Abstract
The study explored the perceptions of secondary school students on the application of punishment and reward as a strategy in managing the classroom. Four research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The sample size of 305 respondents was selected using simple random sampling technique. Two questionnaire instruments were used for data collection. The first instrument is titled the extent of teachers’ use of reward and punishment as a classroom management technique (ETURP) while the second instrument consisted of 25 items structured questionnaire titled Questionnaire on students’ perception of the use of reward and punishment (QOSPURP). Frequency count and the simple percentage was used to analyze research question 1, 3, and 4 while the mean and standard deviation was used to analyze research question 2 and Mann Whitney U test was used to test the null hypothesis. The findings revealed that most secondary school teachers, regularly adopt punishment and reward as a classroom management technique. Secondary school students are highly against the use of punishment as a classroom management strategy, consequently, students mostly prefer the use of rewards rather than punishment as a classroom management strategy. The study further revealed that the majority of the students will totally switch off or dislike the teacher when given a punishment while they are likely to react positively by liking the teachers when rewarded. Finally, the study found out that secondary school students are of the opinion that punishment should not be used at all and rather a friendlier approach should be adopted. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that secondary school teachers should adopt a friendlier approach to managing students’ behaviour in the classroom. Secondary school teacher should avoid regular use of
punishment but rather embrace reward and praise technique to enhance student teacher’s relationship. Teachers should totally avoid embarrassing students in public as this will have a negative reaction from the students but rather teachers should encourage them to do better.
Yunisa, A.; Y.; Aliyu, A.; A. & Ezeani, V.; O. (2019)