Abstract

Adolescence is the time to find and establish an identity. It is a time when adolescents must strive for emotional, if not physical independence from parents and family. They are involved in forming their identity, deciding on who they are and focused on making plans about what they wish their future to be like.

This study set out to investigate the influence of motivation on adolescent academic participation of some selected secondary school in the Buea municipality, to find out the effect of punishment on adolescent academic participation, to investigate how award of prize and praises affect adolescent participation, to find out effect of provision of needs on adolescent participation. From these objectives four research questions were formulated and hypothesis stated in both null and alternative form.

The study adopted the survey research design with a sample of 50 form students from three government secondary schools under operation in the Buea municipality to participate in this study through a Purposive and convenient sampling procedure. The study used questionnaire for data collection. Result of the study revealed that suspension from class discourage students from attending class, each crime has it corresponding or specified sanction in the school roles and regulations.

Base on the findings of the study, the following conclusions was drawn that they attend classes to avoid sanction from the disciplinary council of their school, and school fee is always paid on time, their parents provide them with transport allowance. It was therefore, recommended that the government and the Ministry of secondary education are encouraged to provide the needed facilities for schools to enhance a good and adequate environment of learning which will therefore enhance early adolescent academic participation.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The evolution of motivation can be traced from the ancient Greeks, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle ages. Plato believed in a hierarchy organized such as dietary component, the emotional and the rational. Aristotle, for more than twenty years continued to affirm the hierarchy spiritual. However, he used different reforms which were different from his original belief. He believed in those dietary and emotional components are relevant to body and part of concept of motivation. They can prepare some sensors like growth, physical comfort (food) and some sensory experiences such as pain and pleasure (emotional). These two parts together were basis of irrational motivation force. The logic section was including all rational aspect of soul such as intellectual concept and some voluntary features. The ancient Greeks presumed three component, the body’s desires, pleasures and pains (senses and efforts of will and spirit) in a hierarchical arrangement for the first theoretical justification of the motivational activities.

In the modern era after the Renaissance, René Descartes distinguished between inactive and active aspects of motivation. Descartes believed in that body is inactive factor of motivation, while will is active factor of motivation. Body has a physical and mechanical nature with nutrition desires that answer to those desires by senses and physiological reflects to external environment. (If you wanted to understand physical motivations, physiological analysis must be used). The mind has mental, moral and intellectual nature which has purposefulness will. (If you wanted to understand targeted motivations, will analysis must be used). Therefore, will always is force of motivation, Descartes devoted motivation exclusively to the will of man for a first time. He provided the first great theory of motivation for philosophers.

Being a former French and British colony, Cameroon runs a bicultural Francophone and Anglo-Saxon educational and administrative systems. Cameroon represents one of the giants in primary, secondary and higher education in the CEMAC sub-region and Sub-Sahara Africa. It has one of the highest school attendance and literacy rates in the region. In 2007 the school attendance rate stood at 83.1 percent; adult literacy rate was 67.9 percent and a higher education participation rate of 7.2 percent (which is also one of the highest in Sub-Sahara Africa (Republic of Cameroon, 2010). Cameroon in the past years has continuously constituted an interesting case of a comparatively better educational system in Africa.

The concept of motivation is closely related to other constructs in education and psychology. They include attention, needs, goals and interests which all focuses on stimulating individual learners and rising their interest and attention towards engaging in an action or behaviors and the accomplishment of such actions or goals. The concept of motivation is functional when an individual is thrilled to satisfy some need or desire. The individual will involve in, or be attracted toward actions that are perceived as having the possibility to meet this need or desire (Auwalu, et al.,2021).

Adolescence is the time to find and establish an identity. It is a time when adolescents must strive for emotional, if not physical independence from parents and family. They are involved in forming their identity, deciding on who they are and focused on making plans about what they wish their future to be like.

The adolescent years are often full of self-doubt: their bodies change quickly and they become very self-conscious about such changes. Every change or event brings with it a new trauma and appearance is very important as it attracts the approval of peers. To be different is a problem and belonging to a group is important. The teenager must therefore, achieve a sense of identity in occupation, sex role, politics and religion. (Busi, 2019).

Busi(2019) went further to add that  adolescence seems to be a period of particularly deep change with respect to time perspective. Yet many questions about the developmental pathways of African children and adolescents especially their pathways to adulthood have remained unanswered or worse still unasked. Secondary education plays a crucial role in laying the foundation for the further education of

students. If a good foundation is laid at the secondary school level, students can better cope with the challenges of life with less stress and greater ease.

