PARENTAL BACKGROUND AND THE LEARNING OF CONCEPTS BY 3– 6 YEAR OLD CHILDREN IN PLATEAU STATE

ABSTRACT

This study sought to identify the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-

6 based on parental background factors in Plateau State, Nigeria. Five research questions and  five  null hypotheses guided the  study.  Ex-post factor or  causal comparative research design was adopted. The population of the study consisted of

4003 pre-primary school children in the 60 pre-primary schools in the Northern

education zone of Plateau State. A total of 200 pre-primary school children drawn through multistage sampling approach from public and private pre-primary schools in Plateau State were used for the study. Two instruments namely: – Concept learning achievement tests for 3 – 4 and 5 – 6 year old children were developed, validated and used for the study. The internal consistency reliability of the instruments were estimated using Kudder-Richardson 20 formula and reliability coefficients of 0.72 and 0.73 were obtained for the concept learning achievement tests for 3 – 4 and 5 – 6 year old children, respectively. Data were analyzed using means scores, standard deviations, and multiple regression analysis. The t-test and ANOVA  statistics  were  used  to  test  the  hypotheses.  Findings  indicated  that: concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 differed significantly based on educational status of parents; concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 differed  significantly  occupational  status   of  parents;  there   was   significant difference in the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on housing location; there was significant difference in the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on parent-child interaction; concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 did not differ significantly based on gender. A major educational implication of the findings was that parents could show positive attitude towards the education of their children by providing for them, not only in terms of material needs of the children but also allow their children to interact freely with them. It  was thus recommended that emphasis should be given to parents providing the material needs of their children and also allowing their children to interact freely with them without gender discrimination.

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Children learn concepts best when they are given a wide range of experiences with the object and situations that their developing vocabulary expresses. In this early processing of the world around them children aged 3-

6 year, who are still at the pre-primary school level, may begin to classify objects and instances, and these classification tasks are essential to concept formation. Munn in Mangal (2011) defined concept as a process which represents the similarities in otherwise diverse objects, situation, or events. Similarly, Ross (2005) said that concepts are patterns, schemas or mental categories which enable people to interpret the objects of their thoughts; whether perceptual or  imaginative. One  can  conclude that  concept  is  a generalized idea about things, persons, or events. It stands for a general class and not for a particular objects or event. It is a common name given on the basis of similarities or commonness found in different objects, persons or events.  It  is  also  a  mental  disposition  that  helps  in  understanding  the meaning of the objects of people’s thinking (Ugoji, 2000).

After looking at some of the characteristics of concepts above, one

may  easily  conclude  that  a  large  portion  of  the  words  used  and  other

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symbolic expressions in human language represent concepts. The names: horse, tree, dog, table, chair, represent concept of things; father, mother, teacher represent concept of persons; honesty, truthfulness, cleanliness, redness, goodness represent  concepts of qualities and characteristics and so on.

Judging the importance of concepts in human lives, one must try to pay due attention to their proper development from a very early age of live. In every sphere of human life, people are very much helped by the identification, classification, categorization and naming of the objects, ideas or events provided by their acquired concepts. Human environment is full of tremendously diverse things. It consists of an infinite number of living and non-living objects. Similarly, there are limitless ideas, thoughts, principles, formulae, theories and so on related to various aspects of human life and the environment. In such an environment of tremendous diversity one can adjust only if one has adequate power and ability to discriminate, classify, and categorize the things around one (in view of their similarities and dissimilarities) in specific groups (Wilson, 1997). Concept learning helps one a lot in this gigantic task of categorizing and classifying the environmental objects. Moreover, the concepts regarding people, objects, places, ideas or events provide human symbolic and verbal behaviour. What

people think, understand, reason and judge is to a great extent controlled by their concepts (Ugoji, 2000). Therefore, they are regarded as an important tool of people’s thoughts and expression.

