CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the study

Islam as a religion attaches great importance to knowledge and education. When revelation of the Qur’an began, the first instruction was “Iqra” which simply means “Read”. (Qur’an 96 verse 1).

This shows the importance of education in Islam. It is the starting point and path to human development.

Education can be seen as a light that shows the mankind the right direction to surge. If the process of teaching fails to impact knowledge to students, the teachers at the center of the whole activities of teaching and learning must have failed to employ the appropriate technique and resources to drive home the objectives. Teachers are expected to convert teaching and learning into sport and by making the process to attract students interest and motivate them.

Education should become a fun and drill to them rather than burden and boredom (Damodharan and Rangarajan, 2007).

In order to achieve optimum delivery of objectives, educational media should be employed in the teaching and learning process. Educational technology and multimedia can be valuable tools when they are integrated into the curriculum, appropriately to achieve learning gains, particularly when they are combined with a twenty-first century curriculum.

Modern methods of teaching make greater demands for the use of instructional materials on the part of the teachers who are supposed to help the learners understand certain concepts. One of the major goals of the teacher education programme is to produce competent professional who will be capable of making learning easier for students. Teacher’s ability to produce and utilize equipment and materials for teaching and learning depends to a great extent on his/her interaction with and continuous use of educational media.  

There is a common belief that the use of media in education contributes to a more constructivist learning and an increase in activity and greater responsibility of students. This limits the role of the teachers to supporting, advising and coaching students rather than merely transmitting knowledge.

According to Blessing Adeoye (2011), there are many reasons why we use media in education. Extensive use of technology in the classroom typically changes teacher’s roles. Some futurists have even maintained that technology, by allowing students to interact directly and individually with content, makes it possible to eliminate the teacher.

In order to achieve this purpose, effective and innovative teaching and learning methods are vital, especially in facing digital era. The digital revolution has resulted in one unintended consequence. Today’s youth are much more media-centric than previous generations. In fact, many people believe that the brains of today’s youth have actually become rewired to accommodate the thousands of hours they spend in front of computer screens watching and creating video, listening to music and playing computer games. It also has been said that today’s youth actually speak digitally. That is why, no wonder many have called this new generation the digital generation.

Media is an interactive tool that combines a variety of elements, including text, graphics, audio, video and animation that arouse to arouse students’ interest (Shelly and Gunter, 2006). 

As far as Islamic studies is concerned, teachers need to make some adjustments on how the subject should be taught in order to make learning concrete.

The use of media resources in teaching and learning of Islamic studies as a subject in secondary school will help to solve the problem of students’ negative attitude towards learning the subject. Currently, most topics such as Article of Faith, Hajj, Battles of the Prophet are taught without the use of media resources such as audio tape, television, projector, slides show etc. Most of the students therefore find Islamic studies uninteresting and boring. The use of media resources will make the subject more presentable, attractive and interesting to the students and at the bottom line the students will have a comprehensive understanding of the concept being impacted to them. The study is therefore set to assess the impact which the use of media resources plays in the teaching and learning of Islamic studies in secondary schools.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

Islamic studies teachers in our secondary schools fail to realize that the subject has some specific methods and techniques to make the students understand it very well with the use of media. A teacher, however competent he may be, can never do the essential work of responding for the learner to respond positively to the learning experience.

Apparently, the use of media in the educational system has enhanced the teaching and learning but the problem facing the application of media resources in teaching and learning Islamic studies is lack of teachers’ proficiency in the use of media resources. However, this has created a wide vacuum between the usage of educational media and the concept to be taught in Islamic studies.

1.3     Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research project is to:

(i)             Investigate the impact of media resources on the academic performance of Islamic studies students in secondary school.    

(ii)          Identify relevance of media resources to the teaching and learning of Islamic studies

(iii)        Assess the availability of media resources in teaching and learning of Islamic studies in schools.

(iv)        Examine the impact which teacher’s incompetence in using media resources as an instructional delivery.

1.4     Research Question

(1)             What is the impact of media resources on the academic performance of Islamic studies students in secondary schools?

(2)             How can media resources be used to enhance the teaching and learning of Islamic studies?

(3)             What are the media resources available for the teaching and learning of Islamic studies in schools? 

(4)             What is the effect of incompetence of a teacher has in using media resources on instructional delivery?

1.5     Significance of the Study

(a)           This study is significant because it is aimed at equipping graduating students of Islamic studies and the Islamic studies teachers already in the field with the invaluable knowledge of the use of media resources on the Islamic studies teaching-learning process. 

(b)          The study will also provide enlightenment to the educationist on the relevance of educational media to the implementation of Islamic studies curriculum.

1.6     Scope and Limitation of Study

The research focused on the impact of media resources in teaching and learning Islamic studies in secondary schools alone. The study is limited to secondary schools in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State.

1.7     Definition of Terms

For the purpose of this research project the following terms will be defined for the state of clarity since they will be featuring in this work from time to time. They are:

(i)          Media: Can be simply referred to as the study of the technology used to handle information and aid communication. It is a term used to encompass all forms of computing systems, telecommunication and networks.

(ii)       Islamic Slides: Islamic studies as a subject aims at impacting the Islamic teachings, ethics, norms, practices and tradition to an individual to be a responsible member of the society and above all to be obedient to the willingness of his/her creator as a servant of Allah (SWT).  

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