1.1 Introduction
Business education is an aspect of vocational and technical education. It is a specialized programme of instruction designed to provide individuals with knowledge, skill, and attitude for occupational work and advancement. According to Gana and Abdulrahman (2017), business education is a wide field of discipline, which prepares individual with relevant and saleable skills for effective self and societal development. Courses offer in business education are developed to expose students to core areas like accounting, commerce and cooperative/distributive education and marketing, secretarial studies, agriculture, and home economics. According to Okwuanaso and Nwazor (2000), business education involves teaching students the fundamentals, theories, and processes of business and its related activities.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Academic result serves as feedback on the assessment of students’ performance on subject or course examination. Feedback that is both affirming and corrective is necessary for people to learn. Defined as information on the results of one's efforts, feedback that is clear, specific and timely motivates students to improve. Since feedback is most often connected to grading that follows assigned work or assessment activities, Walvoord and Anderson , say that:
grading "...encompasses tailoring the test or assignment to the learning goals of the course...offering feedback so students can develop as thinkers and writers, communicating about students' learning to appropriate audiences, and using results to plan improvements in the classroom..."
Thus assessment provides feedback for both learners and teachers. Conversely, the absence of prompt useful feedback reduces interest in learning. When instructors provide students with prompt feedback followed by discussion of incorrect responses, they are using one of the most powerful predictors of positive student outcomes. Walberg's meta-analysis of studies of educational interventions that had the greatest impact on student achievement in K-12 classrooms, found that instruction that incorporated feedback and correctives was one of most potent A few years later, higher education began focusing on giving prompt feedback as one of its "Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education". The authors explain, "Knowing what you know and don't know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses”. Most recently, study of the human brain suggests that we are biologically wired to seek and use feedback
It is imperative to note that if students are to benefit from feedback; it must not only be timely and frequent, but also useful for improving performance by addressing three areas: what students did well, what students need to improve on, and how to make this improvement. Feedback can take a variety of forms: formative, summative, individual, group, written, coded comments, and charts and rubrics of essential characteristics of assignments. Although giving detailed feedback is important, it may be even more important to give it in a timely manner . However it is pertinent as well to encourage students to carefully read and use feedback. The research intends to provide analysis of timely release of result and its effect on academic performance of student in business education.
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to appraise the Timely Release of Result and Academic Performance of Student in Business Education.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Timely release of academic result has incessantly been an issue of concern not only to students but to the larger academic society. Delay in the release of result reduces the moral of students and overall academic performance. The problem confronting this research is to determine timely release of result and academic performance of students in business education.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to appraise the Timely Release of Result and Academic Performance of Student in Business Education. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To appraise the nature of academic result in Business education.
- To determine the effect of timely release of result on the performance of students in business education
- To find out the factors constituting timely release of students’ academic result in business education.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- What is the nature of academic result?
- What constitute timely release of result?
- What is the effect of timely release of result on the academic performance of the students in business education?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: The rate of timely release of result is low
- H1: The rate of timely release of result is high
Hypothesis Two
- H0: Academic performance of students in business education is low
- H1: Academic performance of students in business education is high
Hypothesis Three
- H0: The effect of timely release of result on the performance of students is low
- H1: The effect of timely release of result on the performance of students is high.
1.7 Significance of Study
The research shall highlight the effect of timely release of result on the academic performance of students in business education. It shall provide a source of information for students, teachers, lecturers, and academicians.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The research focuses on the appraisal of timely release of result and its effect on the performance of students in business education.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Result Defined: Academic result serves as feedback on the assessment of students performance on subject or course examination .Feedback that is both affirming and corrective is necessary for people to learn . Defined as information on the results of one's efforts, feedback that is clear, specific and timely motivates students to improve
Performance Defined: The accomplishment of a given task measured against preset known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed.
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