Concepts according to Wilson (1997) are divided into three types which include: Conjunctive concepts, disjunctive concepts and relational concepts. In conjunctive concepts, one may find two or more characteristics or features of an object quite connected or associated with each other. Their connection or association provides a unique identification and meaning to the related concept. One may consider the concepts of a game like football, game of cricket, game of hockey as different examples of conjunctive concepts.  Each one  of  them has  its  unique  identification in  terms of  a number of well-connected attributes or features in the form of fixed number of players, size and characteristics of a special playing field, the rules of the game, playing equipment and so on.

Disjunctive concepts have several characteristics or attributes present in them. It is not essential for them to maintain a connection or link between the conjunctive concepts. A single attribute or feature may appear in all the objects or  items associated with such a  concept  for providing a  unique similarity or commonness contributing in the learning of this concept. For example, the concept ‘source of energy’ has petrol, kerosene, oil, electricity,

coal, atomic power, sun, wind and water as examples of the sources of energy. They all have one common feature or property, the potential for generating energy. However, they all have their own typical features and attributes which provide them their separate and unique identity. Relational concepts were seen by Wilson (1997) as concepts that could be found in some special and unique relationships between their features or attributes. For example, a family having more girls than boys, boys’ hostel, girls’ hostel, developed country, developing country and so on.

The  need  for concept  formation as  an  important tool of  people’s thoughts  and  expression permeates all  the  school subjects  in  the  social sciences, humanities and the sciences. For students therefore, concept formation is not just for pleasure but to be able to understand information for proper adjustment in the environment (Wolf, 1997)).

Success in school requires that learners form appropriate concepts. However, evidences abound of poor academic performance among all categories of pupils and students in Nigeria and Plateau State in particular. For instance, the achievement of pupils in the transition examination into secondary schools in Plateau State in the past five years (2009-2013) has been declining steadily. A close analysis of the results shows that only 56%,

60%, 52%, 47% and 38% of the pupils passed well enough to be given

admission into secondary schools; while many others were pushed into the junior secondary schools because of the nine year basic education programme in the country. This situation has continued to create concerns in the minds of teachers, parents, curriculum experts and evaluators especially when this trend of poor achievements in different school subjects has subsequently been  confirmed  by  the  recent  West  African  Examinations councils’ (WAEC) Chief Examiners’ Reports for the  years: 2010, 2011,

2012 and 2013. These reports show that students’ achievements were poor in many subjects. For instance, the West African Examinations Councils’ (WAEC) results of 2010, 20211, 2012 and 2013 indicated that only 24.94%,

30.99%, 25.99 and 29.27%% of the candidates who sat for the examinations obtained five credits including  Mathematics and English language, which is the  basic  requirement  for  admission  into  Nigerian  universities  (WAEC,

2010-2013).

These uninspiring achievements in the primary school transition examination into junior secondary schools and the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE) are causes for concern. It becomes more worrisome when one considers that the weaknesses of the candidates were traced to inability to read, comprehend and answer the questions correctly. These made candidates to provide answers that were wrong. The problem

was  more obvious in comprehension and summary exercises in English Language where they were required to read and draw inferences since the answers were not given. The reports have it that candidates lost a lot of marks as a result of lifting “seeming answers” from the passage, and that many candidates were yet to come to grips with the skills of comprehension (WAEC, 2012: 86). All these go to a large extent to reveal that concept learning, especially at the early stage of life is a major problem that should be addressed

A number of conferences and workshops have been organized with a view to addressing the problem of poor achievement of children in the pre- primary, primary and secondary schools. As a result, a number of strategies have been recommended for teaching so that students can learn better. These include:  Guided   teaching   method   (Dagoli,   1999);   Enquiry-Discovery method (Ekpo, 2006); Use of ICT in the classroom (Olorundare, 2006). All these recommended approaches look quite interesting in their theoretical orientation, but evidence shows that the problems are still prevalent, as could be seen from the WAEC (2010 -2013) Chief examiners’ reports.

Literature evidence emanating from Western Europe tends to suggest that certain factors like parental background and gender could have the potentials of militating against the learning of concepts, especially at the

early stage  of  human development. Some  of  these  parental background factors could be educational status of parents, occupational status of parents, housing location and condition, parent-child interaction.

