Self-Concept Transformation on Senior Secondary School Students' Academic Achievement in Central Zone, Plateau State, Nigeria

Article Information ABSTRACT Received: March 20, 2021 Revised: April 06, 2021 Accepted: April 10, 2021 Online: May 16, 2021 Economics is one of the popular subjects in the Senior Secondary School (SSS) curriculum, and it covers the fundamental aspects of human lives concerning scarcity of resources. Proper understanding of the basic concept will enable students to realize the benefit of the subject. This study examined the effects of the self-concept transformation package on senior secondary school student's academic achievement in the quantitative aspect of Economics in Central Zone, Plateau State, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental research design, the non-equivalent controlgroup design, was used for this study. The sample size consisted of 105 economics SS2 students from intact classes of the four sampled schools. There were 50 and 55 students in the experimental and control group, respectively. Multi-Stage Cluster sampling techniques were used for this study. The instruments used for data collection were the Multidimensional Self-Concept Scales (MSS) and Quantitative Economics Achievement Test (QEAT). Research questions were analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the t-test of independent sample and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypotheses. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 23 was used for the analysis. The results show that the self-concept transformation package positively and significantly affected students' self-concept and academic achievement in quantitative economics. The study recommended that the use of abusive words on students by Parents and guardians should be discouraged to strengthening their student's self-concept.


INTRODUCTION
Education is so powerful that it can heal, build up, and lift a nation. Several government and regimes previously in Nigeria has made Education their priority; however, the Nigerian Educational system is still not ripe to address the challenges of modern times. In Nigeria, despite the several reforms and policy modifications in the educational system such as the 8-6-2-3 system; the 6-5-2-3 system (1954); the 6-3-3-4 systems (1983); and currently the 9-3-4 system (Zalmon, 2017), poor students' performance remains a problematic issue and a thing of concern to stakeholders. As a result, the

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National Policy on Education (NPE) has been revised to ensure that it addresses the educational sector's perceived needs to improve students' performance, yet it has not yielded many results (FRN, 2013).
Economics is one of the popular subjects in the Senior Secondary School (SSS) curriculum, and it covers the fundamental aspects of human lives concerning scarcity of resources. Proper understanding of the basic concept will enable students to realize the benefit of the subject. The subject at secondary levels comprises economics theory, Economics statistics, and Economics mathematics; the quantitative aspect of economics covers economics statistics and Economics mathematics. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of Economics, students' performance is still poor in Economics' examinations (Adu, Ojelabi & Hammed, 2009). The West African Examination Council (WAEC) Chief Examiners' reports (1999-2016) on senior secondary school students' achievement in economics revealed poor performance from available statistics. For instance, in 2009For instance, in , 2013For instance, in , and 2014 percent of candidates that sat for the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) in Nigeria, respectively obtained credit passes of between A1 -C6 in Economics (Zalmon, 2017). These performances are shallow compared to the globally accepted standard of 70 percent. The Chief Examiners' report (2016) identified the poor understanding of concepts taught, inadequate coverage of the syllabus, inability to draw and label demand curves properly, inaccurate measurement of diagram outlines, and poor manipulations of demand equations as the causes of poor performance in economics in the secondary schools. Similarly, the Chief Examiners' reports in 2010 and 2012 also indicated that quantitative Economics accounted for 70 percent of students' weaknesses. It can be seen as follows: 1. Calculations; Most students cannot calculate the price elasticity of demand and the total cost, average cost, and marginal cost. 2. Poor graph analysis; The students cannot draw a demand curve and understand total and marginal cost diagrams. Moreover, it is difficult to study all the factors affecting academic achievement. It is because of the multi-dimensional nature of this variable, and it is affected by huge factors such as student intelligence quotient, School environment, teachers' capacity, availability of instructional materials, students' selfconcept, and students' attitude. It has prompted this study that the solution might lie in the students self-concept.
Self-concept simply is viewed as the intellectual and cognitive aspect of self; this enables an individual to have a total understanding of himself or herself. Self-concept refers to self-awareness, assessment, understanding, and insight about oneself (Hormuth, 2010). Everybody has some perception about himself; hence Self-concept does not necessarily reflect reality. An individual becomes more satisfied when the ideal self is incongruent with the actual self. Social and psychological incompatibility can experience by the individual due to failure to achieve the ideal concept. Therefore, self-concept involves the awareness, feelings, and attitudes one has about one's skills, abilities, social acceptance and appearance, and other features; it is formed through the interaction with the environment, primarily through self-assessment.
Furthermore, gender plays a significant role in determining students' self-concept and academic achievement in secondary schools. The results from studies show a mixed result. The studies of Vleioras and Bosma (2005) indicated a positive relationship between the genders with other's personality development. Also, in the work of Maddux and Brewer (2005) shows that self-concept is one of the differences between male and female this lead to different behaviors in people. Kemmelmeier and Oyserman (2001) stated that male and female differences in excitement, motivation, cognition, and social behaviors could be attributed to the difference between male and female self-concepts. They further mentioned that males and females defined themselves in quite different ways. Females define themselves with others in society, but males define themselves with themselves. However, Marčič and Grum (2011) indicated no significant difference between self-esteem and self-concept among males and females. Social skills, responsibility, citizen responsibilities, honesty, and loyalty are positively related to self-concept. The study indicated that women are more satisfied with others than men, and they are more competent to interact with others, and they are more loyal and honest than men. Since all societies help men and women obtain positive self-concepts to attain self-actualization and flourish their potentialities and talents, examining the differences between genders is of great importance. Kalantarkousheh (2012) opined that gender differences need to be considered in examining psychological factors. Thus, this study examines how male and female students differ in their self-  Table 1 reveals the pre-test student quantitative economics mean scores of experimental and control groups. The result for the experimental group has the mean score and standard deviation of (=40.50, SD=9.30), and that of the control group has the mean score and standard deviation of (=40.02, SD=9.08). Thus, the pre-test student quantitative economics mean scores in both control and experimental groups generally indicated low with a low mean difference(0.48). It could be because both groups were not exposed to treatment.

