Factors Affecting Students’ Performance and Practice on Map Reading Skills

A Case Study of Selected Secondary Schools in Asela Town, Ethiopia

Abstract

Geographical education empowers the communities to make more meaningful contributions to the national development by integrating geographical knowledge. Map reading skills are areas of study in geography, one of the different subjects in the Ethiopian secondary schools. In Ethiopia, the teaching and learning process of map reading skills is based on different educational objectives. The teaching and learning process of map reading skills in secondary schools is aimed at creating skilled manpower in basic map reading skills based on these objectives. But, nowadays, the teaching and learning process of map reading skills and the academic performance and achievement of secondary school students are affected by various factors. This paper is the outcome of an attempt made to explore the factors affecting the performance and achievement of students and their level of academic achievement at Chilalo Terara and Alem secondary schools. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to investigate the research problem. For a qualitative part interview questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data. The percentage is used to show that the level of the performance and achievement of the students. The findings suggest that possible intervention to help the students score high academic achievement should focus on teachers’ training, enabling students to work hard persevere to succeed, identifying effective study techniques, the students’ willingness to do school activities and coverage of textbooks’ contents.