Educational status of parents could mean the level of education acquired by parents, and their level of influence in the learning of concepts by  children  (Ogunlade,  1997).  Educational  status  of  parents  may  also include the provision of instructional materials in aiding children with regard to learning of concepts. Akpochafo (1999) investigated parents’ education and the effect it has on the children’s educational achievement in Benue State. Among the findings is that: educated parents encourage their kids to go to school early; guide them to good school and encourage them on to the best professions. The study also revealed that educated parents give their children financial assistance; help the children with their assignment at home or send them for extra-mural classes; show interest in their school work and take them out on excursion to places of interest.

Similarly, Ogalabu (1997) carried out a comparative study on the academic performance of children in the private fee paying schools with those at the public school. The study reported that the poor performance of children in public school should not always be blamed on the teachers who are  always  regarded  as  lazy  and  inefficient  in  their  jobs.  Instead,  the

contributions that educated and the rich parents make to the progress of their children should be taken into consideration. One wonders the extent parental educational status would influence the learning of concepts by children aged

3-6 years; who are still at the pre-primary education level, especially in Plateau State with their almajiri system of children’s upbringing. It stands to reason that if a parent’s level of education is high, that is an indication that he will be fully involved with the school social system, which will be related to the performance of the child. Such a parent would want to provide the necessary instructional materials such as, toys, books, picture, colours, to mention but few.

Occupational status of parents refers to the kind or type of occupation parents are involved in and the extent occupation of parents can influence or aid a child in the learning of concepts (Dubley, 1999). Parental occupation has been identified as one of the variables affecting children’s learning in schools. Most findings seem to support the view that poorly paid parents have difficult time sending and maintaining their children in school, unlike parents with high income who are better equipped. Okunrotifa (1998) carried out a study on the relationship parental occupation and academic performance of children in River State. The study reported that parental income and occupation are the main determinants of the individual’s social

class. The type of occupation which one is engaged determines, to a large extent, his income and his ability to provide fund and other necessary basic facilities for a growing child which will enhance his learning and performance in  school.  Similarly, Blau  and  Duncan  in Wegener (1999) tested the correlation between son’s occupational status with father’s occupational status. The study found that higher father’s occupational prestige could increase educational expectations for the child as well as providing financial resources to support higher education. When a child is ashamed of the parent’s occupation, because of the level of work done or kind of clothes demanded by the work, the child attitude will be adversely affected.

Housing location and condition refers to environment and the condition of that environment (Dubley, 1999). The location could be rural or urban and the condition refers to the availability of social amenities in that environment. In influence of environment on the academic achievement of children was investigated by Martin, Wood and Little (1999). The finding of the study revealed that a child is most influenced by his environment. The individual makes changes in the environment and the environment in turn, produces changes in the individual and his behaviour. Mangal (2010) carried out a study on the relationship between child’s home environment and the

child’s academic achievement. The finding of the study revealed that the child’s home environment is usually important in the formation of cognitive abilities; that is, measured intelligence, his creativity, the manner in which he conducts interpersonal relationship and his level of thinking. The finding went further to show that acquisition and proficiency in learning is made possible  by  environmental  influences.  One  wonders  whether  housing location and condition can aid the learning of concepts in children.

Parent-child interaction is the way members of a family, particularly the  parents  relate  to  their  children and  the  pattern  of  interaction could influence or affect the learning of concepts in children (Ogunlade, 1997). Sarah Harkness (1998) studied the role of mothers and siblings in the first language socialization of Kokwestern children in Kipsipis community in Kenya. The finding of the study revealed that children who spent more time talking to adults were linguistically more advanced in relation to their age than  their  less  talkative  companions.  Parent-child  interaction  seems  to encourage more practice which in turn is associated with faster progress. Durojaiye (1998) also investigated the influence of parent-child interaction on the academic achievement of their children. The finding of the study revealed that parent-child interaction is perhaps most important in the pre- school years where the foundation of attitudes of questioning, curiosity and

investigation is first developed before being carried over to school. He also found out that children who interact very little with their parents and adults use mostly the instrumental and regulatory models of language; they rarely use the imaginative model of language. Okeke (1996) carried out a study on the pattern of interaction in the Nursery Schools children in Anambra State. Results of finding shows that when children get to the nursery school, they become members of a new social group, they meet with different individuals with varying background and race. The findings of the present study may reveal the influence of parent-child interaction on learning of concepts by children aged 3-6, especially when the almariri system in the study area seems to restrict the level of parent-child interaction.

