This document discusses students' attitudes towards studying economics in Nigerian secondary schools. It begins with background information on economics as a subject and factors that can influence students' attitudes, such as teaching methods, teacher attitudes, and availability of instructional materials. The purpose of the study is to investigate students' attitudes in selected secondary schools in Akure South Local Government Area of Ondo State. The scope is limited to senior secondary students in five schools. The study aims to help economics teachers improve instruction and arouse more student interest in the subject.

1. STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE STUDY OF ECONOMICS IN
NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
INTRODUCTION
1.1BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production,
distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term
economics comes from the Ancient Greekοἰκονομία (oikonomia,
"management of a household, administration") from οἶκος (oikos,
"house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the
house(hold)". Political economy was the earlier name for the subject,
but economists in the late 19th century suggested "economics" as a
shorter term for "economic science" that also avoided a narrow
political-interest connotation and as similar in form to
"mathematics", "ethics", and so forth.

2. A focus of the subject is how economic agents behave or interact
and how economies work. Consistent with this, a primary textbook
distinction is between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Microeconomics examines the behavior of basic elements in the
economy, including individual agents (such as households and
firms or as buyers and sellers) and markets, and their interactions.
Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting
it, including unemployment, inflation, economic growth, and
monetary and fiscal policy.
Other broad distinctions include those between positive economics
(describing "what is") and normative economics (advocating "what
ought to be"); between economic theory and applied economics;
between rational and behavioral economics; and between
mainstream economics (more "orthodox" and dealing with the
"rationality-individualism-equilibrium nexus") and heterodox
economics (more "radical" and dealing with the "institutions-
history-social structure nexus").
Economic analysis may be applied throughout society, as in
business, finance, health care, and government, but also to such

3. diverse subjects as crime,[education, the family, law, politics,
religionsocial institutions, war,and science.At the turn of the 21st
century, the expanding domain of economics in the social sciences
has been described as economic imperialism.
An attitude may be defined as a predisposition to respond in a
favourableor unfavourable manner with respect to a given
attitude object (Oskamp andSchultz 2005). The focus of this
project is on school students’ attitudes towards Economicssubjects
taught in secondary classrooms. The term ‘subjects’ refers to both
theory and laboratory classes in secondary school. Thus, the
scope of the present study was limited to Economics as
experienced by students in secondaryschool rather than out-
of-school experiences obtained from external
sourcessuch as the media, museums, field trips and
friends.A tti tu d e to w a rd s Ec o n o m i c s o r s c i e n c e
d e n o te s i n te re s ts o r f e e l i n gs towards studying Economics
or science. It is the students’ disposition towardslike or
‘dislike’ science while attitude in science means
scientific approachassumed by an indiv idual for solv ing

4. problems, assessing ideas and makingdecisions. Student
beliefs and attitudes have the potential to either facilitate
or inhibit learning (Yara, 2009).Many factors could contribute
to student’s attitude toward studyingscience
(Economics). Sev eral studies (including Wilson 1983;
Soyibo, 1985;Berg 2005; Adesoji, 2008) report that
students’ positiv e attitudes to sciencecorrelate highly
with their that, in general, the attitude of Nigeria
studentstowards the basic sciences tend to decrease in the
order, Biology, Economics,Physics and Mathematics. Defiana
(1995) found that using integrated sciencee n v i ro n m e n t
a c ti v i ti e s i m p ro v e d h i gh s c h o o l s tu d e n t a tti tu d e
to w a rd a n d awareness about the environment. Armstrong and
Impara (1991) in their studiesd e te rm i n e d th a t f i f th a n d
s e v e n th – gra d e s tu d e n ts u s i n g n a tu re s c o re a s
a curriculum supplement developed more positive attitudes
than those who didnot.A b i m b o l a ( 1 9 8 3 ) re p o rte d th a t
s tu d e n ts e x p o s e d to a p ro gra m m e d instruction recorded
higher and more favourable attitude towards
mathematics.Ayelaagbe (1998) also reported a more positive

5. attitude of studies aftere x p o s i n g th e m to s e l f l e a rn i n g
s tra te gy. S i m i l a r re s u l ts w e re o b ta i n e d b y Udousoro
(2000) after using computer and text assisted programmed
instructionand Popoola (2002) after exposing students to a self
learning device. Popoola(2008) also reported that students
attitudes and interests to sciences, especiallyAgricultural
science correlate highly with their science achievement.Halladyna
and Shanghnessy (1982) and Adesoji (2008) have
concludedthat a number of factors have been identified as
related to students’ attitude toscience (Economics). Such
factors include; teaching methods, teacher attitude,influence
of parents, gender, age, cognitive styles of pupils, career
interest,social view of science and Scientifics, social implicating of
science (Economics)and achievement.The studies thus
rev iewed suggest that there is a relationship
betweenattitude and methods of instruction and also between
attitude and achievement;and that it is possible to predict
achiev ement from attitude scores. What isneeded to
complement the results of such studies howev er is the
nature of relationship between students’ attitude and

