How Social Environment Can Influence Behavior And Student Performance
The environment plays a very important role in one’s personal growth. A healthy environment creates a perfect individual while the environment is a less healthy environment will produce problematic society. Over the past three decades, students’ discipline and behavioral problems often occur. Positive social environment has been linked to enhancing students’ behavior, academic achievement, and motivation. It also has a positive impact on the formation of students’ attitudes and behaviors in many key areas like making decisions, equality and justice, caring, sensitivity, and discipline of a student.
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Hence, the environment is a contributing factor to students’ delinquency such as loitering, playing truant, bullying, skipping, and more. Adolescent stage is a transition stage from childhood to adulthood. Their emotions and minds will easily change according to the environment. The existence of internet cafe and various entertainment centers and others that provide a variety of products that can promote illicit social ills. It gives positive impact on formation of students’ behavior in developing essential soft skills like making decisions, love for social justice and equality as well as nurturing caring nature, sensitivity and shaping the discipline.
Human behaviors and shaped based on what they observe in the surrounding environment. Therefore, bad and problematic behaviors are the outcomes of negative environment. In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature on social environment. Problematic habits and behaviors are formed as the result of what a person or an individual leaves from his environment. The changes in behavior may evolve according to the environment. Environment can serve as a powerful tool to shape the behavioral learning processes of an individual. Ironically speaking, humans create an environment system and learn from it which also includes negative elements that shape the youngsters behaviors. This is due to the immature state of their thinking faculty and lack of life experience. Both of these elements trigger behavioral problems. Therefore these physiological attributes of these children, teenagers and young adults are making them vulnerable to the negative effects of media and environment.
In addition, most student misconduct is due to hanging out. A student who likes to hang out is vulnerable to environmental influences and leads to various misconduct such as smoking, drug abuse, stealing and so on. Social environment factors became the major contributor to student behavior. This behavioral problem is found in a risky social environment and school atmosphere that often interacts with other factors affecting deviant behavior.
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
Human social environments encompass the immediate physical surroundings, social relationships, and cultural milieus within which defined groups of people function and interact. Components of the social environment include built infrastructure; industrial and occupational structure; labor markets; social and economic processes; wealth; social, human, and health services; power relations; government; race relations; social inequality; cultural practices; the arts; religious institutions and practices; and beliefs about place and community. The social environment subsumes many aspects of the physical environment, given that contemporary landscapes, water resources, and other natural resources have been at least partially configured by human social processes. Embedded within contemporary social environments are historical social and power relations that have become institutionalized over time. Social environments can be experienced at multiple scales, often simultaneously, including households, kin networks, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and regions. Social environments are dynamic and change over time as the result of both internal and external forces. There are relationships of dependency among the social environments of different local areas, because these areas are connected through larger regional, national, and international social and economic processes and power relations.
STUDENT BEHAVIOR
Student’s behavior reflects the interaction of their temperament and inherited personality, the history of their experiences, and the particular nature of each situation. In most circumstances it is impossible to determine what proportion each of these elements contributes to a given manifestation. It also differs in proportions which vary from student to student and even from situation to situation for a single student. Although it is difficult to modify personality of a student having problem behavior, it is possible to modify behavior by identifying and correcting adverse situations in the environment and by introducing appropriate interventions. If adverse environmental conditions are corrected at an early stage, there is a greater possibility of preventing or diminishing their impact on behavioral pattern of student in question
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Academic performance or school outcome is the product of student’s achievements at specific institution, for specific time duration, under a specific guideline of a leader to a right motive. The academic performance can be best checked or judged by different ways according to the mental level of students like observations, test and examinations. The primary level student’s academic performance is usually checked by observations. While the examinations and tests are best way to check the academic performance or academic understanding in high classes. These written tests or examinations are known as home exams because it is conducted by school administration. In some countries examination is used to upgrade or degrade the students so if a student is intelligent but did not attend the annual exam will be left in same class till he/she succeed in the exam. Students learn in schools and institutions, their records are kept and this record is called academic performance and academic outcome. The student works under the supervision of a teacher, in a selected place, for selected time duration and their performance is measured by exams. This process is known as the academic performance. The learners choose the best institution to perform well or get academic excellence. The formal study of learner starts in schools. In school the learner learns various things along with technical, arts, literacy etc.
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT BEHAVIOR AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE
Social environment factors can influence and become a source of learning in the process of formulating on behavior through various patterns of social learning. This is because humans naturally mimic, whether imitating in a positive or negative direction. The environment can affect the appreciation of the individual’s moral values. Appreciation of moral values is the final stage of the social convergence process formed through social learning that incorporates elements of social learning fundamental elements such as stimulus, reaction, affirmation, compliance, identification, modeling and impersonation. The environment has an important role in the formation of individual identity and behavior. This role involves significant individuals such as parents, family members, peers, teachers and mass media. It has a strong influence in the formation of each individual’s identity.
Home environment significantly influences student’s childhood which has further influences on adult life of the child. The home environment hinders or support children overall development. Parents’ attitudes play a dominant role and where it is supportive enhances children performances and has positive impacts on child’s development. Interactions of family members are contributive for students’ as it enables them to improve their linguistic, social and intellectual skills. There is evidence that supportive home environment enhance child’s confidence in his/herself, enable them to be sociable. This confidence helps students in developing their adjustment capabilities in different environments which positively influences students’ educational performances. Students living in non- supportive home environment struggle in every walk of life including educational life.
Home interactions of family members at home are frequent. Head of the family communicates messages to family members to perform home related activities at home and outside of it. The tune, words and approach in communication reflects the attitude of the head of the family and the reply of family members to the head of the family has the same ingredients which also constitutes their attitude towards the head of the family and his/her communication. Besides, family decisions are major factor that involve in-depth interactions of the family members. It is the stage from where the importance of family member say/opinion can be judged. Families that involves children in their decision making process enable their children to have self-confidence develop’ their self-esteem and thus contribute towards social development of students. Children educational activities at home are based on the physical environment of their home. Home facilities of children enable and restrain them in practicing educational activities at home. Class preparation and practice at home are fundamental for child, as a child spends only five and six hours at school and the remaining time is spent at home which needs to be utilized properly. The proper utilization of home time of child means provision of educational environment at home, which plays a dominant role in improving the educational performances of children. The establishment of Parents’ Teacher Councils/ Associations at school is an important step toward increased parent’s involvement in the educational activities of children. The power of imitation enables the children to learn from their parents and elders. Parents watching TV, having lunch, dinner and breakfast and other activities at home provide numerous learning opportunities for children from parents and other family members.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, location/setting of school is one of the environmental factors that influence the academic performance of secondary school students. Conducive environment enhances a child’s growth and development. But schools sited near airports or at the heart of city are always and leads to deficits in mental concentration of students in such schools. School buildings are one of the school facilities that influence academic performance of students. The designs of classroom and its lighting also determine if students will perform well or not. Students perform well than in a dark. Without light it is obvious that students may develop bad sight. More so, positive interpersonal relationships and optional learning opportunities for students in all demographic environments can increase achievements levels and reduces maladaptive behavior. Home background as one of the factors that affect the academic performance of secondary school students helps to position a child academically. For child’s first educational experiences are centered in the home, that is his ideas, attitudes and general patterns of behavior are a result of his childhood rearing. If a child was brought up well he will excel academically and the reverse will be the case if he was brought up in an unfriendly environment like polygamous home where attention is given to many people in the family.