Research question two
What is the difference in the academic achievement of secondary school students in the quantitative aspect of Economics in the experimental and control group after treatment in the Central Zone, Plateau State, Nigeria?  Table 2 reveals the post-test student quantitative economics mean scores of experimental and control groups. The result for the experimental group has the mean score and standard deviation of (=57.40, SD=9.24), and that of the control group has the mean score and standard deviation of (=43.04, SD=9.08). The post-test students' quantitative economics mean scores in experimental and control groups generally improve with a mean difference (14.36). It could be because the experimental groups were exposed to treatment.

Research question three
What is the difference in students' self-concept after the treatment package in Central Zone, Plateau State, Nigeria?  Table 3 reveals the post-test student self-concept mean scores of experimental and control groups. The result for the experimental group has the mean score and standard deviation of ( =74.10, SD=8.13), and that of the control group has the mean score and standard deviation of ( =66.75, SD=8.81).
The pre-test student quantitative economics attitude mean scores in both experimental and control groups generally indicated high self-concept with a high mean difference (7.35). It could be because experimental groups were exposed to treatment.

Research question four
What is the difference in males and females students' academic achievement in quantitative economics after the treatment package in Central Zone, Plateau State, Nigeria?  Table 4 indicated that the academic achievement mean scores after treatment of male students in the experimental group are 57.90 and female students 57.07 with the SD 1.61and 2.24, respectively. However, male students' mean scores in the control group are 43.07 and female students 43.00 with the SD of 9.22 and 9.10, respectively. These results show that male students had better academic achievement in quantitative economics than female students in the control and experimental groups. The means scores of the experimental group were higher than the control groups. It could be because the experimental groups were exposed to treatment.

Hypotheses
The first two hypotheses set for this study were tested using a t-test of independent samples, and the other one was tested using ANCOVA with the aids of SPSS version 23 below. The summary of the results was presented below, respectively

Hypothesis One
There is no significant difference between the pre-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in quantitative Economics in experimental and control groups.  Table 5 reveals the t-test for independent sample on pre-test academic achievement mean scores of Experimental and Control Groups. The table shows that the mean value for the experimental and control groups was (=40.50, SD=9.30) and (=40.02, SD=9.08). Thus, the t statistics was 1.15; since the p-value (0.18) is greater than the 0.05 level of significance, the null hypothesis was retained. Furthermore, it indicated that the pre-test mean scores of the experimental group were not statistically significantly different from the pre-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in the quantitative Economics of the control group. The two groups were thus considered to be equivalent before the commencement of treatment.

Hypothesis two
There is no significant difference between the post-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in quantitative Economics in the experimental and control group. From table 6, the results show that the post-test mean value for the experimental group and control group were (=57.40, SD=9.24) and (=43.05, SD=9.08) respectively. The t statistics was 3.10; since the p-value (0.002) is less than the 0.05 level of significance, the null hypothesis was rejected. It indicated that the post-test mean scores of the experimental group were statistically significantly different from the pre-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in the quantitative Economics of a control group. This difference was because of the treatment package used.

Hypothesis three
There is no significant difference between the mean score of students' self-concept in the posttest of the experimental and control groups.  Table 7 shows that the post-test means values for the experimental and control groups were (=74.10, SD=8.14) and (=66.75, SD=8.81). The t statistics was 2.14; since the p-value (0.034) is less than the 0.05 level of significance, the null hypothesis was rejected. It indicated that the post-test mean scores of the experimental group were statistically significantly different from the pre-test students' selfconcept mean scores of the control group. This difference was because of the treatment package used.

Hypothesis four
There is no significant main effect of gender on students' academic achievement of secondary school students in quantitative Economics before and after the treatment package in experimental and control groups. The ANCOVA was conducted in table 8 to determine the main effect of gender on students' academic achievement of secondary school students in quantitative Economics. The effect of gender ( male and female ) yielded a mean of (=42.58, SD=11.824), and (=35.25, SD=11.833), respectively. The result in table 15 further shows that F (1,40) =118.147. P=0.000. Since the p-value of 0.0000 is less than the 0.05 level of significance, the null hypothesis is rejected, indicating a significant effect of gender on students' academic achievement in the quantitative aspect of Economics.

DISCUSSION
The first findings show no significant difference between the pre-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in quantitative Economics in experimental and control groups. It is because the is no significant difference in the mean of the two groups before treatment. It implies that the two groups were randomly assigned, and both groups were not exposed to treatment. The second findings show a significant difference between the post-test academic achievement mean scores of secondary school students in quantitative Economics in experimental and control groups. The mean scores of the experimental group are higher than the control group. This difference was because of the treatment package used on the experimental group. The third findings show a significant difference between the mean score of students' self-concept in the post-test of experimental and control groups. This difference was also because of the treatment package used on the experimental group.