THE EFFECT OF GENDER, SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS

AND SCHOOL LOCATION ON STUDENTS

PERFORMANCE IN NIGERIAN INTEGRATED SCIENCE
DR. N.S. OKOYE
Department of Science Education
Delta State University,
Abraka - Nigeria

The study examined the effects of Gender, socio - economic sta-

tus and school location, on Nigerian students performance in
Integrated Science. The method used for the study was a three
variable analysis of variance experimental design consisting of
three independent variables at two levels each and one depen-
dent variable. Six hundred junior secondary school three (J.S.S
III) students randomly selected from eight secondary schools in
Okpe,Warri South and Uvwie Local Govemment Areas of Delta
State. Nigeria, were used as subjects for the study. These stu-
dents were randomly assigned to eight groups of seventy - five
students per group. The results of the study show that there is a
significant interaction between gender and school locations on
performance in Integrated Science. The study also revealed a
significant interaction between school location and socio - eco-
nomic status but the combined effect of gender and socio -
economic status did not produce any significant effect on stu-
dents performance in Integrated Science. The interaction of
gender, school location and socio socio-economic status was
found to be significant. Hence, science educators are hereby
enjoined to note the effects of these variables in science educa-
tion so as to guide their teaching and students leaming of science
in secondary schools.

Educators are incessantly concerned
about the need to improve academic
achievement especially in the sciences,
The plethora of researches on students aca-
demie achievement in the sciences, is a
testimony to this concem (e.g. Bajah, 1979;
Babalola, 1979; Holliday, 1981; Nwagbo,
2001; Oyewole, 1982; Olayiwela, 1999;
Okonkwo, 2000; Nwagbo, 2001, and
Okoro, 2005). This is as it should be
because the consequences of success or
failure in science subjects in schools are far
reaching particularly in developing coun-
tries like Nigeria. This is not only because
a higher achievement especially in the sei-
enees is the foundation for technical skills
which are in short supply, but also because
higher achievement is particularly valued
in a society which sets high premium on
academic success as the stepping stone for
entrance into more prestigious occupa-
tions. (Ukeje, 2000).
The various biological differences in
human make-up particularly between male
and female human beings in most cases
have led to the suspicion that one sex may
have a "leaming edge" over the other sex.
Some people believe (without of course
any empirical support) that because men
are regarded as the dominant and even
superior sex, they intrinsically have better
brains and leam much better than women

561
562 / Education Vol. 129 No. 3
(Mkpughe, 1998). This view tends to be in
line with that of Rosenthal and Rubin
(1982) together with that of Hyde (1981)
that differences between male and female
students in intellectual performance in
schools have been demonstrated on a wide
range of variables Maccoby and Jacklin
(1974) concluded that three cognitive gen-
der differences were well established. Girls
have greater verbal, ability than boys, and
boys have better visual spatial ability than
girls. Other research studies show that
observed differences had not always
favoured one gender. In Nigeria, consid-
erable efforts have been expended on
trying to see how gender effects can be
implicated in the seemingly poor perfor-
mance of girls in integrated science
(Ukwuagwu, 2002). Unfortunately, these
research efforts have not produced any def-
inite clear-cut picture from their findings
as they do not agree on the magnitude and
direction of gender differences in perfor-
mance in Integrated science. The present
study tries to take a wholistic view of gen-
der effects on integrated science by looking
at the effects of gender in relations to other
variables of socio - economic status and
school location on performance in Inte-
grated science.
The location of a school has a signifi-
cant effect on the academic performance
of the child. A school could be located in
the urban or rural area. Ezewu (1987) stat-
ed the obvious that the location of a school
(rural or urban) affects a child's ability to
study and perform at the level expected of
him. A stimulating school environment
arouses the student to learn especially in
the area of science. Hence the degree of
interest a student derives from a learning
environment affects his performance.
Mkpugbe (1998) noted that different
aspects of school environment inñuence
students achievement. She further stated
that the individual students academic
behaviour is influenced not only by the
motivating forces of his home, scholastic
ability, and academic values but also by
the social pressure applied by the partici-
pants in the school setting. In Nigeria, most
rural based schools lacks enough qualified
teachers, are poorly equipped and lack
basic amenities-all serving as inhibiting
factors of good academic performance.
Combining school location and other vari-
ables on science performance may or may
not produce the desired result. This study
therefore seeks to evaluate the effect of
genders, socio-economic status and school
locations on performance in Integrated sci-
ence.
Socio-economic status of parents in one
way or the other affects the academic per-
formance ofthe school children in science.
The above fact was further justified in the
statement of Ezewu (1981) who stated that
the socio economic status of a family
affects the schooling of the children either
positively or negatively. He stated further
that the higher the socio-economic status
of the family, the more likely it will moti-
vate their children to learn thereby
preparing them for highly regarded voca-
tions. "Children with rich parents have
certain needs physical and psychological
which when met, contribute positively to
their academic performances" (e.g Avwa-
ta, Oniyama and Omoraka 2001, Rüssel,
1977). These needs may include a con-
ducive reading atmosphere, good food, a
play ground, provision of books and other
 Gender Effect.../563

