Abstract

This study was designed to investigate “Teachers Classroom Management and students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea Municipality”.

The objectives that were used for the study were: to examine the effect of authoritarian approach on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality, to examine the effect of behaviour modification on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality and to examine the effect of instructional approach on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.

The research design use for the study was the descriptive research. The sample size was 100 students selected from three secondary schools in Buea municipality. The questionnaire was used to obtain information from correspondents and data were analyzed descriptively using percentages and frequencies and inferentially using person’s product correlation.

The following results were obtained; the findings revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between authoritarian approach and students’ participation during Biology lessons, the findings revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between behavior modification and students’ participation during Biology lessons and the findings also revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between instructional approach and students’ participation during Biology lessons. Based on the findings on research question it was recommended that amongst others that parents, teachers and education authorities should ensure that children, student teachers, and teachers are properly cultured on effective authoritarian approach.

While parents and teachers bring up their children and students in using positive, inspiring, motivating, and friendly words, education authorities must ensure that school curricula make adequate provision for the teaching of students and the training and retraining of teachers in effective approach. Also it was recommended that secondary school administrators should provide training and retraining programmes for biology teachers in secondary schools through workshops, seminars and conferences to up-date their behavioural principles and warm student-teacher relationship should be harnessed using behavioural classroom management style in order to improve on biology student participation during practical and lastly it was recommended that Teachers should use instructional approach in the teaching learning process to motivate the students towards studies.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background to the study

Historically, it is probably no exaggeration to say that classroom management has been the primary concerns of teachers. ever since there have been teachers in classrooms. However, the systematic study of effective classroom management is a relatively recent phenomenon. Arguably, the first high-profile, large-scale, systematic study of classroom management was done by (Kounin, 1970). He analyzed video tapes of 49 first and second grade classrooms and coded the behavior of students and teachers. He identified several critical dimensions of effective classroom management. Those dimensions among others are “witness”, smoothness and momentum during lesson presentations, letting students know what behaviour is expected of them at any given point in time and variety of and challenge in the seat work assigned to students. “Wittiness” involves a keen awareness of disruptive behaviour or potentially disruptive behaviour and immediate attention to that behaviour of the four dimensions, this is the one that most consistently separates the excellent classroom managers from the average or below average classroom managers (Kounin, 1970).

Classroom management first became a popular topic in education during the 1970s and 1980s (Tavares, 1996 and Butchart, 1995) the focus in these early years was primarily on behaviour management used to control and shape students behaviour to conform to the rules chosen by the classroom teachers. Classroom management using an authoritative or punitive approach did repress disorderly behaviour, but it did not foster student’s growth or allow the acquisition of more sophisticated modes of learning, such as critical thinking and reflection (Jones, 1995).

In the 1990s, a new paradigm of classroom management emerged based on the democratic process, humanism and consideration for diversity. Classroom management developed beyond a set of educational techniques to become, a complex process which an environment is constructed in an ongoing

How students were managed has been an issue since the inception of public education. In 1770, William Blackstone applied the phrase in loco parentis, which literally means in place of the parents, to educators. In loco parentis gave teachers the ability to act in place of the parent in response to disciplinary actions (Conte, 2000).  loco parentis was implemented in schools in the early 1900s, and with it came corporal punishment.

In Victorian era parents believed children who were lazy and insubordinate were alienating themselves from God, and teachers were thought to be the perfect authority figure to ensure that alienation did not occur (Parker-Jenkins, 1997). During this time period, corporal punishment was viewed as necessary to produce citizens who conformed to the norms of society, beat out sin, and ensure that learning occurred (Parker Jenkins, 1997). The book of Proverbs in the Bible advocates the use of a rod, i.e. control techniques, to save children’s souls from death (Lickona,1998). Therefore, teachers began administering various classrooms

Conceptually, according to Umoren (2010), the concept of classroom management is broader than the notion of student control and discipline, it includes all the things teachers must do in the classroom to foster students’ involvement and participation during Biology lesson in classroom activities to create conducive learning environment. Morse (2012), relates that classroom management involves curtailing learner’s disruptive behaviors such as fighting and noise making, close observation, arrangement of classroom learning materials, and response to students who suffer from poor sight (vision), poor reading, poor writing, poor spelling, shame, dullness, hyperactivity and poor study habits.

The authoritarian classroom management approach involves the teacher having total authority over the class. Students are not participating or responding in class. It is very likely that a student who disobeys the rules will face punishment in this toughest kind of class management. A teacher with complete control over the classroom is an authoritarian classroom management style. Students lack the freedom to participate actively and to respond. The instructor retains the Centre of attention and overall authority in the classroom, (Morse, 2012).