6. factors related to teaching and learning of Economics?
Results of these types of study are likely to broaden
our k n o w l e d ge a s h o w w e c a n i n f l u e n c e s tu d e n ts ’
a tti tu d e p o s i tiv e ly to w a rd s Economics as a subject in Akure,
Nigeria.
1.2PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to inv estigate the attitudes
of students inA k u re S o u th Lo c a l Go v e rn m e n t A re a o f
On d o S ta te to w a rd s tu d yi n g o f Economics as a subject.The
study is also designed to make various recommendations for
teachersand other stakeholders on how to arouse or improve
students attitudes in thesubject.
1 . 3 S T A T E M E N T O F T H E P R O B L E M S
De s p i te th e gre a te r n u m b e r o f Ec o n o m i c s gra d u a te s
p ro d u c e d b y o u r tertiary institutions; every year there are
numbers of secondary schools where Economics teachers are
not competent in the teaching of the subject. Also,
theattitude of the students in secondary schools towards

7. Economics as a professioni s n o t e n c o u ra gi n g. T h i s
m a k e s th e te a c h i n g o f Ec o n o m i c s i n e f f e c ti v e
a n d inefficient even where there are competent teachers to teach.It
is on this premise, that this study is designed to investigate the
attitudeof students to teaching and learning of Economics in
secondary schools.
1 . 4 R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N S
In order to investigate the attitude of students to Economics, the
followingquestions were raised:
1 . D o t h e s t u d e n t s h a v e p o s i t i v e a t t i t u d e s
t o w a r d s E c o n o m i c s ?
2. D o t h e i r n e g a t i v e a t t i t u d e s a r e s u l t o f t h e
a t t i t u d e o f t h e i r t e a c h e r s towards the subject?
3. D o t h e i r a t t i t u d e s t o w a r d s p r o b l e m s o l v i n g
r e s u l t o f u n a v a i l a b i l i t y o f textbook and other
instructional materials?
4. S h o u l d E c o n o m i c s b e m a d e c o m p u l s o r y
f o r a l l s c i e n c e s t u d e n t s i n secondary schools?

8. 1 . 5 S C O P E O F T H E S T U D Y
T h e s tu d y w a s l i m i te d to s e c o n d a ry s c h o o l s i n
A k u re S o u th Lo c a l Go v e rn m e n t o f On d o S ta te o n l y.
B a s e d o n th e ti m e f ra m e a n d f i n a n c i a l constraints in
covering all the secondary schools in the Local Government,
thestudy was also limited to the students in Senior Secondary
Schools (SS Class)
The names of the schools are:
 S t . D o m i n i c G r a m m a r S c h o o l , A k u r e .
 C . A . C . G r a m m a r S c h o o l , A k u r e .
 O y e m e k u n H i g h S c h o o l , A k u r e .
 S t . P e t e r ’ s U n i t y H i g h S c h o o l , A k u r e .
 F i w a s i a y e G i r l s G r a m m a r S c h o o l , A k u r e .
1 . 6 S I G N I F I C A N C E O F T H E S T U D Y
The study is aimed at looking at the students’ attitudes towards
Economicsin some selected secondary schools in Akure South
Local Government Area of Ondo State.The results of the study
is hoped to assist Economics teachers to developn e w

9. l e a r n i n g e x p e r i e n c e f o r t h e s t u d e n t s a n d
r e o r g a n i ze t h e s e l e a r n i n g experience in some ways enough
to arouse the interest of the students.It would be of good
assistance to teachers to create a habit were they would
improve on the obsolete teaching methods, use adequate,
modern andrelevant instructional materials and textbooks at their
disposed to the fullest.This study may also assist the students
to improve their attitude towardsthe study of the subject.Finally,
the government and parents would benefit from the study of
their roles as these would be highlighted at the recommendation
column.1 . 7 A s s u m p t i o n o f t h e S t u d y Based on the
study, the following assumptions were made.
Secondaryschool students constitute a valid source of data
needed in the study.Also, that the respondents will give valid
and unbiased responses to thequestionnaire items and that
the samples drawn will be representatives of the population
1 . 8 D E F I N I T I O N O F T E R M S

10. Economics:- This is a science subject taught in the Senior
Secondary Schools.
Learning:- This is the process of acquiring knowledge i n
Economics amongSenior Secondary School Students.
Attitude:- This refers to students’ positive mind to the study of
Economics.
Teaching:- Transmission of the knowledge of Economics to
Senior SecondarySchool Students.Instruction
Materials:- These are aids used in teaching and learning of
Economicsin Senior Secondary School.
EDITOR SOURCE: Students’ Attitude Towards The Study Of Economics In
Nigerian Secondary Schools