material, and attendance at the best schools icantly better in Integrated science than
available. All these help to promote effec- female students from low socio-eco-
tive learning and good performance in nomic background?
schools. Socio-economic status indices list- 2. Do male students from urban secondary
ed above in the presence of other variables school perform significantly better in
of gender and school location may or may Integrated science than female students
not give the desired results to performance from rural secondary schools?
of students in science hence this study 3. Do students from the high socio-eco-
which sought to investigate the nature of nomic background living in urban
students performance in science in the pres- centre perform significantly better in
ence of the three variables of gender, school Integrated science than student from
location, and socio-economic status. This low socio-economic background living
finding is necessary so that any of these in rural areas?
three variables will be viewed in a broad- 4. Do male students from high socio-eco-
er conceptual framework within the context nomic background living in urban
of science education. The study therefore centers perform significantly better in
represents and attempt to explore the rela- Integrated science than female student
tionship between gender school location living in rural areas from low socio-
and socio-economic status of students on economic background?
their academic performance
Research Methodology
Research Problem The study utilized a "2x2x2" Factorial
A number of factors affect the academic analysis of Variance Design (Alii, 1996,
performance of students and thus may pos- Egbule, 2003) with one dependent vari-
itively or negatively influence student able (ie performance in Integrated science)
learning in science. Performance in sci- and three independent variables of gender,
ence is a function of many causal indices school location and socio-economic sta-
coupled with the fact that most studies deal- tus. Each of these independent variables
ing with performance in Integrated science has two levels.
have tended to look at the variables of per- • Gender: Male and female.
formance in isolation from each other plus • School location: Urban schools and
the fact that the problem of achievement Rural schools
in science education has been persistent, the • Socio-economic status: Upper socio-
present study was carried out to find the economic background students and
effects of gender, school location, and Low socio-economic background
socio-economic status on students perfor- students.
mance in Integrated science. Arising from Thus, the students will be randomly
this, the following research questions were assigned to three independent variables
generated to guide this study: each having two levels giving rise to a
1. Do male students from high socio- Three Variable Analysis of Variance.
economic background perform signif- The subject for the study were six, hun-
564 / Education Vol. 129 No. 3
dred junior secondary school three (J.S.S
III) students randomly selected from eight
secondary schools in Okpe, Warri South
and Uvwie Local Government areas of
Delta State, Nigeria. These students were
randomly assigned to eight groups of sev-
enty-five students per group. These student
were already exposed to Integrated Sci-
ence programming i.e teaching and
leaming of Integrated Science for at least
two years at the time the study was con-
ducted.
Three research instruments were devel-
oped and used to collect the data for this
study. These are:
1) Socio-economic status questionnaire;
2) Programmed Instruction on Integrated
Science
3) Integrated Science Achievement Test
(ISAT)
The ISAT and Programmed instruction
on Integrated Science were adopted from
Shaibu and Usman (2002), on two topics
of
i. Feeding in plants and animals; and
ii. Energy Conversion, selected from
the Nigeria Integrated Science Pro-
ject Book 2. (1998). The reliability
co-efficient of the ISAT Instrument
as given by Shaibu and Usman
(2002) is 0.85
The socio-economic status question-
naire was developed by the researcher with
a scale designed to measure respondent
feelings and to seek information on the
education level of student parents, the
income estimate of their parents, the occu-
pational engagement of their parents, the
place of residence of these parents, num-
ber of children in the family and the
educational level of the student of the fam-
ily. The responses of the student to the
above question formed the basis of cate-
gorizing them into either low or high
socio-economic background. The ques-
tionnaire was validated by five experts
each in the fields of sociology and demog-
raphy.
The Programmed Instrument on Inte-
grated Science used in this study was
developed by the researcher as a modified
form that given by Baldwin, (1973) and
is the Linear Programming type. Markle
(1964) advocated for the use of linear
sequence during instruction. The pro-
gramme here used both constructed and
multiple choice responses. Each frame
treated a small but integral unit of the two
topics in Integrated Science as listed above,
and there are series of such frames.
All the teachers from the eight sec-
ondary schools teaching Integrated Science
were taught by the researcher about the
procedure for the administration of the
instrument.
Results
The results of the six hundred students
selected from the eight secondary schools
on the Integrated Science Achievement
Test was analyzed in the table below. A
look at question 1,11, HI generated above
for the study shows that these are cases of
first order interaction (ie the interaction
between the two main variable of gender
with socio-economic background, gender
with school location, and socio-economic
status with school location respectively).
Therefore, a two way analysis of variance
was used to answer these questions as
shown in table below.
 Gender Effect.../565

