The efforts
exerted to improve the quality of teaching and learning by curriculum
developers, educators, supervisors, professional development teachers,
principals, teachers, and parents aim to increase the levels of academic
achievements among the learners in a classroom. Learning, growing academically, and working increasingly and purposefully in schools are seen as the standard
pattern of behavior of the learners. Academic achievement as defined by Tubin,
Likritz, and Chen (2004) is the performance of students in a classroom which
includes acquiring knowledge and its construction through applying it in new
learning, reading comprehension, mathematical skills, mapping, and graphing.
These achievements can be measured by using valid and reliable tools such as academic
written tests, interview and observation with a scale. Iram and Maslovaty
(1998) in their research study categorized achievements in knowledge and skills
where the former involves facts, concepts, principles and theories learned from
various sources of knowledge such as inquiry, observation, sharing ideas with
others, problem solving and doing experiments. Skills involve reading, writing,
oral communication, problems solving, applying previous learning in new
learning, synthesizing different ideas into a comprehensive themes and
evaluating a situation, event or a programme. The students need an effective
teaching through a set of principles that have the order, coherence and
relevance to maximize their achievements in classrooms. The achievements of the
academic goals help the students to be consistent with the expectation of the
teachers and parents.
The level
of academic achievement among the students can be enhanced when appropriate
teaching and learning strategies are applied in classrooms where the students
to show the desirable behaviors. For example, encouraging words such as
excellent, very good and very nice used by teachers to reinforce students’ good
behaviors. The motivated students in a classroom show desirable behaviors again
and again, which brings changes among the students to ensure their high
academic achievements. The findings of the research conducted by Hancock (2002)
revealed that the students’ who were verbally appreciated by the teachers on
their good behaviors during teaching were motivated to demonstrate
significantly higher achievement levels in a teacher-made test than those
students who were not verbally appreciated.
This indicates that the students
need an encouragement for their positive performance in the academic activities
which help them to enhance their academic achievement levels. Palomino (2003)
states that the students who are motivated to accomplish learning tasks gain
competencies and the high levels of achievements. The results of research
conducted by Niebuhr and Niebuhr (1999) showed that the quality of a classroom
environment which involves such conditions where students are allowed to
perform activities according to their own styles of learning provides
opportunities to increase the academic achievements. A classroom is said to be
a supportive place for learning when the students are provided with learning
experiences which support and encourage the students to develop their skills
and construct knowledge. The results of
a research conducted by Halawah (2006) showed that the school climate and
family environment as the factors for motivation that strongly affected
students’ academic achievement. Chung (1998) demonstrated that the students
learn from the academic tasks when the assigned tasks match the learners’
self-developed structures of getting motivation. Comparison of the research
results.
It can be inferred that the supporting conditions in schools include
encouragement of the students, their positive relationships with teachers and
peers, interesting experiences for students’ learning and addressing different
learning styles of students. The family environment includes providing
guidance, enhancing self-esteem, developing personality and fulfilling
psychological, socialization and academic needs are the factors affecting
academic achievements involving the motivation. Four types of approaches to
motivation namely behavioral, humanistic, cognitive and socio-cultural
approaches have been widely discussed in the literature to motivate the
students to ensure their optimum level of academic achievements. According to
Coon (2000), the perspectives of humanistic psychologists such as Rogers and
Maslow, the humanistic approach to motivation involves a set of human needs to
be fulfilled namely physiological, safety, belonging, esteem and aesthetic
needs and fulfillment of these needs serve as the causes of maximizing
students’ achievements in a classroom.
References
Chung, S. K.
(2009). Autobiographical portraits of four females adolescents: Implications
for
teaching critical visual
culture. International Journal of Education
and Arts, 10(11). Retrieved May 13, 2009 from http://www.ijea.org/v10n11/.
Coon, D.
(2000). Essentials of psychology:
Exploration and application (8th ed.). Australia:
wardsworth.
Halawa, I.
(2006). The effects motivation, family environment, and students’ academic
achievements. Journal of educational psychology. Retrieved
December 12, 2009, from http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCG/is_2_33/ai_n16608929/pg_5/?tag=
content;coll
Hancock, D. R.
(2002). Influencing graduate students’ classroom achievement, homework habits
and
motivation to learn with verbal praise. Educational
Research. 44(1). 83-95.
Iram, Y., & Maslovaty, N. (1998). Students’ characteristics and achievements. In. J. Zaida (Ed.),
Learning and teaching (pp. 101-118). Australia: James Nicholas publishers.
Niebuhr, K.
E., & Niebuhr, R. E. (1999). An empirical study of student relationships
and
academic achievement. Education, 199. Retrieved December 14,
2009, from http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=LB1QbhZdYNCs6555990?docId=5001285058
Palomino, J.
(2003). Teaching to change the world. In. J. Oakes & M. Lipton (Eds.)
Contemporary
learning theories: Problem
solving, understanding and participation, (pp. 69-103). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Tubin, D.,
Likritz, R., & Chen, D. (2004). Educational achievement of graduates of an
experimental
elementary school. Educational research.
46(2), 151-162.
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