Relationship with early and late adolescent's educational aspiration in secondary school in Kalkudah zone, Batticaloa in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Understanding the relationship with early (junior grades) and late adolescents’ (senior grades)educational aspiration (EA) is important in determining effective and valid performance in these grades of secondary schools in Sri Lanka. The students ‘educational aspiration is the determination factor of their future performance in life. The Objective of this study is to find out any relationship with early (junior grades) and late (senior grades) adolescents’ educational aspiration in secondary school in urban and Semi-urban area in Kalkudah zone, Sri Lanka. Determining the correlation between these two variables is important for all academics to understand, so that all students can achieve to their academic potential. In this study was a design survey method was used and directed at the population of senior secondary students in Kalkudah zone, Batticaloa district of Eastern Province in Sri Lanka. Ten school of 1AB, 1C, grades were selected from this research area. These schools were stratified random into urban (3) and semi-urban (7) schools among 1AB and 1C. 160 students who studied in grade 9, and 160 students who studied in grade 13 science and arts stream were selected at systematic random. 32 samples were selected from each school among grade 9 and 13. The average age of the students is 13.4 (early adolescent - grade 9) and 17.5 (late adolescent - grade 13). The research instruments, questionnaire format titled Student's Questionnaire; it's to measure the students ‘aspiration with teacher responses about the students’ attitude to the subject. Reliability was checked by test - retest after three weeks for the EA. The very high correlations obtained reveal the reliability of the instruments of measurement. Its split-half reliability coefficient of correlation yields are 0.81, 0.84, and 0.89 for Academic Motivation (AM), Self Concept (SC) and Students Attitude towards Education (SAE) respectively. Null hypotheses was postulated from objectives and tested at 0.05 level of significant to determine how the relationship of junior grade's (early adolescent) educational aspiration correlates on senior grade's (late adolescent). The data was collected through questionnaire related to the variable. Qualitative and quantitative method (mixed method) was used to analysis. Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) which includes t - test and Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient was used in analyses. The result revealed that, there are strong evidences to prove that there are no relationships between the EA of early adolescence (grade 9) and late adolescence (grade 13). Hence the null hypothesis is completely accepted. That is, there is no significant relationship between the EA of Grade 9 and EA of grade 13. This research findings have been explored the educational aspiration of junior and senior grades in secondary school and current nature of the research areas also gives different levels of variables of EA in the secondary school students.