Abstract

This study was designed to investigate the impacts of urban facilities on secondary school students’ academic performance in History within the Limbe Municipality.

The objectives that were used for the study were; the extent to which history students used monuments, and lastly the extent to which history students use public libraries in their academic performance.

The sample size was 100 students selected from three secondary schools in Limbe municipality. The questionnaire was used to obtain information from correspondents and data were analyzed using percentages and frequencies.

The following results were obtained; monuments and public libraries have a positive role in students’ academic performance. Based on the above result, the following recommendations were obtained; teachers, counsellors, and parents, should assist students to visit public libraries and go out for fieldwork in public and academic museums.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Every society has its own system of education. Urban facilities have their own way of facilitating young children’s academics, Education helps to develop the physical, affective and psychomotor domain of a child being influenced by a conducive environment.

The word teaching can be seen as the process of imparting knowledge, ‘skills, attitudes and values (LeFracais,1998). Learning on the other hand is viewed as the process of acquisition of knowledge skills and attitude (Good, 1973). In the past, the teaching and learning process was highly dependent on the teachers, and the use of textbooks and other audiovisual aids.

After subsequent development in the 21st century, it was realized that the teaching and learning process could not be effective at all levels of education without the different learning styles of learners. Urban facilities such as a national parks, museums, and public libraries have been noted to influence students’ academic achievement in History. This leads us to our research topic title «The impact of urban facilities on students’ academic achievement in History».

This work is made of five chapters, chapter one consists of the introduction, the background of the study, justification of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research question, research hypothesis, significance of the study, delimitation of the study, operational definition of terms and chapter summary.

Chapter two consist of introduction, literature review and summary of literature review.

Chapter three consists of the introduction, research design, area of the study, the population of the study, sampling procedure, sample, instrumentation, validity of the instrument, reliability of the instrument, administration of the instrument, procedure for data analysis, and ethical consideration.

Chapter four is made up of an introduction, a general description of data/variables, data analysis and interpretation and a summary of results. And finally, chapter five is made up of a discussion of findings, conclusion, recommendations and suggestion for further research.

Background to the study

Historical Background

For over four decades, a series of studies have suggested the importance of school as a social environment for learning. Some of these studies examined location planning and its attendant consequences on the achievement of students in various states. Omoyemi (1978), discovered that locations of schools were not based on sound principles of distribution of population because of initial community participation.

Every society has its own system of education. Indigenous African society had their own way or system of training their young children before the coming of Western education. This was done through images. Education, therefore, helps to develop a child, physical, an affective and psychomotor domain which has been influenced by a conducive location for learning in or out of the school premises.

For over four decades, series of studies have suggested the importance of urban facilities to students learning. Some of these studies are examined out of classroom studies at times to translate theories into practices. Omoyemi (1978) discovered that urban facilities were not based on sound principles of learning, so most at times, learners have to go out of the school location to experience what is not found in the school.

Before the coming of formal education, the indigenous system of education was based on practices or field study in Cameroon that was the pre-colonial era (1844-1884). Here the issue of a peer was little or less occurring as the young adult learned only from the elderly were knowledge, experience and attitude was mostly transferred from the old to the young in the form of storytelling. The coming of the missionaries in Cameroon gives the birth of formal education which the first school was created in Bimbia by Joseph Merrick in 1884.

The origins of measuring academic achievement date back to the 1830s. Education advocates Horace Mann and Samuel Gridley Howe used a standardized test to evaluate student progress in Boston. Kansas school administrator Frederick J. Kelly advanced the idea of standardized testing with the Kansas Silent Reading Test in 1914.

This multiple-choice test was used to decrease grading time and standardize student evaluations. IBM employee Reynold B. Johnson developed a grading machine in 1934 that could grade test sheets by picking up the electrical current created by pencil marks. Henry Chauncey developed the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) in 1934 to evaluate scholarship candidates at Harvard University and the University of Iowa Professor E.F. Lindquist created the first version of the American College Test (ACT) in 1959.

Public Library, is traditionally, a collection of books used for reading or study, or the building or room in which such a collection is kept. The word library was derived from the Latin word “liber”, “book,” whereas a Latinized Greek word, “bibliotheca”, is the origin of the word for library in German, Russian, and the Romance languages.

Public libraries have emerged since the middle of the 20th century as a far-reaching body of information resources and services that do not even require a building. From their historical beginnings as places to keep the business, legal, historical, and religious records of a civilization

The origin of the word “monument” comes from the Greek word “Mnemosyne” and the Latin word “moneo, monere”, which means ‘to remind’, ‘to advise’ or ‘to warn’, suggesting a monument allows us to see the past thus helping us visualize what is to come in the future.

In English, the word “monumental” is often used in reference to something of extraordinary size and power, as in monumental sculpture, but also to mean simply anything made to commemorate the dead, as a funerary monument or another example of funerary art. Throughout history, monuments have played an important role. They have commemorated tragedy; they have glorified war and leaders of war; they have pointed to acts of courage or endurance not played out on battlefields.

Because they have helped shape the American identity as well (Percoco, 1998), monuments can provide teachers with valuable curricular opportunities. Students can analyze and interpret meaningful subject matter; teachers can address multiple learning styles, integrate subjects, including the arts, and deepen students’ understanding of their community.

Conceptual Background

Urban facilities refer to the process of using different or similar techniques to facilitate learning for the learners and not the teachers (Balogun, 1982). Bossaert et al (2011), see academic achievement as a student’s success in meeting short or long-term goals in education in the big picture according to the authors, academic achievement means completing high school or earning a college degree. Lassiter (1995), looks at students’ academic achievement as referring to a students’ strong performance in a given academic area.

A student who earns good grades or awards in science has achieved in the academic field of science. He further stated that education associations and schools monitor the overall level of student academic achievement to decide what, if any challenges, need to be made in the educational system.

Contextual Background

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Statement of the Problems

Urban facilities help to provide additional learning facilities to students and academic researchers. Urban facilities have been considered as one of the easily accessible facilities in the educational domain. Urban facilities help to provide additional learning facilities to students and academic researchers.

Monuments and historical site has been resource centers for many history students and geographers around urban cities. The inadequacy and unavailability of urban facilities in major urban cities influence the quality of the history students’ academic achievement around major urban cities. Also the inadequacy of technical infrastructure such as energy, sanitation and communication structures.

The systems provide energy and heat, water, drainage of rain waters and wastewater treatment, management and disposal of municipal solid waste, communication and transport services, expansion of the road network around the urban areas which when absent is a hindrance to learning,(Chmielowski 2010).  Also, the 1983 law of education states, “education of children will be done in regular schools with the provision of learning facilities. The absents of these facilities such as libraries and monuments will in turn affect the output

Stakeholders and policymakers still do not see the need why students should be educated and some attain in which there is a shortage of urban facilities to facilitate learning. The inadequacy and unavailability of urban facilities in major urban cities influence the quality of the history students’ academic achievement around major urban cities negatively. This is because the students are not open to a historical site such as monuments and libraries hence giving a drop in their academic performance.

The objective of the study

General objective

The main objective of this study is to investigate the extent to which urban facilities affect student academic achievement.

Specific objectives

1. To investigate the extent to which the use of monuments can influence student academic achievement.
2. To what extent do public libraries affect student academic achievement.

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