by Fernández-Ortega Miguel Ángel, Ponce-Rosas Efrén Raúl, Ortiz-Montalvo Armando, Fajardo-Ortiz Guillermo and Dávila-Mendoza Rocío
Original Research
Low academic performance implies that students have not acquired the knowledge needed to solve problems in their area of study. When such difficulties persist, it is more probable that students will fail and repeat subjects in subsequent academic cycles, at the risk of suspending their studies. The objective: To identify the educational and sociodemographic factors related to course failure and discontinuous academic trajectories in six medical school graduating classes. This is a descriptive, transversal, retrospective, comparative study. Sample size: 5,295 students from the graduating classes of 2004 to 2009. A questionnaire was created with 62 variables, including sociodemographic and educational factors; professional achievements and satisfaction. It was sent by email within a ten-month response period. A discriminant analysis was conducted (multivariate technique), using SPSS V25 software to determine the variables that, in their collective interaction, explain the phenomena treated in this study. The following variables are significantly associated with course failure and the suspension of studies during a student’s academic career: being employed during one’s studies; having failed grades during basic education (from ages six to fourteen); being married; and having undertaken a medical specialty. The results of this study offer new information about the importance of basic education (primary and secondary school) in relation both to academic performance during medical school and to the student’s commitment to remain up-to-date after graduating.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 187-193. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-10
Pub. Date: March 28, 2020
1188 Views547 Downloads
by Maria Antonieta A. Bacabac and Laila S. Lomibao
Original Research
The study was a quasi-experimental research conducted to investigate the effect of 4S(Sense Making, Showing of Representation, Solution and Explanation, and Summarization) Learning Cycle Model on students’ mathematics comprehension. The participants of the study were the two intact classes of freshmen education students in College and Advanced Algebra course enrolled during the 1st semester SY 2019-2020 at the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines. One section was assigned as control group who was exposed to Polya Method of Problem Solving while the other one was experimental group who was exposed to 4S Learning Cycle Model. The performance of the students were measured using their test scores. To determine if the 4S Learning Cycle Model significantly affects the students’ mathematics comprehension, the Analysis of Covariance Model (ANCOVA) was utilized at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that the 4S Learning Cycle Model helped in the development of students’ mathematics comprehension.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 182-186. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-9
Pub. Date: March 28, 2020
1368 Views675 Downloads
by Okeke Udoka Emmanuel
Original Research
Nigeria’s struggles with maximizing her wealth of human and natural resources is well documented. However, while more pronounced obstacles such as corruption, inefficient leadership, civil wars, communal rifts, nepotism, tribalism, political violence, terrorism and bad financial policies have taken the credit; the decay of the educational sector and the subsequent mismatch between the educational outputs and the demands or reality of the Nigerian labour market has caused severe damage to the realization of the Nigerian dream. Generally, technical education and the training of the highly needed technicians suited to emerging jobs within Nigeria has encountered many challenges, and are further impeded by the adoption of archaic and conservative policies unattainable in today’s world; thereby resulting in issues like the disconnection of school curriculum from social needs, corruption in the educational development funds and a worrying indifference on teachers’ part. It is important to note that the Nigerian education policy stipulates technical education as a learning avenue devoted to the development of high-quality technical human resources, with its goal as building a talent pool for the advancement of the country’s economy by means of vocational education. However, these shortcomings due to the massive skill mismatches in the Nigerian labor market have led to a huge economic loophole in the nation’s economy. Particularly, this text believes that the root cause of this skill mismatch seemingly lies in the dearth and neglect of vocational education courses, and the continued lack of attention by the Nigerian government to this issue is undoubtedly one of the main causes of massive unemployment and poverty in Nigeria. These main causes plus the continued ridiculous amount of resources committed to reviving education in Nigeria makes it pertinent to study the end products of our educational institutions. Likewise, the important part of vocational education in Nigeria is missing from the national development strategy. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the problems, challenges and directions of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as an avenue of national development in Nigeria, with regards to its close relations to the Nigerian labor market, while proposing ways to improve TVET teaching according to the needs of the labor market.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 173-181. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-8
Pub. Date: March 27, 2020
1466 Views631 Downloads
by Luka Tambaya, Magdalene Victor and Victor Markus
Original Research
It is expected that students from Colleges of Education will lead learning for the next generation. For this reason, any unchecked dishonest behavior in these students may have far-reaching consequences. This study assesses the awareness of the havoc and consequences of Academic Dishonesty (AD) among students of Federal College of Education Zaria Nigeria. The students were administered valid questionnaires using purposive sampling technique and the data collected was analyzed by relevant statistics tools. Overall, the results indicated that Students’ Poor Awareness of the Havoc and Consequences of AD (SPAHCAD) significantly (p<0.05) predict AD. The findings in this study corroborate Becker’s Crime Theory and suggest that improving students’ awareness of institutional policies, serving severe penalties to defaulters and reviving interest in honor codes could better bring down the menace of unethical academic behaviors in our schools.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 168-172. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-7
Pub. Date: March 26, 2020
1075 Views438 Downloads
by Benson Karungo Mwangi, Dr. Benson Njoroge and Dr. Susan Macharia
Original Research
Learning physics require learners to be able to handle scientific equipment and apparatus appropriately and with confidence. For this to happen, learners must continuously carry out a variety of experiments in order to develop manipulative observation and recording skills. Where apparatus are not adequate, the teacher could use ICTs tools for simulations to promote these skills. The main purpose of this study is to assess the effect of ICT content delivery on students’ achievement in Physics in public secondary schools in Kahuro Sub-County, Murang’a County, Kenya. The study will be guided by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Model. Mixed methodology research design was employed. The study 1036 physics students in Kahuro sub-county out of which 30% were sampled using stratified random sampling. Observation schedules were used as the main data collection instrument. The sign test performed between the control and experimental group indicates an improvement in content delivery as a result of ICT integration in physics. It can therefore be concluded that ICT integration in teaching physics improves content delivery.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 162-167. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-6
