ABSTRACT

This study examined the influence of cognitive styles and attitude on academic achievement of senior secondary schools students in Food and Nutrition Test in Abia State. Six research questions were raised and six null hypotheses were formulated for the study. Causal-comparative research design was used for the study. The population of the study was made up of 301 Food and Nutrition SS II students in Abia State. A total of 301 students made up of 176 field independent and 125 field dependent cognitive styles students with 204 females and 97 males from the public secondary schools were sampled from 18 public secondary schools drawn from the entire population using census method. Three instruments were used for data collection for the research. Namely, Group Embedded figure Test (GEFT), Food and Nutrition Attitude Inventory (FNAI) and Food and Nutrition Achievement Test (FNAT). The FNAI and FNAT were validated by three experts, two from Measurement and Evaluation and one in Human Nutrition and Dietetics department, all from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Reliability indices of 0.72 (FNAT) and 0.82 (FNAI) respectively were obtained using Kuder-Richardson 20 for FNAT and Cronbach Alpha Coefficient for FNAI. GEFT is a standardized instrument with a reliability index of 0.82 adopted for the study. These instruments were administered to 301 Food and Nutrition students. All research questions were analyzed using mean and standard deviation while t test of independent was used to test the null hypotheses 1-5 and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test the null hypothesis 6 at 0.05 levels of significance. The results of the data analyzed revealed that cognitive styles influenced students’ achievement as field independent students performed better than field dependent students in the Food and Nutrition achievement test, that attitudes influence students’ achievement in Food and Nutrition Test and that there was a significant difference between the achievements mean score of students with positive attitudes and negative attitudes in Food and Nutrition Test. This indicated that students’ attitudes influenced their mean achievement scores in Food and Nutrition. Based on these findings, it was recommended that teachers should use instructional materials and techniques that will incorporate both field independent and field dependent of cognitive styles, because the objective of teaching is to make students learn or achieve higher.