ABSTRACT
The study investigated the factors which influence students’ enrollment of French in Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) in Benin Metropolis. It also considered the influence of sex, school type and early exposure to French language as moderating variables. Five research questions and three hypotheses were raised to guide the study.
The study employed the descriptive survey research design which utilized a quantitative data collection method. The population of the study comprises all the 13,450 Senior Secondary School students in Benin Metropolis. The sample was 453 Senior Secondary School students selected using the random sampling technique. Two instruments were used for data collection; a questionnaire and a proforma. The questionnaire has two sections; Sections A and B. Section A elicited the respondents’ demographic data such as sex, school type and early exposure to French language. Section B is a 24-item, 4-point Likert scale instrument structured to gather information on students’ perception about the factors that hinders students’ enrollment of French in SSCE. The instrument s were validated by the supervisor and two language educators in the Department of Educational Foundations, University of Benin, Benin City. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach Alpha statistics and a reliability coefficient of 0.83 was obtained. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Research questions one and two were answered using frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviation, while hypotheses one, two and three were tested using Independent Sample t-test at 0.05 level of significance.
Findings of the study showed that students’ enrollment of French in SSCE is less than 50 each year under review and was even at zero level in public secondary schools in Benin Metropolis in the last two academic sessions. The findings also revealed that students are of the view that school-based/academic factors were mostly what hindered students from enrolling for French in SSCE. This is followed by social factors, while students do not think that personal factors such as attitude towards French hinders them from enrolling for French. Based on the findings and conclusion of the study, it is recommended among others the need to reintroduce French Language in the senior secondary school curriculum in public schools in Edo State and that government should employ more qualified French Language teachers to teach the subject.
