Abstract of the Student #Thesis: Williams A. Onasanya
The study investigates the causes of truancy in general mathematics courses in one teacher education programmes in Nigeria (College of Education). The study was carried in Colleges of Education in Southwestern Nigeria (both public and private). Six colleges of education were randomly selected as sample of the study and seventy-five year II (200 level) students and seventy five year III (300 level) were randomly selected from each sampled college; giving total of one hundred and fifty (150) students from each sample college. So, the total number of sampled students was nine hundred (900). Twenty-two hypotheses guided the study. Questionnaire was drawn for students to collect necessary data also students’ academic performances in their last general mathematics course were taken from the record. T-test statistics and simple regression analysis were used to analysis the data. It was found that average absent rate of students in general mathematics courses was 27.33% and average performance of students was 40.29%. The analysis reveals that:
Students demographic like age, tribe, family income, and separated or not separated parents do not contribute to truancy behaviour of students while gender, parents’ education qualification, living condition and type of community living contribute to truancy. This implies that truancy in Colleges of Education cut across all ages not only adolescent.
Family characteristics which include parental involvement in school and students’ projects; parental behavior for children to miss school in order to meet family needs; and existing of stress in home duties causes truancy.
All personal and psychological factors except self-esteem cause truancy.
Apart from bullying all school climate factors such as getting behind in school work; boredom in irrelevant curve; carefree school environment; disrespect from staff; and school attachments causes truancy.
Previous academic performances of students in mathematics cause truancy in the subject.
Recommendations were given for future improvement.
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