Why Secondary School Geography Students Perform Poorly in External Examinations

Abstract The perpetual decline of students’ performance in external geography examinations necessitated this enquiry to identify causes of failure reported by examiners. This study, therefore, adopted a qualitative approach to analyze West African Examination Council (WAEC) chief examiners’ reports from 2008 to 2018 to extract vital information on why Nigerian students perform poorly in geography, using the grounded theory methodology and RQDA for data analyses. Poor map work, inadequate preparation and scanty explanation of points were identified. Ideal geography teachers ought to be multiplied in schools, with the utilization of relevant instructional resources and student-centered teaching strategies for improvements.


Introduction
Geography as a school subject is vital in providing a solid knowledge-base about the environment, while developing positive attitudes and hands-on skills in preserving the beauty of it. In a similar thought, Akintade (2012) had previously ascribed Geography as a subject that endows students with vast knowledge for increased functionality and relevance in a fast-changing world, being a versatile, expressive and intellectually stimulating subject. Presently, career opportunities from studying geography is not limited to teaching and research (education sector) alone. In recent times, geography graduates have taken up job roles related to town planning, meteorology, journalism, climate change, surveying, consultancy, environmental advocacy, and even engineering. The contents of Geography at the senior secondary level provides foundational exposure to a broad spectrum of knowledge that connects all these elds.
The preparation of students for an active future of preserving the environment, while enjoying its resources is achievable through secondary school Geography. Also, assuming studies at higher institutions in the eld of geography, environmental education, environmental sciences and other closely associated courses of study require initial exposure to secondary school Geography. The West African Examination (WAEC) syllabus for example contains topics such as principles of elementary surveying; Geographic Information System (GIS); climate: elements, classi cation and climate change; geo-political issues; eld work, and other topics that touch on diverse professions. WAEC also itemizes certain abilities geography students must acquire prior to the West African Senior Secondary School Certi cate Examination (WASSCE): I. Explanation of the concepts of differential character and spatial relationships; II. Explanation of the concepts of man-environment relations; III. Demonstration of a basic knowledge of the nature and functioning of physical and human environments; IV. Organization and formulation of principles in line with geographical concepts and the application of these principles in interpreting spatial problems at the local and wider environmental scales; V. Demonstration of skills and techniques for accurate, orderly and objective geographical investigations; VI. Communication of geographical ideas effectively through reports, graphs, charts, sketches, diagrams and maps; VII. Explanation of the cultural, social and economic circumstances of people at both local and sub-region (West African) levels The Nigerian teaching and learning of Geography has transcended narrow and limited contents to inclusion of current and contemporary issues in line with the dynamism of knowledge. In the view of Aderogba (2012), secondary school syllabuses, especially of the WAEC had metamorphosed from the 'ubiquitous and irrelevant stuff (content) to more focused, purposeful and relevant issues'. Furthermore, Olusegun (2006) records that following Nigeria's independence in 1960, contents of school subjects including Geography, were reviewed in consonance with the consideration the potentials, resources and immediate needs of the society and the learners themselves. In tracing the history of Geographic thoughts in Nigeria, Ofomata (2008) pegs 1948 as the base year, when Geography became an academic pursuit at the university level, while the present stage commencing from 1981, is referred to as the contemporary stage.
In the words of Aremu and Sokan (2003), 'the search for the causations of poor academic achievement is unending'. Previously, studies such as Akintade (2012) (2016), have alluded to unsatisfactory, poor and discouraging performance of Nigerian secondary school students in Geography. However, there seem to be scanty information in literature as to the factors leading to such abysmal performance, with an obvious seeming temporal discontinuity in geographical education research on the subject. This study entails an arduous work to ll this research gap.
As secondary school Geography lays the foundation of the study of Geography at higher education institutions, this research borders on why Nigerian secondary school geography students perform poorly in their nal external examinations, with strong evidence from reports of the examiners, who graded the scripts for the period 2008 to 2018. The ndings of this study will be practically signi cant to students who will take the same external examinations, along with their teachers, who guide them in preparations for the examination, thus serving as an examination-preparation guide for Geography external examinations in Nigeria. The puzzle is apparent -why do Geography students perform poorly in WASSCE every year from 2008 to 2018?

Context Of The Study
Nigeria currently operates a 9-3-4 system of formal education. The rst 9 years is devoted to basic education (6 years for lower basic/primary education; and 3 years for upper basic education), which culminates in the Basic Education Certi cation Examination (BECE). The following 3 years is for senior secondary schooling, which is concluded with the Senior School Certi cate Examination (SSCE). Generally, two categories of examinees (internal/school and external/private candidates) take the SSCE every year. While the internal students are those in their third year in the senior secondary school (SS3) who take the exam in May/June, the external candidates are not in the school system and are composed majorly of those who take the examinations around November/December to make up for their de ciencies in certain subjects. The last stage of the Nigerian education system takes at least 4 years of study to earn a Bachelor degree, with some courses taking up to 6 years of study. The WAEC Geography exam tests candidates in economic, human, physical, practical and regional geography. The examination takes the form of 50 multiple choice questions; 4 essay-type questions on economic and human geography; 4 essay-type questions on regional geography; and 8 essay-type questions on practical and physical geography. Speci ed rubrics are clearly printed on each sections of the questions to guide the students on examiners' expectation, with the marks clearly indicated.

