CHAPTER I.

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

INTRODUCTION

Rationale

Learning is a complex activity that supremely tests students' motivation and

physical condition. Teaching resources, teachers' skill, and curriculum -- these all play a
vital role in a child's education. But what about the physical condition and design of the
actual school facility itself? How do they shape a child's learning experience?

Not because it is a public school, students don't have the right to have a well
maintained school facilities. Examples of these are lacking of classrooms, lacking of
tables and chairs, poor ventilation, poor comfort rooms and canteens. Usage of over dated
books and the like. These students want to study and even though they are only in a
public school, it doesn't mean that they don't have the right to study in a comfortable
classrooms. And I hope that the government should do something about this because
these students have the right to have this well-maintained school facilities and education
is

very

important.

An effective school facility is responsive to the changing programs of educational

delivery, and at a minimum should provide a physical environment that is comfortable,
safe, secure, accessible, well illuminated, well ventilated, and aesthetically pleasing. The
school facility consists of not only the physical structure and the variety of building
systems, such as mechanical, plumbing, electrical and power, telecommunications,
security, and fire suppression systems. The facility also includes furnishings, materials
and supplies, equipment and information technology, as well as various aspects of the
building grounds, namely, athletic fields, playgrounds, areas for outdoor learning, and
vehicular access and parking. The school facility is much more than a passive container
of the educational process: it is, rather, an integral component of the conditions of
learning. The layout and design of a facility contributes to the place experience of
students, educators, and community members.

The school is a social institution entrusted with the formal education of the youth
in the society. Sporting activities have been known to be an integral component of the
educational programmes of the most, if not all nations of the world. School facilities
have been observed as a potent factor to quantitative education. The
importance to teaching and learning of the provision of adequate
instructional facilities for education cannot be over-emphazied. The
dictum that teaching is inseparable from learning but learning is not
separable from teaching is that teachers do the teaching to make the
students learn, but students can learn without the teachers. According
to Akande (1985), learning can occur through ones interaction with

ones environment. Environment here refers to facilities that are

available to facilitate students learning outcome. It includes books,
audio-visual, software and hardware of educational technology; so also,
size of classroom, sitting position and arrangement, availability of
tables, chairs, chalkboards, shelves on which instruments for practicals
are arranged (Farrant, 1991 and Farombi, 1998).

In Platos Republic, physical education was included as an integral component of

the educational system. It is therefore the function of the school to socialize the
individuals. Here in Sta. Margarita, physical education programmes are not much
emphasized at all levels of the educational system, infact, the recognition of physical
education as a part of the secondary school curriculum by the national policy on
education in 1982 formally and wholly integrated physical education into the educational
programme of the country.

In most advanced countries of the world; education

authorities have realized the benefits accruing from participation in sports programmes
and they have not hesitated in including physical education in their curriculum as a part
of the learning experiences offered to the students. The implication is that a lot of
resources (finance) were put into physical education to enable the youths enjoy a worthy
sports programme for their healthy development. Sports activities have been seen as an
instrument for national unity. This role has been epitomized by the biannually organized
All Sta. Margarita Festival and Sta. Margarita Schools Sports Festival, which aimed at
bringing people from various states and schools in Sta. Margarita together through a
healthy competition.

There is a clear indication that the authorities responsible for administration of

sports in Sta. Margarita have realized the contributions of the school physical education
programmes towards sports development in Sta. Margarita and are sparing no effort to
encourage secondary schools to set up well structured physical education and sports
programmes. This implies that Sta. Margarita Secondary School are now looked upon as
one of the fertile grounds for breeding the future sportsmen and women. In order to
achieve this objective, the government provided standard facilities, supplies and
equipment to all the secondary schools through their state government, but the problems
of facilities, and equipment management in the secondary school in Sta. Margarita, is the
issue of concern.

THEORITICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Theoretical Framework

Effective schools for poor and minority schoolchildren repudiate the notion that
family background and/or socioeconomic status are determinant of a students ability to
learn and achieve success in school. Studies (Edmonds, 1979; Purkey and Smith, 1983)
have shown that effective schools for poor and minority students share the following
characteristics: strong and supportive administrative leadership, instructionally effective
teachers, professional development opportunities, consistent monitoring of pupil
progress, parent involvement and support, and a climate of high expectations for all
students. In addition, urban schools that successfully educate poor and minority children
believe in the educability of all children and maintain orderly, safe physical learning
environments conducive to teaching and learning.
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Paradoxically, Ronald Edmonds (1979) discusses the educational progress that

has eluded many urban schools by deconstructing the social order responsible for
advancing issues of equity in public education. Edmonds (1979) contends that
progression toward equity in education requires public policy that begins by teaching
poor children what their parents want them to know and ends by teaching poor children at
least as well as it teaches middle-class children.These educational inequities have been
fueled by our nations general failure to educate children of the poor. Along these lines,
Edmonds (1979) alleges that schools teach those they think they must and when they
think they neednt, they dont In an ideological sense, such complacency distances
educators from their professional responsibility to provide a quality education to poor and
minority students.

School officials who maintain the environment of urban educational facilities

have a significant impact upon teaching and learning. Arguably, an essential component
of effective schools is that they are as eager to avoid things that dont work as they are
committed to implementing things that do (Edmonds, 1979, In effect, because research
(Earthman, 1996; Edwards, 1991; and Hines, 1996) has shown certain aspects of school
climate (for purposes of this studyorderly, safe, and appropriate educational facilities
which are conducive to teaching and learning) to be determinant of academic
achievement, it is incumbent upon district and school administrators to make
improvements in the physical climate of rural schools so as to establish gains in academic
achievement on behalf of poor and minority students.

Substandard pupil performance in deteriorating rural schools is often connected to

policies and/or decisions which negatively affect the physical learning environment.
Research (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1988; Edwards, 1991;
Poplin and Weeres, 1992) suggests that the depressed physical environment of many
urban schools is believed to reflect societys lack of policy and priority for urban students
and their education; deferred maintenance, building age, and dramatically reduced
operating budgets have each contributed to the substandard physical nature of urban
schools.

Along these lines, Poplin and Weeres (1992) contend that the depressed nature of
urban schools is most problematic in middle schools and high schools. Citing facilities
where temperatures inside classrooms can and do reach 110 degrees . . . ceiling tiles are
missing, lighting is poor, new paint is spare, and landscaping minimal, Poplin and
Weeres (1992) maintain urban students are also crowded into rooms where, unless
students are absent, there are not enough desks.

It therefore reasonably follows that learning amidst substandard conditions fosters

decreased student motivation and sense of responsibility for maintaining the physical
learning environment. In such situations, it is also thought that student conduct actually
mirrors the condition of the facility (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching, 1988). When asked to draw or write about the perfect school, student
illustrations have depicted beautiful schools complete with landscaping, spacious

classrooms, and swimming poolsalbeit flanked by police helicopters and security

personnel (Poplin and Weeres, 1992). Research indicates poor and minority students have
a desire to learn in aesthetically pleasing and physically comfortable schools. Teachers
often support these sentiments. Poplin and Weeres (1992) offer the following remarks of
a middle school teacher: How many executives in businesses sit in rooms like that.
Show me one, I havent met any . . . no professional who day after day tries to maintain
some kind of integrity. What really upsets me is that I do go home to air conditioning. Ill
cool off eventually. But Ill bet nine-tenths of my kids dont. And they dont deserve this
all day long. They dont.
Researchers and institutions closely aligned with the plight of urban children
educated in deteriorating school facilities have long perceived the situation as a social
crisis. The Carnegie Foundation (1988) describes the situation as a major failure of
social policy, a piecemeal approach to a problem that requires a unified response.

