The Role of Reward and Punishment on Students’ Academic Performance in Some Selected Secondary Schools

The Role of Reward and Punishment on Students’ Academic Performance in Some Selected Secondary Schools

ABSTRACT

This project work is the role of reward and punishment on students’ academic performance in some selected secondary schools in the Oredo local government area of Edo state. To carry out the study, the researcher formulates research questions. A questionnaire made up of 20 items was used to elicit responses from the respondents. The population of the study consisted of students from selected secondary schools in Oredo local government area. The data was analyzed using a simple percentage.

Discussion of results that emerged from the study revealed that there is a high level of the student population who takes to punishment as a habit. That majority learned the act of punishment from their peer group etc. Based on the discussion of results, useful recommendations were made. It is my ardent belief that these recommendations when implemented by the authorities concerned will go a long way in stopping punishment among students in the locality.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Reward and punishment are regarded as completely important means through which a teacher can maintain his or her class discipline in secondary schools. Many educationists and psychologists have expressed different views about the effective use of reward and punishment in secondary schools. As the study progresses, the research hopes to bring together the different views and feelings of others, so that the reader can be given sufficient ground on which to base his or her conclusion after reading this work.

The issues of reward and punishment are mostly debated in the secondary school administered today especially when they are related to the learning process. It is equally an area of interest, which closely involves many teachers and parents who the need for the education authority to define its limits, some scholars in their books suggested allowing nearly total freedom to children in the learning process in the school. a prompt and acceptable solution must be provided on this issue because the outcome will give practical advice and guidance to those who are just entering the teaching career or to parents who show much interest in their children ‘s progress in life. This research work does not, however, claim to solve the entire problems concerned with punishment and rewards in the learning process in the schools, but rather it highlights some solutions which will be of great educational value to the parents as well as the public in general.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The work is on the study of the effects of reward and punishment on the academic performance of students in some selected secondary schools in the Oredo local government area of Edo state. Many educationists and psychologists have written many books covering this topic, the writer attempts in the study.

Therefore to examine the views of some of these renowned writers in addition to the research findings and personal experience to be able to know the following problems.

1. To find out whether effective learning can take place in form of punishment.

2. Whether there is another method of learning effectively with reward and punishment.

3. If punishment affects the learning process of the students in secondary schools.

4. If reward and punishment can be combined so that much can be achieved in terms of educational objectives.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects and roles of rewards and punishment in some selected secondary schools in Oredo’s local government area of Edo state.

`Here the researcher will focus her attention on whether or not reward and punishment should be applied in the teaching and learning process in secondary schools.

The following schools were used for this study.

1. Ogbe secondary school

2. Idia college secondary school

3. Emotan College secondary school

4. Oba Ewuare secondary school.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study is expected to be of much importance and beneficial to pupils and parents in Oredo’s local government area of Edo state. Through this study, they may come to appreciate the implication of reward and punishment in secondary schools. It is hoped that this study will help the secondary schools’ administration in Oredo local government area to benefit and improve on the academic performance of their various schools.`

This study will also help to discover the effects of rewards and punishment on learning in some selected secondary schools in Oredo local government area of Edo state.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions are formulated to guide this study.

1. Does punishment has any effect on the learning process of the children in secondary schools?

2. Does effective learning always take place in the absence of any form of punishment?

3. Do parents and teachers support the use of punishment?

4. Does reward and punishment promote or encourage learning?

5. Does punishment hurts learning?

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is limited to the roles of rewards and punishment on pupils’ performance in some selected secondary schools in the Oredo local government area of Edo state.

The following schools have been marked as samples for this study.

1. Ogbe secondary school

2. Oba Ewuare secondary school

3. Idia college secondary school

4. Emotan College secondary school

Upon completion of the research work the writer shall make the findings available to the headmasters of the schools where she conducted the research, such research work would be a solution to the research question stated in the paragraph dealing with the problem of the study.

The writer shall endeavor to brief the communities where she conducted her research work, the outcome of the objectives of her interview with them, it will be a sort of enlightenment on the part of the investigators since the children are comparable to other children in the whole of Edo state because they run the same curriculum under the same brand of teachers, the finding of the research would be the same for another place in Edo state and elsewhere in the outcome of this little research work will be of use to teacher, communities and education offices and also to policymakers.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Reward: is an act of appreciating a job well done.

Punishment: an act of correcting a wrong act or character exhibited.

Discipline is the act of training people to obey rules and orders and punishing them if they do not control the situation that results from this training.

Investigation: is the act of official examination of the facts about a situation, crime, etc. criminal murder police investigation.

Sufficient: enough for a particular purpose as much as you need or allow sufficient time to get there.