Methods
This study adopts a qualitative approach in analyzing WAEC Chief examiners' report from 2008 to 2018, anchored on the grounded theory methodology of Corbin and Strauss (2008). The methodology is considered appropriate for this study as constructs used were not derived from prior theories. Also, the goal of obtaining results and conclusions that are representative of the situation under analysis, based on the analyzed data. Hence, the data analysis adopted in this study follows the laid down procedures outlined by the methodology -thorough reading of the reports to identify themes; coding themes; and linking up speci c themes grounded in the obtained data. The process therefore identi ed a number of recurrent weaknesses leading to poor performance and their remedies; with the inclusion of excellent students' strengths, for emulation.
The reports that form the data for this study, cover all Geography testees who took the examination within the period. These reports, written by Chief examiners annually, are considered vital resources in Geography provided by WAEC for assistance in full understanding of the required standards expected in Geography nal examination, and are made freely available on the WAEC website (WAEC, 2018).
The data was analyzed using RQDA. RDQA is a free qualitative analysis software developed by Huang (2018), used as a package for Qualitative Data Analysis in R, following installation of required packages. The raw reports were saved in text format, and used as input into RQDA. The themes were identi ed separately for internal and external candidates, and coded accordingly, and repeated for all the years under review. Choice excerpts have been selected and captured under relevant themes in the subsequent sections.
Each excerpt is identi ed by a bracket (showing the exam type and year (MJ=May/June; ND=November/December)); and a square bracket [containing the range of characters coded using a speci c theme].

Results
Results of the qualitative data analyses is presented in the following sections. The subdivisions adopted by the chief examiners' reports (general comments, weaknesses, recommendations, and strengths), has been retained.

General Comments
4.1.1 Standard, spread and presentation of the examination questions Questions set are of required standards in all years under review. These questions are reported to have adequate spread and coverage of the syllabus, with appropriate spread to the domains of learning. In terms of presentation, all questions were reported to be captured alongside required rubrics, in simple and clear language (English) for easy comprehension by testees.
"The paper was of a high standard and was comparable with those of previous examinations." (ND.2011) [52:139] "All the questions were from topics that were selected from the syllabus. These questions were properly distributed among the segments of human and regional Geography and they covered the various domains of Marks' allocation and marking guide preparation The examiners adopted equitable allocation of marks, and ensured to prepare comprehensive and exhaustive marking scheme/guide, for both school candidates and private candidates. Excerpts of the report are given hereunder:

Students' Performance
Generally, the reports only used the key words 'below' or 'better' in describing the performance for each year in relation to previous years. A pictorial representation of the report of students' performance using terms such as 'below the previous year'; 'below the previous years'; at par with the previous year'; 'better than previous year'; and 'better than previous years', has been attempted and presented in Table 1 and Figure 1.
The school candidates and private candidates are presented differently.

Recommended remedies for identi ed weaknesses
Sequel to the identi cation of the aforementioned weaknesses, the examiners provided suggestions to remedy the situation and achieve improvement in students' performance (  "Candidates are required to properly explain their points rather than to merely list them. Explanation of points will enable candidates to obtain full marks thus leading to high performance… Also, where it is required that points be substantiated with appropriate diagrammatic representation, candidates should go ahead and use such illustrations to obtain full marks." (MJ.2014) [2108:2329] "Candidates will be required to explain their point in order to secure full marks in most of the questions. Candidates should practice how to answer questions correctly by using past question papers and past model answers." (ND.2018(ND. ) [2084(ND. :2337 Inadequate preparation Early preparation "The candidates could perform better if they imbibe a good reading culture as there is no substitute to good study life. The syllabus should be covered before the commencement of the examination and this can be achieved if the candidates will devote extra time to personal study to complement the classroom teaching efforts." (MJ.2009(MJ. ) [1301(MJ. :1624 "Candidates are advised to start preparing for the examination early enough so that they could be adequately ready for the examination…practice the drawing of maps as they read along so that they could adequately represent features on the map "Candidates should spend good time in the use of English, since it is the medium of communication. They can do this through constant reading of novels, textbooks, journals and magazines." (ND.2011(ND. ) [1973(ND. :2158 "English language which is the language of communication could be mastered through reading of good textbooks, novels, journals, newspapers and through language drills in debates and drama. This will make the candidates to be adequately equipped to answer any question in any topic if they adequately read such topics ahead of the examination." (ND.2017(ND. ) [2838 "English Language is the tool of expression in our educational system. It is expected that candidates should properly master this tool of communication in order to properly express their lines of thoughts." (MJ.2018(MJ. ) [2207(MJ. :2428 "…reading will help students to familiarize themselves with geographical terms well ahead of the examination. This will keep them from making spelling mistakes in key geographical terms." (MJ.2012(MJ. ) [2615(MJ. :2827 Poor map work Geography labs; Early preparation "Geography laboratories should be constructed where non exist and where they exist, it should be furnished to meet the demands of the syllabus." (MJ.2008(MJ. ) [1473(MJ. :1615 "Schools should purchase topographical maps for their students so that the students should do some practical work with such maps so that they familiarize themselves with the human and physical features on such topographical maps before the examination begins." (MJ.2012(MJ. ) [1937(MJ. :2230 "Map reading and interpretation is a compulsory aspect of geography examination Candidates are advised to practice map reduction and enlargement, drawing of cross pro les, learning of interpretation of relief and land uses ahead of the examination date." (ND.2015(ND. ) [2066(ND. :2350 "Candidates are advised to practice map drawing and the insertion of geographical features on maps across the various topics in the curriculum to achieve mastery. Such maps should have keys for ease of reading and interpretation." (MJ.2018(MJ. ) [1761(MJ. :2015 Poor presentation of diagrams Early preparation "Candidates should practice the art of plotting graphs well ahead of their nal examination. Practice enhances perfection." (ND.2011(ND. ) [2159(ND. :2368 "Since diagrams are required to explain some geographical features and phenomena, it is expected that candidates practice the drawing of diagrams while reading any topic so that whenever required, they will be able to properly illustrate such in examinations.