Adolescence is a developmental phase between childhood and adulthood during which, adolescents go through a series of developmental challenges before attaining

adulthood In the Cameroonian context with a huge diversity of cultural heritage growing up and passing through adolescence seem even more challenging. Knoll, say that adolescents experience a variety of biological, psychological and social changes.

Motivation can be described as the energy of individual’s behaviour, while they define participation as the link between the individual and the activity. participation in the school environment represents the degree of active involvement of a student in classroom learning activities. On the other hand, motivation in the school environment is a process for the students to initiate and execute the class activity. (Adnan & Yunus,2018) The motivating processes that strengthen and sustain the classroom activities of the students are multi-dimensional and include the needs, expectations or beliefs and goals of the students One of the most important components affecting the quality of the teaching process is effective academic participation. Motivation has aU separate place and importance among the factors of effective academic participation. The higher the motivation of the students for the learning process, the higher the level of effective participation in the lessons. The literature has various explanations about effective participation and motivation,

Three theories will be used to inform the objective of the study, these theories include: theory of self-determination, Carl Rogers self-actualization theory, The Constructivist theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of need theory.

The Constructivist theory seeks to inform the main objective of the study. Constructivism is a view that emphasizes the active role of students in building understanding and making sense of the information. The constructivist teaching is learner centered where students are actively involved in knowledge construction rather than mere passive listeners. Constructivists’ views can be organized in two forms: psychological and social. In Psychological constructivists’ view such as Piaget, students construct knowledge by transforming, organizing, reorganizing previous knowledge whereas in social constructivists’ view such as Vygotsky, opportunities are provided to students to learn through social interaction in construction of knowledge and understanding.

Carl Rogers self-actualization theory seeks to inform objective number one of the studies, in Roger’s view, the self is the central ingredient in human personality and personal adjustment. Rogers described the self as a social product, developing out of interpersonal relationship and striving for consistency.

Self-determination theory seeks to inform objectives two of the study. Self-determination theory assumed that humans have an innate desire from birth for stimulation and learning. Innate desire to learn is supported by environment, those intrinsic attractions and natural are inner motivations that depend on satisfaction of three psychological parameters

Maslow’s Hierarchy of need theory (1943) strives to explain research objective number three of the study. This theory focusses on the physical, safe, love, and esteem needs, the genius of hierarchy is its concept of prepotency. A prep tent need is the one that the greatest power or influence over our action.

Statement of Problem

Low rate of adolescent academic participation in secondary schools in the Buea municipality has been a called for attention, with the growing rate of scamming and occultism in Buea municipality, majority of boys are being attracted to these activities and most of them have sendup  abandoning school to take advantage these  easy means of making fast money, nevertheless, a good number of this girls  have abandoned school and, gotten attracted to the money these young boys make from those activities. Added to this, adolescents here are exposed to substance abuse, violence, risky sexual activities, unwanted pregnancies, discrimination, corruption, criminality, poverty, low parental support, accidental injuries and others, which help to bring hopelessness and depression. With these hardships, they drop out of school and their educational advancement becomes stagnated.

with the ongoing crisis since 2016 in the Northwest and Southwest region of Cameroon and has affected the level of adolescent academic participation, The use of schools for military purposes poses a threat to the safety of teachers and students, creates an environment of fear and poses a serious psychological impact which interferes with pupils/students’ ability to learn. This has been seen as an interference with the right to education.in addition, most of these children are either forced to recruited as fighters. On October 24, 2020, at least 7 children were killed and 13 injured while they attended school at Mother Francisca International Bilingual Academy in Kumba in the Southwest region; they were between 9 and 12 years.44 Not only does the violence show little sign of abatement, the recent attacks perpetrated in late 2020 also suggest that the nature and the severity of these acts are becoming increasingly heinous.

Despite, the effort put forth by the various stakeholder to mitigate the situation seem to have failed and the level poor adolescent academic participation in Cameroon and Buea has continued to increase, also little or sufficient works has been carried to investigate motivation and adolescent participation in secondary schools in the Buea and has cut the attention of the researcher conduct a study on these variables.

Objectives of the study

The general objective of the study

To investigate the influence of motivation on adolescent academic participation of some selected secondary school in the Buea municipality.

Specific Objective of the Study 

1. To find out the effect of punishment on adolescent academic participation
2. To investigate how awards prizes and praises affect adolescent participation
3. To find out the effect of the provision of needs on adolescent participation

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