Gender refers to the beliefs that people have about the characteristics and  behaviour  associated  with  males  and  females  (Ogunlade,  1997). Children learn at a very early age what it means to be a boy or girl in human society. This stereotype can manifest in learning of concepts through provision of instructional materials; especially when toys, books and other learning materials are bought according to the sex of children. It becomes necessary to find out the extent parental background such as the educational status of parents, occupational status of parents, housing location and condition, parent-child interaction and gender could influence the learning of

concepts of children aged 3-6 years. Since the family is the first agent in the socialization process, it stands to reason that parental background as a factor could have the potentials of influencing the  learning of concepts, either positively or negatively especially at the early stage of human development. However, the extent parental background factors could impact on the learning of concepts by children aged 3-6 years in Plateau State needs to be investigated.

Statement of the Problem

Children learn concepts best when they are given a wide range of experiences with the object and situations that their developing vocabulary expresses. In early processing of the world around them children begin to classify objects and instances and these classification tasks are essential to concept formation. The need for concept formation as an important tool of people’s thoughts and expression permeates all the school subjects in the social sciences, humanities and the sciences. It is important in academic achievement as it helps students to construct meaning from texts as well as to examine and extend the meaning of the text. Yet the prevailing problem in Plateau State, Nigeria is that the achievements of pupils in the transition examination into secondary schools have been declining steadily. For instance,  a  close  analysis  of  the  results  of  pupils  in  the  transition

examination into secondary schools in Plateau State in the past five years (2009-2012) shows that only 56%, 60%, 52%, 47% and 38% of the pupils passed well enough to be given admission into secondary schools; while many others were pushed into the junior secondary schools because of the nine  year basic education programme in  the  country. Teachers, parents, curriculum experts and evaluators are worried, especially when the poor achievements  have  been  blamed  on  inadequate  reading  comprehension skills, resulting from poor concept formation. It is believed that if the achievements of pupils and students in the transition examination into secondary schools and in the SSSCE remain like this, it will affect both the economic and technological growth of Nigeria. Evidence emanating from Western Europe tends to suggest that parental background as a factor could have  the  potentials  of  impacting  on  the  learning  of  concepts,  either positively or negatively especially at the early stage of human development. The extent parental background such as the educational status of parents, occupational status of parents, housing location/condition, parent-child interaction and gender would affect learning of concepts of by different categories of Nigerian children aged 3-6 years who operate in a different socio-cultural environment is yet to be determined. Pre-primary education is

the foundational level of all education and also the learning of concepts is the foundational unit of all types of learning.

Therefore, the problem of this study put in a question form is: what is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on parental background factors such as the educational status of parents, occupational status of parents, housing location/condition, parent-child interaction and gender in Plateau State?

Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study was to determine the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on parental background in Plateau State.

Specifically, the study sought to:

1.       Ascertain  the  concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6 based on educational status of parents.

2.       Find out the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on occupational status of parents

3.       Determine the  concept  learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on housing location/condition

4.       Ascertain  the  concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6 based on parent/child interaction

5.       Determine the  concept  learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on gender

Significance of the Study

The significance of the study derives both from the theoretical and practical basis of the findings of the study. The study would be of relevance to pupils, teachers, government, authors, curriculum planners and researchers, when published.

