Factors affecting Learning for the secondary school students

Introduction

In today’s generation, the students might have difficulty in learning for a number of reasons, there are some important factors that affects student learning are intellectual factors, Teaching and learning methods, physical, mental, social and emotional, teachers personality, environmental factors, peers, electronic gadgets, Parents and home factors and individual factors.

1)      Intellectual factors

The student success is usually  related to their IQ level, the student with low IQ level have difficulty in mastering the subject and the learning is difficult to them and the students with more IQ level can perform better than others. Low IQ level students will have difficulty in all the subjects.

2)      Teaching and Learning methods

If the teacher does not explain the concepts in a systematic way then the students will not be able to understand the concepts, students learn in a better way if the teachers uses not only blackboard and also by using different strategies and methods and teaching aids to teach the concepts in class as well as she should explain both simple and complex concepts to the class. It is important to teach the concepts in ways that the majority of students can be able to get along with the material being taught. If the teacher does not mention about the application of the concepts then the student will lose their interest about the topic.

3)      Physical factors

The student’s health issues are one of the factors affecting learning. It includes nutrition, hearing and physical deficiencies and physical development. If the student has poor health then they won’t be able to attend the classes and the continuity of the subject will be lost and the student finds the difficulty in learning, the students with physical disabilities lack in reading listening speaking and observation of the topics. Students without good sleep and who skip breakfast are not able to concentrate in the class and this affects the learning.

4)      Mental Factors

Student attitude towards learning is very important and it depends upon the interest, determination and dedication towards learning new things in schools and the attitude plays a major role in organizing the mind and behaviour and approaches to learning. It also includes the students study habits like doing homework regularly revising the concepts on a daily basis.

5)      Social and Emotional Factors

Student’s motivation is related to social and emotional factors. The student’s involvement in various activities in the school and the way student approaches to teachers and friend’s shows about the social factors, students will learn faster if they engage in group activities. The students emotions depends upon the teachers and parents approach towards their learning like if the student has any kind of fear towards teacher then they don’t clarify their doubts with them and if bullying takes places regularly in a school it can distract and hinder a child’s ability to learn. Also if the friends doesn’t help in learning

6)      Environmental Factors

Most of the student’s prefer good environment to study. The distraction or disturbance for learning can occur at the schools and home environment. In school it can be because of infrastructure, classroom facilities, textbooks and resource materials and practical labs. At home it might be because of electricity, television, computer and mobiles. Both the school and home environment should be favourable to learning so that student can learn the materials in an environment that is conducive to learning.

7)      Parent Factor

Parent involvement in student education is very important if the parents are not helping the students by checking the homework and diary regularly and also checking whether they understood the concepts by making them to read write and practice on a daily basis. If both the parents are working and when student goes home and he feels alone at home as no one to take care of him and if the students parents got separated because of this the student will get disturbed and do not concentrate in learning this is also the factors affecting to learning.

A study was conducted on eight factors affecting learning a questionnaire was designed for the survey on secondary school students consist of 50 items for 50 students in Bangalore. The questionnaire were given to the students by random method and the student gave their response by tick mark after reading each questions on either of the following which are in the form of yes, no and sometimes. 

Results

When data analysis was performed the results of the study revealed that the most affecting factor to learning was usage of electronic gadgets. It was around 41% of students were addicted to electronic gadget, other factors are friends factor( 39%), health factor(17%),emotional(32%),teacher factor(31%), parent factor(29%), individual factor(27%),school(22%). 

Among each factors the maximum factors that affects learning was observed as for electronic gadgets (52%) and it shows that 52% of students have their own cell phone, under emotional 46% of students have hatred towards teachers and because of that their interest to learning is lost, 48% of students tells that their friends don’t leave them to study at all in the class, 29% of students often fall sick under health factor. 56% of  students don’t follow a personal timetable for studying this shows that their study habit is weak. 64% of students have no strong relationship with the parents and because of that they are not taken more care towards studies. 28% of students are feels that the schools doesn’t provide an opportunity to develop the students.45% of students has an opinion about the teachers as a biased person during evaluation/assessment.

Conclusion 

The main purpose of the study was to determine which factor affects the most towards learning for the current students. The comparison of various factors were analysed and found that majority of students were have mobile phones and most of them play online games and do not concentrate on their studies and also friends factors is also closely related to gadgets. 

The least factor which affects them was health factor there were no health issues affecting their learning. Nowadays most of the students don’t spend much time to their studies and to talk with their parents there is no proper communication between parent and child this is also a major problem to learning. We should advice the parents to not to give mobile phones to the secondary school students and the parents must make sure that they check the students in the regular basis.