Behavior modification is any actions taken which are designed to have an effect on the behaviors of a person or group, Landrum and McDuffie (2008). Another method of behavior modification that has proven to be effective under certain conditions is the use a character education curriculum. Character education curriculums can be implemented school wide or on a class-by-class basis. Lickona (1998) proposes that character education should be taught naturally through the course content in each individual class. For example, in science, when discussing the biological difference between animals, it would be possible to weave in a discussion of the moral rights and wrongs of animal treatment.

Instructional approach is a method that centers on a more accomplished learner providing guidance and encouraging to more novice learner in the context. Instructional approach encompasses any type of learning technique a teacher uses to help students learn or gain a better understanding of the course material.

The concept student participation can be divided into formal and informal participation, which can be seen as examples of representative and direct democracy. Formal participation is collective, from the aspect that students exercise formal participation through representation on boards and committees. Informal participation is individual and concerns students’ informal opportunities of influencing their own situation and education, e.g. through course evaluations and other forms of evaluation (Högskoleverket, 2000). Other words that occur in conjunction with descriptions of participation are influence and cooperation, which are often used as synonyms for participation. But neither involvement nor contribution does necessarily entail participation, and not necessarily is there a connection between participation and results (Swedish Government Official Reports 2000:1).

Student participation as participation that entail a fair chance to influence the students’ study situation and experience involvement, i.e. students who participate become involved in the decision making process and find this meaningful. The keywords are negotiation, dialogue, cooperation and individual responsibility (Arnstein, 1969). A positive effect of involvement means development of the democratic process, whilst a negative experience might lead to reduced involvement, which could result in experience of exclusion and various types of resistance.

Theoretically, this study will be anchored on the following theories: elaboration theory by Charles Reigeluth,(1983). The primary goal of this theory is to help select and sequence content in a way that will optimize attainment of learning goals. It is intended for medium to complex kinds of cognitive and psychomotor leaning, but does not currently deal with content that is primarily in the affective domain. Some of the values upon which this theory is based include: a sequence that is as holistic as possible, to foster meaning-making and motivation, allowing learners to make many scope and sequence decisions on their own, during the learning process, an approach that facilitates rapid prototyping in the instructional development process, and the integration of viable approaches to scope and sequence into a coherent design theory.

Blooms Mastery learning theory (1968), Mastery Learning is an instructional strategy and educational philosophy, first formally proposed by Benjamin S. Bloom in 1968. Mastery Learning is based on the belief that students must attain a level of mastery (i.e. 90% on a knowledge test) in prerequisite information before moving forward to learn succeeding information. If a learner fail to attain mastery in the given test, they are provided with additional sources in learning and reviewing the information. Then they are evaluated again. This cycle will be continued until the learners attain mastery and then move on to the next unit Mastery learning is a set of group-based and individualized instructional strategies based on the principle that learners will accomplish a high level of understanding in a given area if they are given sufficient time (Anderson, 1975).  The last theory of this work is the ARCS theory by John Keller (1983). According to John Keller’s ARCS Model of Motivational Design Theories, there are four steps for promoting and sustaining motivation in the learning process: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS]

Statement of the Problem

It is evidence based conclusion that students’ participation in classroom during biology practical’s makes them more motivated, supports their learning, improves their communication and promotes higher order thinking skills.

Despite all emphasis on student participation during biology practical, researchers such as Red (1965) iterate that “speaking does not automatically result in learning.” While some students may learn more by verbal interaction, there might still be some who silently absorb and process the material being taught. Therefore class participation may assume different types of engagement activities. Several types of students’ participation in the classroom have been elucidated in research.

Two main types of participation are questions students ask of their teachers, and questions teachers direct to students. Besides these there are passive participants, who largely remain silent and make their presence felt by some gesture, or merely by being conspicuously seated in the class. The para participants interact with the teacher before or after class, and remain passive during class hours.

The negative participants are vocal, active, but veer the discussion into another direction and “monopolize the discussion”. Most often some students turn to be non-participators in class this post a problem to classroom management. Non-participators are those students who are physically present but mentally not there. They would be back benchers, make little or no eye contact with the teacher or peers, be sleeping or doing something else other than the classwork.

In most cases, classroom biology teachers become tired of using verbal instruction in attempts to establish effective classroom management, but this method alone does not produce desired results. Many teachers use corporal punishment to instill fear and discipline in the classroom yet there are prevalence of disruptive behaviors in the classroom during practical lessons in Biology. Consequently, student learning in most cases turn to be hampered as they do not fully participate in the practical activities thus a drop in their performance and metal skill. It is from these backdrops that that the researcher seeks to investigate teacher’s classroom management and student’s participation during Biology lessons in Secondary school in Buea Municipality.

Objectives of the study

General objectives

To examine the effect of classroom management on students participation during Biology lessons in secondary school in the Buea municipality.

 Specific Research Objectives

1. To examine the effect of authoritarian approach on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.
2. To examine the effect of behaviour modification on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.
3. To examine the effect of instructional approach on students’ participation during Biology lessons in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.

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