The  findings  of  the  study  will  advance  the  Piaget  and  Bruners’ theories of cognitive development. These theories discussed about the cognitive development and stages in which cognitive development takes place  in  the  life  of  children.  Since  cognitive  development  involves reasoning, imagery, abstraction, for a child to learn about concepts, such a child must have developed cognitively in order to understand their mental operations. Therefore, the finding of this study will help to advance the theory that what is available to an individual in terms of his schemas decides how he is going to respond to the stimuli present in his physical or social environment. On the other hand, the individual has to adapt to his environment for survival as well as proper growth and development. The key to his cognitive development thus lies in his constant interaction with and adaptation to his physical and social environment. The task of such

adaptation  is   carried  out  through  the  processes  of  assimilation  and accommodation.

To  the  pupils,  the  findings  of  the  study  may  reveal whether  the identified parental background factors such as educational status, occupational status, housing location and condition, parent-child interaction and gender influence the learning of concepts by 3 – 6 year old pupils in Plateau State. This could provide pupils with the awareness on the extent to which their academic performance can be affected by their parents’ level of educational attainment; which could enable the parents develop interest in the education of their children by providing the necessary materials and emotional climate for parent-child interaction and for higher academic achievement.

This study intends to serve as a diagnosis for the problem of falling standards of education in Plateau State. The poor performance in concept learning in pre-primary school could be responsible for the falling standard of education in primary, post-primary and even tertiary institutions of learning. Therefore, the finding of the study would help to improve the level of parental involvement in the education of their children by providing the necessary materials and emotional climate for parent-child interaction and for higher academic achievement.

More importantly is the fact that findings of this study will provide pupils, teachers, government, authors, curriculum planners and researchers with the awareness on the extent to which children’s academic performance can be affected by their parents’ background factors such as level of educational attainment, occupational status of parents, housing location and condition, parent-child interaction and gender. This study enables parents to know that the type of occupation they are engaged in determines to a large extent his income and his growing child which will enhance his learning of concepts and performance in school. Therefore, the finding of the study would help the would-be parents to be careful in choosing the occupation which could give room for parental involvement in the education of their children by providing the  necessary materials and emotional climate for parent-child interaction and for higher academic achievement.

It will also help parents to know that interaction with the child can create a sense of belonging to the child with regards to learning. This study will help parents and teachers to create favourable environment both at home and school for better learning of concepts. No organism, regardless of its potentialities and basic qualities, can survive in the absence of favourable environment.

This study is equally be significant to administrators in the sense that areas  of weakness will be  identified which will provide  framework for organizing workshops, seminars and  in-service training for teachers and parents concerning the factors responsible for high academic performance of children.

The findings of this study can help policy makers on the need for improving  income,  irrespective  of  qualification and  experience;  that  is, redistribution policy to ensure equality in the general income levels. To also provide various means through which students from different backgrounds achieve maximum performance in education or device equal benefits thereby narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor.

This study will be significant to parents and teachers to treat every child whether a boy or girl equally, and not to be gender discriminatory. Finally, this study will serve as basis  for further researches on concept learning in other level of education.

Scope of the Study

This study focused on determining the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on parental background in Plateau State. The geographical scope is restricted to northern zone of Plateau State which is located in the North Central zone of Nigeria.

The  content scope  of  this  study covered  determining the  concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on parental background factors such as: educational status of parents, occupational status of parents, parent/child interaction, housing location and condition and gender on learning of concepts by 3 – 6 year old children. The content was developed from the curriculum of the pre-primary schools, which has been harmonized by Nigerian Educational Research Development Centre (NERDC). The curriculum clearly spelt out  the  type  of  concepts  to  be  learned by this category of children (3 – 6 year old).

Research Questions

The following research questions were generated to guide the study:

1.   What is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on educational status of parents?

2.   What is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on occupational status of parents?

3.   What is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on housing location/condition?

4.   What is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on child interaction?

5.   What is the concept learning achievement of children aged 3-6 based on gender?

Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 levels of significance.

1.  Concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6  will  not  differ significantly based on educational status of parents.

2.  Concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6  will  not  differ significantly based on occupational status of parents.

3.  Concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6  will  not  differ significantly based on housing location and condition.

4.  Concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6  will  not  differ significantly based on parent – child interaction.

5.  Concept  learning  achievement  of  children  aged  3-6  will  not  differ significantly based on gender.

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