The result in table 1 with FC < FT (i.e science than female students from rural
0.05< 0.82 above) shows that there is no secondary schools.
significant interaction between gender and The result shown in table 1 also
socio-economic status on achievement in revealed that there is a significant interac-
Integrated Science. This implies that male tion between socio-economic status and
students from high socio-economic back- schools location (FC > FT, 4.932 > 0.02).
ground did not perform significantly better Thus, upper socio-economic background
than female student from low socio-eco- student from urban centred secondary
nomic status as far as this study is schools performed significantly better in
concerned. Integrated science than low socio-eco-
From the result shown in table 1 below, nomic background students from rural
there is a significant interaction between based secondary schools
gender and school location (FC>FT, A look at question four generated for
1.857>0.07). This means that this is a this study shows that this is a case of sec-
significant difference between the perfor- ond order interaction (3-Way Interaction)
mance of male students from urban i.e. the interaction between the three vari-
secondary schools and female students ables of gender, socio-economic status and
from rural secondary schools. Thus, male school location. The result shown in table
students from urban secondary schools per- 1 below revealed that there is a significant
formed significantly better in Integrated interaction between these three variables
TABLE 1
ANOVA SUMMARY TABLE FOR THE THREE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN INTEGRATED SCIENCE
Source of variation Sum of D.F. Mean FC Significance
squares squares (Ft)
Main Effects 132.515 3 44.172 147.930 000
Gender .388 1 0.388 1.301 0.25
S.E.S. 77.411 1 77.411 259.249 000
Location 20,460 1 20.460 68.518 .00

2-Way Interaction 2.227 3 0.742 2.486 0.06

Gender Vs S.E.S 0.015 1 0.015 0.05 0.82
Gender Vs Location 0.555 1 0.555 1.857 0.07
S.E.S. Vs location 1.473 1 1.473 4.932 0.02

3-Way Interaction 2.160 1 2.160 7.233 0.00

Gender Vs S.E.S Vs 2.160 1 2.160 7.233 0.00
Location

Explained 136.903 7 19.558 64.497

Residual 176.771 590 .299
Total 313.673 599 .524
566 / Education Vol. 129 No. 3
(FC > FT, 7.933> 0.00). Thus, male stu-
dents attending urban based secondary
schools from high socio-economic back-
ground performed significantly better in
Integrated Science than female students
from low socio-economic background
attending rural based secondary schools.
Discussions and Conclusions
The result of this study revealed that
the effects of gender and socio-economic
status working together does not produce
a significant interaction on student per-
formance in Integrated science. This in
line with the finding of Ukwungwu (2002)
and Ezeliora (2004) and shows that gen-
der differences irrespective of socio-
economic background does not produce
any significant difference in Integrated
Science performance.
The interaction of gender and school
location produced a positive significant
relationship on performance in Integrated
science. This means that male students
attending urban centred secondary schools
were better equipped with skills to per-
form significantly higher than female
student coming from rural based secondary
schools. This implies that male student
attending urban centered schools are bet-
ter placed with performance enhancing
indices such as good schools that are well
staffed and has well equipped library facil-
ities all of which may be lacking in rural
centered secondary schools. This is in line
with the findings of Avwata, Oniy ama and
Omoraka (2001) and Mkpughe (1998) who
opined that in most cases male students
residing in urban centres of Nigeria tend
to perform better in science subjects when
compared to their counter parts living in
rural areas. These indices of better per-
formance is what may have been
responsible for the superior performance
of male students used in this study. This
finding was earlier on elaborated by Okun-
rontifa (1973) who observed that most
students living in rural environments of
Nigeria has significantly lower entry
behaviour than their urban centered coun-
terparts.
The interaction of socio-economic sta-
tus and school location also revealed a
positive significant relationship in Inte-
grated Science. This shows that a students
socio-economic status and school location
determines his achievement in Integrated
Science. From this study, it has been seen
that upper socio-economic status male stu-
dents attending urban based schools
perform significantly better in Integrated
science than their lower socio-economic
status females attending rural based sec-
ondary schools. This is in agreement with
the view of Ukeje (2000) who opined that
in Nigeria, there is a well defined dichoto-
my between urban and rural centres in
terms of educational facilities and social
amenities. Most teachers indeed strive to
teach in urban centred schools. The above
and other factors tend to limit the perfor-
mance of students attending rural
secondary schools in Nigeria
The effects of gender, socio-economic
status and school location produced sig-
nificant interaction on performance in
Integrated Science for the students used
in this study. Thus gender, socio-econom-
ic status and school location are three
interactive independent variables affect-
ing Integrated science performance and
should be noted by all science educators

during the teaching and learning ofthe sub-
ject.
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