CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

The issues of poor academic performance of students in secondary schools are causing a lot of concern leading to the falling standard in education. Though chemistry is considered to be an integral part of the society and environment, almost everything we use in our daily life involves Chemistry directly or indirectly.

For this reason, Chemistry Education must be accorded attention. In this study, an attempt was made to investigate the causes of poor performance in Chemistry at the secondary school level of education.

When I interviewed some students, teachers, friends, and some parents in the course of the work, it was reported that adolescence crises are one of the major factors that leads to low performance in Chemistry.

This, therefore, means that society and parents are facing the challenge to fight against adolescence crises in Cameroon in order to improve student’s academic performance in Chemistry. This chapter focuses on the following; Background of the study, Statement of the Problem, Objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, Scope of the study, and definition of terms.

According to Adseoji and Olatunbosum, (2008), Science Education has been accorded a prime portion worldwide, and Chemistry is the core subject. Even though efforts are being made to improve the quality of Education to enhance students’ performance in Chemistry in particular, yet the performance is still low. This is partly due to adolescent crises which include; depression, identity crisis, family influence, maturity rate, and Juvenile delinquency.

Adolescence is described as the period between childhood and adulthood (Feldaman, R, 2008, p.372). Individuals between the ages of 12 and 19 may no longer be considered children but have not yet developed the skills required to be considered as adults. The stage of adolescence is a transitional stage where changes are constantly taking place to prepare individuals for adulthood. They are faced with many crises that affect their academic performance.

Adolescence is a type of physical and sexual development. In order to combat these feelings, the adolescents may turn to self-injurious or destructive behavior that is usually deemed unacceptable or rebellious by the adult population (Feldman, 2008, p.373), which affects every aspect of their adolescent’s experience.

According to Jaffe (1998, p.333), adolescents engage in sexual activity due to pleasure, opportunity, curiosity, peer pressure, and proving love to a partner to feel grown-up. These result in poor academic achievement as they deviate from schoolwork.

According to (Dryfoos, 1990, as cited by Jaffe, 1998, p. 420), the problems of adolescent’s ranges from eating disorder, depression, schizophrenia, drug abuse, delinquency, relationship problems, anti-social behavior and attempted suicides. These problems affect the academic achievement of adolescents.

According to (Sartaj, and Aslam, 2010), children from authoritarian homes exhibit problems with externalizing or internalizing behaviors. They either withdraw or become aggressive toward others. Adolescents, because of their low self-esteem could have difficulty coping with or disregarding the feelings of others, often becoming bullies. They are described as having foreclosed identities (Baum rid, 1991; Darling, 1991; Steinberg, 1994; Santrock, 2005; as cited by Sartaj and Aslam 2010).

According to Hall (1844-1924), adolescence is a period of storm and stress. It is full of contradictions and wide swings in mood and emotion. Thoughts, feelings, and actions oscillate between humility and conceit, goodness and temptation, and happiness and sadness.

One moment, the adolescent may be nasty to a peer, yet in the next moment, he or she is extremely nice to the peer. At one time he may want to be left alone, but shortly thereafter desire to cling to somebody. G. Stanley Hall (1904), views adolescence as a turbulent time charged with conflict.

These behaviors of adolescents affect their academic performance. Stone and Church (1989) call adolescence a vulnerable period. According to these psychologists, adolescence is characterized by persistent feelings of exaggerated rebelliousness, emotional volatility, feelings that everybody is against and intense idealism.

Fortunately, Stone and Church do conclude that most adolescents have developed ‘a tough core of security, and an anchorage in reality, that permits them to withstand and thrive in the stresses of this period.’ Anna Freud (1968) advocates that adolescence is typified by ‘psychological disequilibrium’ resulting from sexual maturity and arousal of ego-defense mechanisms [e.g. intellectualism, asceticism]. She also viewed adolescence as a state of flux, alternating between periods of high enthusiasm and utter despair between energy and lethargy, between altruism and self-centeredness.

Before the 20th century, adolescence was not considered as a separate age of human development until Hall studied the period of adolescence as (Storm and stress period). Within this period, adolescence is faced with serious a crisis that affects their academic performance in school. Erickson (1968) also studied adolescence as a separate age group of human development and called it a period of Identity vs.

Role confusion. According to Erickson, adolescents face serious problems in identifying themselves which affect their academic achievements.  Buly and Valencia, (2002) studied some sets of adolescents and discovered that they all had learning disabilities.

They were weak in Comprehension, Fluency, Word identification that has a negative impact on their academics.   Studies by Avanevoli Knight, Kessle and Maridangas, (2008) have shown that students with depression frequently exhibit difficulties in academic performance and social interaction. Students under depression express behaviors such as substance abuse, precocious sexual activities, and uncontrollable anger.

According to World Health Organization (WHO), (2011) cited in NIMH, (2012), depression that is left in adolescence untreated results in significant suffering in these individuals as adults. Ossarenreon, (2001), Aguobisi, (2003) outlines some causes of ineffective study in adolescence that result in poor student academic performance.

These include: inability to cope with anxiety, the rigidity of thought, poor study habits, lack of reading skill, poor note-taking, lack of good expression in written notes, and inability to reason logically.  According to Maffitt (2006), and Bucholtz (2002, p.528), Juvenile delinquency is one of the crises faced by adolescents. This is very common amongst adolescents which results in poor academic performance.

The direction of a casual link between Education and juvenile delinquency is fundamentally complex. Early aggressive behavior may lead to difficulties. This may result in a child recovering unfavorable evaluation forms from teachers. This in turn may lead to child delinquency. Despite the ongoing discussion of casualty, poor performance, truancy, and school dropout are linked to Juvenile delinquency.

According to (Feldaman, 2008) maturity rate is also one of the crises faced by adolescents where the physical development in adolescence tends to be earlier or late, rapid or slower than average. This results in psychological effects. In this instance, they are more self-conscious and dissatisfied with their weight and general appearance Pestin, (1973). They tend to focus more on themselves than their studies resulting in poor performance.

According to Erickson (1968), Identity crisis is one of the problems faced by adolescence that affects their academic performance. This is the period when they are trying to discover themselves. They go through changes in clothing and fads. When parents and teachers understand this identity crisis, it will be possible to help them in this difficult moment of their life.

According to Diaz et al (2008), family influence is also another crisis faced by adolescents and this has a negative impact on the students’ academic performance. Cervant, (1965) suggested that the failure of the family to function adequately as a primary group is one of the causes for the poor academic performance of students especially in the core science subject which is Chemistry.

It has been shown that family influence, juvenile delinquency, depression, maturity rate, and identity crisis exert remarkable influence on the student academic performance in chemistry.

Statement of the problem

Adolescence is a turbulent period. To survive this period adolescents need assistance. At this stage, the adolescents are besieged with multifarious crises and if these crises are not resolved, they may become social misfits. These crises may adversely affect the academic achievement of the adolescents. Ironically, school no longer means much to adolescents as they are so much engrossed in social life. In a society whose adolescents are not academically oriented may be classified as underdeveloped.

Consequently, adolescents need to be re-integrated academically into their classes through well- thought out counseling programs geared toward improving academic performance that will foster national development. There is a need to investigate the relationship between adolescent crisis and student academic performance.

Objectives of the study

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of adolescents’ crises on students’ academic performance in chemistry in Government secondary schools in Tiko Municipality.

 Specific objectives

The study had the following specific objectives:

1. To find out how relationships in the family affect the academic performance of students in chemistry.
2. To find out how identity crisis affects the academic performance of adolescent students in chemistry.
3. To find out how juvenile delinquency affects students’ academic performance in chemistry.