Edmonds (1979) similarly holds that inequity in American education belies the
need for effective schools capable of providing children of the poor those minimal
masteries of basic skills that now describe minimally successful pupil performance for
the children of the middle class .Such thinking implies that schools and districts hoping
to progress toward increased student achievement should begin with safe and secure
physical learning environments. The alternative, as advanced by the Carnegie Foundation
(1988), is a future imperiled if disadvantaged young people are not economically and
civically prepared. So long as failure is accepted, the lives of millions of children
clustered in our big city school systems will be blighted . . . . and the nations future will

be threatened. Toward this end, luxurious, grand environments are not prerequisites for
quality education, but neither can quality education be accomplished in an atmosphere of
neglect. Successfully rebuilding the nations educational infrastructure need only require
a response as urgent and dire as the problem.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Statement of the Problem

Poor facilities in public schools signifies that students are not receiving their
rights of having a sufficiently available and well-maintained school facilities. Indications
of having these poor facilities are non-working or poorly maintained public comfort
rooms, lack of classrooms, overcrowding in classrooms, poor ventilation, unsanitary and
crowded canteens and more.

In this study, Mark Schneider, Ph.D. looked at how clean, quiet, safe, comfortable,
and healthy environments influence successful teaching and learning. He asks which
facility attributes affect academic outcomes the most and in that manner and degree. It
shows that the condition of school facilities has an important impact on student
performance and teacher effectiveness. In particular, research demonstrates that
comfortable classroom temperature and noise level are very important to efficient student
performance. News about these environmental nuisances is beginning to appear more
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and more in the media. And research is uncovering growing evidence showing that
conditions like these and many other aspects of school facilities have a huge and often
negative impact on children's educations.

Aside from things like mold and mildew, superficial conditions that exist in
schools often because of poor maintenance, other problems are much more systemic. One
is age. The average school today at 42 years old faces demands that were never intended
or even conceived when the building was built. Another problem is that education today
is delivered in an entirely new manner, with new tools, techniques, and teaching methods
that increasingly don't fit the simplistic conventions of 42-year-old school designs.

Statement of Assumption

Attribution theory (Weiner, 1980, 1992) cited in Weiner, B. (2000) is probably the
most influential contemporary theory with implications for academic motivation.
It incorporates behavior modification in the sense that it emphasizes the idea that
learners are strongly motivated by the pleasant outcome of being able to feel good
about themselves. It incorporates cognitive theory and self-efficacy theory in the
sense that it emphasizes that learners' current self-perceptions will strongly

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influence the ways in which they will interpret the success or failure of their
current efforts and hence their future tendency to perform these same behaviors.
According to attribution theory, the explanations that people tend to make to
explain success or failure can be analyzed in terms of three sets of characteristics:

First, the cause of the success or failure may be internal or external. That is, we
may succeed or fail because of factors that we believe have their origin within us
or because of factors that originate in our environment.

Second, the cause of the success or failure may be either stable or unstable. If the
we believe cause is stable, then the outcome is likely to be the same if we perform
the same behavior on another occasion. If it is unstable, the outcome is likely to
be different on another occasion.
Third, the cause of the success or failure may be either controllable or
uncontrollable. A controllable factor is one which we believe we ourselves can
alter if we wish to do so. An uncontrollable factor is one that we do not believe we
can easily alter.

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An important assumption of attribution theory is that people will interpret their

environment in such a way as to maintain a positive self-image. That is, they will
attribute their successes or failures to factors that will enable them to feel as good
as possible about themselves. In general, this means that when learners succeed at
an academic task, they are likely to want to attribute this success to their own
efforts or abilities; but when they fail, they will want to attribute their failure to
factors over which they have no control, such as bad teaching or bad luck.

The basic principle of attribution theory as it applies to motivation is that a

person's own perceptions or attributions for success or failure determine the
amount of effort the person will expend on that activity in the future. There are
four factors related to attribution theory that influence motivation in education:
ability, task difficulty, effort, and luck. On the basis of this theory the study
suggest that pupils' academic performance is determined by the nature of schools.

Statement of Hypothesis

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Citizens that care about students might come to a consensus that safe and healthy school
buildings are an important consideration of education.

According to Websters

Dictionary, safety is the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury,
or loss, and healthy is good for and conducive to health (Merriam-Webster).

