EMERGENT BEHAVIORAL TRENDS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE EDUCATION OF FEMALE SCIENCE STUDENTS IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

EMERGENT BEHAVIORAL TRENDS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE EDUCATION OF FEMALE SCIENCE STUDENTS IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

As Africans approach the next millennium, the educational focus should be targeted at increased female participation and advances in science, technology, engineering and the medical sciences. African women have been erroneously perceived as incapable of pursuing careers in the sciences, which has been debunked by distinguished African female scientists and an ever increasing number of female science is a demanding one that encompasses heavy academic work load, laboratory practical, field trips and continuous experimentation, which elect from students, the highest level of concentration, studiousness, and commitment.

There are disturbing signals from the behavioural trend of female students that could potentially impact negatively on their performance. They include increasing cases of drug abuse, gross misconduct, examination malpractice, cultism, unwanted pregnancy, prostitution and the attendant health hazards of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, and because they are unable to cope with the demand of their courses, they indulge in these negative behaviours. These factors have generated some interesting statistics, for instance in the 2002/2003 academic session, female involvement in examination malpractice show that 66.67% of them were science students, as compared to 33.33% for female Arts students. In the 2004/2005 session female science students constituted 82.02% of female expulsions and rustication.

This study aims at highlighting the danger of those emerging factors and seeks to find out if female science students are more vulnerable to their grave consequences. The study tries to investigate if choice of course, that is, Mathematics and science/Arts is tolerant of these behavioural trends in terms of performance level of female undergraduate students. The study examines the relationship between these behavioural factors and their effect on the performance of female science students. This study also looks at possible ways of tackling these problems in order to improve the performance of girls in science.

Counselors should advocate for action-oriented, innovative, performance enhancement pilot programme that will make science teaching more interesting to female students in tertiary institutions. A “challenge and reward” policy has been found to improve performance in science and is therefore recommended.