equally grave on the society in terms of death of manpower in all spheres of the economy and policy (Aremu, 2009). Morakinyo (2010) agrees that the falling level of academic achievement is attributable to teacher’s non-use of verbal reinforcement strategy. Adegbife (2011) found out the attitude of some teachers to their job is reflected in their poor attendance to lessons, lateness to school, unsavoury comments about students’ performance that could damage their ego, poor academic performance among primary school pupils is usually attributed to the school authority and teachers attitudes to their work.
Oyinloye (2009) attribute the problem of poor academic performance to high level of emotional problem among primary school pupils, he believe that pupil who lack care, love, attention and parental guidance show some adjustive challenges or in some ways fail to handle effectively the demands of school works. Such pupils might be said to have poor performance in their academic and may not be capable of attaining persona goals which include high academic achievement. It is apparent that the primary focus of education is academic performance test or other forms of standardized examination, and schools cannot ignore or neglect the development of emotional domains and other personal factors contributing to the success of students (Nelson and Low, 2010). Educator need to build high achieving productive and healthy students which can be achieved through a balance in the cognitive and emotional domains of learning on account of this, Epstein (2011) and Le Doux (2010) suggest that both the cognitive and the emotional domains of students’ academic development should be the primary goal for educating students. Cherneiss (2010) stated the importance of emotional intelligence as necessary to improving performance and psychological well-being in school work. If emotional intelligence skills are developed, strengthened and enhanced students may demonstrate increased levels of personal, academic and career achievement, emotional intelligence has four major skills dimensions of emotional competencies namely interpersonal skills, leadership skills, self-management skills and intrapersonal skills.
Emotional intelligence is perceived as a type of aptitude that involves the ability to monitor one’s feelings and that of others to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s feelings Nelson and Low (2010) identified the need for more effective development of emotional intelligence skills when they stated that the qualitative, holistic, emotive and subjective experiences of students are critical to healthy growth and development, emotional development of pupil does not seem important until behaviour becomes problematic and reported. Familiar examples are under achievement, bullying, attrition, school violence, absenteeism, lack of motivation and psycho educational problems even though educators are compassionate, specific help is often absent, ineffective or too late proactive programmes to identify and develop emotional skills are needed to prevent problematic behaviours ad not react to them after the act considering the claims of some of these studies that emotional intelligence accounts for more of the exceptional achievements in pupils (Nelson and Low, 2009, Vela, 2008). The present study sought to determine the role of emotional intelligence in the academic performance of primary school pupils.
Statement of the Problem
The decline in the acidic performance of primary school pupils in Nigeria has been a major source of concern to stakeholders and policy makers in the education sector. Measure taken by the government at various levels to eliminate this problem and improve the academic performance of pupil have focused more on improving infrastructure, equipping the schools and providing qualified teachers, may not have produced the desired results.
Poor academic achievement among primary school pupils limits their potential for advancement in career and their potentials for effectively in an ever increasingly competitive global village. Though the curricular at the primary school level are designed to address this inherent gap but the importance of emotional standard of performance may have been seen to be missing misunderstood or neglected it is therefore necessary to interrupt the ugly trend of poor academic performance among primary school pupil by developing and enhancing their emotional intelligence skills which have been observed to be a major determinants of academic performance because a pupil may recover form physical pain or injury, but may not recover from the terror and degradation of his or her emotional state.
Research Questions
The following research questions were formulate to guide the study
The following research questions were formulated to guide the study:
1. To what extent does pupil’s self-concept affect their academic performance?
2. To what extent does the pupil’s motivation influence their academic preface
3. To what extent does the pupil’s anxiety influence their academic performance?
4. What is the influence of pupil’s attitude towards their academic performance?
Research Hypothesis
The following hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
1. There is no significant relationship between pupil’s self-concept and their academic performance
2. There is no significant relationship between pupil’s motivation and their academic performance
3. There is no significant effect of pupil’s anxiety on their academic performance
4. There is no significant effect on pupil’s attitude towards learning on their academic performance.
Purpose of the Study
The primary purpose of this study was to determine the role of emotional intelligence in the academic achievement of primary school pupil in Kokokuma Opokuma local government area of Bayelsa State.
To achieve this purpose it will:
1. Investigate if there is any difference in post test scores on academic achievement among participants in the experimental groups.
2. Establish whether there is any relationship between emotional intelligence skills and academic achievement among participants in the experimental groups.
Scope and Delimitation of Study
This study is designed to investigate emotions and its effect on the academic performance among primary school pupils in Kokokuma/Opokuma local government Area of Bayelsa state. The study is delimited to Kokokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area.
Significant of the Study
The ultimate goal of any educational process is to enable its beneficiaries achieve mainly in terms of learning outcomes. It is hoped that findings from this research would be of great significance to students, parents, teachers, education planners, guidance counsellors, government and other concerned individual who are interested in the improvement of academic performance of students in primary schools.
Based on the result, it will help to improve students’ academic performance, parents will know how to provide their children with good study environment and educational materials, they would also know how to meet with their children emotional needs it will enable teachers to be aware of students’ different emotional problems and improve their teaching methods to accommodate a. it will be a source of information to school guidance counsellors, who will make useful recommendations to parents, teachers and the entire society on how to assist students. Therefore, it will contribute to knowledge in the area of counselling psychology with specific reference to educational and socio-personal guidance.
Operational Definition of Terms
The following terms were operationally defined according to their usage.
1. Academic Performance: this refers to students score arising from their response to some set of learning tasks presented in a test or examination situation.
2. Emotional Intelligence: this is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotion to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.
3. Poor Academic Achievement: this is referred to as the falling below academic standard
4. Emotional Domain: this refers to having an inclination for something or some activity
Self-Concept: this is an organized configuration of perceptions of self which are admissible to awareness. It has to do with the way an individual perceives himself or herself with little or no regard for what one may think or say about him.