When including safety and health into an effective definition of school design, it would
mean to plan and make decisions about school facilities (both in new construction and
existing buildings) to ensure students, teachers, staff, and visitors will be safe from hurt,
injury, or loss and will be in an environment that is good for their health.

We wouldnt knowingly send children into structurally unsafe buildings with crumbling
roofs or walls that are falling down; however, some conditions that affect health and
safety are less obvious such as poor indoor air quality and/or mold, toxic building
materials from years ago or in some instances inadequate climate control

Some schools have elements that are in need of repair and some even have elements that
are beyond repair. We need to do better for our students. Parents should be confident that
the buildings where their children learn are designed or redesigned in line with best
practices for safety and health. Outside of the initial concerns for safety and health is the

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idea that these poor conditions can affect student motivation and thus student
achievement.

Maslows theory of motivation shows it is important to ensure that people are in

environments that meet basic human needs, with the physiological (health) needs and the
need for safety being foundational. Meeting these basic needs does not guarantee that
students will be motivated to learn; however, any area where educators can remove
known obstacles the path to learning is more likely. When basic needs are not met, The
urge to write poetry the interest in American history become of secondary
importance. (Maslow, 1943, p. 3).

If the basic needs of students are not being met, then time and energy must be used
tending to those needs before time and energy can be spent on academics. If students are
too cold or too hot, they may not be able to focus (Earthman, 2004; Uline & TschannenMoran, 2007 ). If the classroom is not well lighted, is overcrowded or unsafe in anyway,
the focus of the students may not be on the lessons (Uline & Tschannen-Moran, 2007).
If a building even feels unsafe to the students because of broken fixtures, graffiti, etc., the
students may be unable to concentrate on the academic goals in front of them.Looking at

15

the importance of school environments through the lens of Maslows theory of

motivation, there may be some evidence that without meeting basic needs it could be
difficult for students to make an effort to concentrate their attention on developing
academic patterns and digesting the academic materials they are being presented.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings from this study will be useful:

To Sta. Margarita National High School managers, the findings of the study will
help them establish how to enhance quality in their education;

16

To education planners, the study findings will help them find out how school
resources play an important role in the teaching/learning process and hence to
students performance;

To parents and/or guardians, the study findings will guide them in identifying
reason why they should seek quality education instead of any other motive to
enroll their children in such and such secondary schools;

To the government of Sta. Margarita and other policy makers the study findings
will provide information the inequality in education and they will also reveal to
them that this inequality is not only closed by setting central exams but also by
considering other factors.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

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In an effort to help the reader understand terminology used throughout the study,
definitions of referential concepts are proposed below:

1. An educational infrastructure is defined as the underlying foundation or basic

framework of an educational system or organization.
2. An urban school, according to Hines (1996), is defined as a school in a more
populated area The schools selected for this study are located in Sta. Margarita National
High School.
3. Deteriorating schools According to the American Association of School
Administrators (2004), are defined by, the following statement:
Structures that are unsafe and fail to meet safety codes; roofs leak; mold and poor indoor
air quality are common; wiring is old and inadequate and cannot support contemporary
electronic equipment; and lead, asbestos and radon levels still lurk under the surface. In
addition, the deteriorating condition of schools can be attributed to their age and to
inadequate maintenance. One unsatisfactory environmental condition which may include,
but is not limited to, any of the following: lighting, heating, ventilation, acoustics or noise
control, indoor air quality and building security.
4. Student motivation is defined as the capacity to use intrinsic factors to improve
personal conduct and/or academic achievement.
5. Student conduct is defined as attributes of personal behavior which may positively
or negatively impact academic achievement.

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6. Student achievement is defined as a level of academic performance arrived at by the

collective efforts of students, parents, teachers and administrators. Student achievement is
measuredindividually or collectivelyvia the use of classroom grading systems and/or
standardized test scores.
7. Student performance refers to the level of achievement attained via the
combination of inputs from student motivation and conduct.
8. Insufficient facilities refers to the lackingof materials which is needed for the study.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES

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