Pub. Date: March 24, 2020
1210 Views497 Downloads
by Christine C. Royo and Maria Teresa M. Fajardo
Original Research
The study examines the readiness of public senior high school for STEM track offering using Data Envelopment Analysis [DEA]. Efficiency of the schools were determined using input data such as student population, number of science teachers, teaching experience, educational qualification, number of classrooms, class size, teacher educational qualification, teaching experience, student-teacher ratio, science laboratory facilities, ICT laboratory, drop-out rate and budget for the school’s operation and output data used was number of graduates. A total of 60 senior high schools were considered in the study and their school heads or principals and science teachers served as respondents. Findings indicated that a good number of public senior high schools are efficient based on the availability of science laboratory. Recommendations on how to improve less efficient schools are reflected in this paper. A program to motivate science teachers to pursue graduate studies in science and mathematics is recommended to be institutionalized as well as budget to provide adequate laboratory facilities may be provided to make the STEM strand offering a reality.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 155-161. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-5
Pub. Date: March 14, 2020
1239 Views508 Downloads
by Jhay Mar E. Legaspi, Christian O. Perhiliana, Jamina G. Camayang, Eleanor G. Garingan, Ma. Kristine Grace T. Velasco, Jordan C. Ursua and Jr. Romiro G. Bautista
Original Research
Teachers, as life-long learners, hold personal pedagogical and andragogical motivations towards learning which manifest in their procedures and practices towards specific disciplines. This study is aimed to determine the level of scientific learning motivations and assessment practices in science of pre-service elementary grade teachers and ascertain whether the respondents’ scientific learning motivations predict their assessment practices in the subject. Scientific learning motivations in this study include intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, expectancy, and affective components. Employing adopted questionnaires in a Descriptive-Predictive Research design, the respondents’ scientific learning motivations and assessment practices in science were determined and evaluated. Results showed that the pre-service elementary grade teacher-respondents had good to very good motivations in science learning and assessment practices towards the subject. Among the motivational factors in science learning, only expectancy component is related to their affordances in authentic assessment in science. Furthermore, self-efficacy for learning (an expectancy component of scientific learning motivations) was specifically seen to predict the pre-service elementary grade teachers’ affordances of authentic assessment practices towards the subject.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 150-154. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-4
Pub. Date: March 18, 2020
1235 Views525 Downloads
by Endang Hutauruk, Bornok Sinaga and M Mulyono
Original Research
This study aims to: (1) determine the level of students mathematical creative thinking abilities; (2) analyze the difficulties of students mathematical creative thinking process through the Problem Based Learning (PBL) model. This type of research is a qualitative descriptive study using Miles and Huberman’s data analysis methods. The results of the analysis of the data obtained indicate that students who are capable of creative thinking in the high category can reach the stages of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. For students who can think creatively, the medium category takes several minutes in the incubation stage and difficulty in finding concepts with different ideas. While students with low ability to think creatively have difficulty starting from the preparation stage to the verification stage.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 142-149. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-3
Pub. Date: March 13, 2020
1637 Views685 Downloads1 Likes
by Issak Maalim Adow, Paul Edabu and Githui Kimamo
Original Research
The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of compliance with ethical procurement practices on management of public secondary school resources in Mandera County, Kenya. The study was guided by The Procurement Transaction and Resource Based View Theories. Mixed methods approach was used and thus the study adopted concurrent triangulation design. Stratified sampling was used to create 6 different strata based on number of sub-counties in Mandera County. The tendering and procurement committee members were 13 and 30 members of school Board of Management were selected using simple random sampling. This procedure enabled the researcher to sample 13 principals, 76 tendering and procurement committee members, 176 members of school Board of Management and 2 QASOs. Questionnaires, Focus Group Discussion and Interviews were used. Qualitative data was analyzed thematically and presented in narrative forms whereas quantitative data was descriptively analyzed and inferentially using ANOVA. The study revealed that 103(59.9%) of the members of School Board of Management strongly agreed with the view that secondary schools rarely comply with moral ethics in procurement which has not enhanced financial prudence, staff relations, curriculum support resources and infrastructural development in secondary schools. It also indicates that the results were statistically significant (p-value=0.034<0.05) and that there was significant difference between frequency of compliance with ethical practices in procurement and means of wastages in vote heads set for infrastructural development, staffing and curriculum support resources. The study also established that secondary schools rarely comply with ethical practices in procurement despite an express requirement that all school staff members comply with all the ethical procurement practices. The study recommends that ethical levels of behavior of procurement staff must be ensured as it influences the performance in the school.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 132-141. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-2
Pub. Date: March 07, 2020
1530 Views754 Downloads
by Abdullah Muzil Al Harbi, Gamal Abdelrahman Adam and Hassan Tantaway Farrag
Original Research
This study is about female students from a category of the population known as “displaced tribes”, studying in the Women Section at the University of Hafr Al Batin. We have used our own observations as instructors and distributed a questionnaire to 112 students in 2015. The thesis of the study was, despite their marginal status, students from displaced tribes generally work harder than other students possibly to overcome the challenges that they face because of their displacement status. Our findings confirm that the students work harder academically and interact socially positively to prove that they are excellent members of the society and that they could contribute to the economic and social development of the country they live in if they become citizens.
American Journal of Educational Research. 2020, 8(3), 122-131. DOI: 10.12691/education-8-3-1
Pub. Date: March 03, 2020
5592 Views4739 Downloads4 Likes