Discussion
Inadequate preparation, scanty explanation of points and poor map work occurred as students' weakness in all the years under review in the Geography WASSCE for Nigerian students, followed by poor expression of answers either due to poor grammar structure, misspelt words, or illogical presentation of ideas. Notably, this verdict applies largely to school candidates, who are likely inexperienced and exposed to such an examination for the very rst time. This is because private/external candidates are mostly school leavers, who have de ciencies to address in their SSCE. Hence, they must have had their rst experience in the school-based/internal SSCE, and become somewhat familiar to the pattern of examination questions and rubrics.
Su ce it also to say that teachers may have also failed in their mentorship of students in preparing to answer examination questions. Robust ndings of Anlimachie (2019), blame weak performance in Geography at WASSCE on low level of practical and eld work, while linking same to shortage of ideal teachers, poorly-stocked Geography resources rooms, instructional materials, and other school resources. The impact of these on students' learning, is the creation of a missing link between classroom learning experiences and the real-world situations. Thus, inadequate preparation can be explained partly by inadequate ideal teacher supply, and shortage of an array of Geography teaching and learning resources. Harping on these same points, Rilwani, Akahomen and Gbakeji 2014) identify inadequate teachers and lack of requisite teaching facilities/aids as major factors that translate to poor teaching of Geography and students' increasing unwillingness to offer the subject. Teachers ought to conduct constant evaluation and continuous assessment of students' learning progress, with corrective comments and redirection when they go amiss, while they teach these students from the rst year of senior secondary schools. If this is done, students become familiar with the explanatory approach of answering geography questions long before the nal external examination (WASSCE). Also, repetitive correction of wrong expressions, illogical presentation of their ideas and spelling errors, if implemented by teachers during grading of tests, assignments, projects, terminal and mock examinations will leave students no choice than to make frantic efforts at selfimprovements in these regard.
Map work takes the highest mark in the practical geography examination, and failure to secure a good score in the question, may lead to overall poor performance in the WASSCE Geography. Filgona, Sababa and Filgona (2016) advocate the use of hands-on strategy in teaching map studies. They suppose poor performance in map work could emanate from the use of conventional/lecture, rather than hands-on strategy. Hence, the use of hands-on strategy to stimulate re ection, concretizing abstract phenomena as it regards maps, and induce critical thinking. Basically, students must possess a least a copy of a topographical map to actively practice, and engage in all sorts of map work to improve the likelihood of achieving higher scores in map work and Geography at large, during external examinations. Similarly, for effectiveness of other contents aside map work, Eze (2020) had earlier recommended activity-based learning in classrooms in order to induce interesting questions by learners towards the environment. Hence, the trio of teaching/learning resource (topo maps and past question papers') availability, effective learner-centered teaching strategies; and su cient individual practice becomes the only solution to poor map work and low grades in WASSCE Geography for any Nigerian student.

Conclusions
WAEC Geography questions are of international standard, widely spread through the syllabus and covers all the educational domains -cognitive, affective and psychomotor. While questions and rubrics guiding the examinations are presented in simple and clear language (English), the marking scheme outlines expected responses of students with equitable distribution of marks. Candidates are required to start early in their preparations for the exams to cover the entire topics contained in the syllabus; comprehend questions and accompanying rubrics prior to attempting answers; employ a logical pattern and clear terms in providing their answers, with legible writing and elaborate explanations and illustration with diagrams. Candidates who fall short of these are less likely to achieve high grades in the examinations.
Further studies are required to unravel the underlying factors that have led to recurring weakness in school candidates' examination scripts. Could it be teacher-related or student-related? This must be identi ed to tackle the dwindling trend observed in school candidates' (internal) performance in Geography in the period under review. Also, it is required to investigate teachers' awareness of these commonly reported weakness of previous WASSCE candidates, as ignorance on their part will perpetuate the downward trend in Nigerian Geography students' performance in WASSCE.