Perceived Factors Influencing Academic Performance of Economics Students in Public Secondary Schools in Asaba Urban

Perceived Factors Influencing Academic Performance of Economics Students in Public Secondary Schools in Asaba Urban

ABSTRACT

The study was investigated perceived factors influencing academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban of Delta State. Three (3) research questions guided the study. A review of related literature was done based on each of the research questions raised. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised of thirty (30) male and female Economics in 13 public secondary schools in Asaba, Urban, Delta State.  Due to the manageable size of the population, all the 30 Economics teachers from the 13 secondary schools in Asaba Urban were used for the study.

The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire titled “Perceived Factors Influencing Academic Performance of Economics Students (PFIAPESQ). The questionnaire consisted of two sections. Section A comprised personal data of the respondents while section B comprised questionnaire items. The instrument was validated by a lecturer in Educational Measurement and Evaluation, Federal College of Education (Technical) Asaba. Thirty-one (31) copies of the validated instruments were administered to the Economics teachers in senior secondary schools in Asaba Urban were retrieved by the researcher with the help of a trained research assistant. Data collected were analyzed using frequency count, mean and standard deviation statistics. Findings of the study revealed that good study habit influences the academic performance of Economics students positively in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban; participation in learning activities influences the academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban negatively and learning environment influences the academic performance of students in Economics positively in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Education remains the best legacy every family and country can bequeath to her citizenry. This is because is an instrument for social, scientific and technological innovation and development. In Nigeria, education is regarded as an instrument for excellence, for social and economic reconstruction of the nation (FGN, 2013 p.iv). Education helps to produce economic managers and world changers. This is why Economics was introduced to catch them young.

Economics is social science that studies how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations make choices about how to allocate and use limited resources to satisfy their unlimited wants and needs (Paul & William, 2017). It examines issues such as production, distribution, consumption of goods and services, employment, income, prices, markets, trade, and many other factors that influence the decision-making processes of economic agents. Hence, economics is fundamentally about making choices because resources (labour, raw materials, capital, etc.) are limited in supply or scarce relative to the unlimited wants and needs of individuals and society (Dickson, 2018). Every choice has an opportunity cost, which is the value of the next best alternative that must be given up when a decision is made. The interaction of supply (amount offered for sale) and demand (amount wanted to buy) determines prices and quantities in markets. Economics studies how goods and services are produced, how they are distributed among members of the society, and how they are consumed. It analyzes different economic systems like capitalism, socialism, and mixed economies, and how they allocate productive resources. Economics provides a framework for understanding human behaviour, decision-making, and how scarce resources are allocated and used in the society. Its principles and theories are widely applied in various fields, including public policy, business, finance, and many other areas. Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different people (Paul & William, 2017). Economics is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services (Gregory, 2017). It is the study of how people choose to use resources. According to Joseph (2019) Economics is the study of how people make choices under conditions of scarcity and of the results of those choices for society. It studies how individuals, businesses, governments, and nations make choices about how to allocate limited resources. Steven (2016), asserted that Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends.

In Nigeria, Economics is a subject of study in senior secondary schools which equips leaners with the right skills and attitudes to effectively make economic decisions, become captains of industries and mangers of the economy. Economics is a course of study in tertiary education institutions. Hence, teh academic performance of students in Economics will go a long way to determine their future work and academic career.

Academic performance on the other hand according to Roy (2021), is the ability to study and remember facts and being able to communicate your knowledge verbally or on paper. Academic achievement or academic performance is the extent to which a student, teacher or institution has attained their short or long-term educational goals. Completion of educational benchmarks such as secondary school, diplomas and bachelor’s degrees represent academic achievement (Olaniyi, 2021). Academic achievement is commonly measured through examinations or continuous assessments but there is no general agreement on how it is best evaluated or which aspects are most important procedural knowledge such as skills or declarative knowledge such as facts (Johnson, 2020). Academic performance is the measurement of student achievement across various academic subjects (Ward, Stoker, & Murray-Ward, 2016). Academic performance refers to how well a student is accomplishing their tasks and studying the curricula of a course (Saeed & Akhter, 2014). Academic performance is the outcome of education — the extent to which a student, teacher, or institution has achieved their educational goals.” (Steinmayr, Meißner, Weidinger, & Wirthwein, 2018). Rajput, Mohammed, and Mukhtar (2020), saw academic performance as the observable and measurable behavior of a student in a specific scholastic environment. It is the knowledge attained and skills developed in the subjects studied at school, college, or university (Mushtaq & Khan, 2018). Academic performance refers to the level of attainment or proficiency in scholastic or academic work (Arshad, Shafi, & Mahmood, 2017). Academic performance is the extent to which a student, teacher, or institution has achieved their short or long-term educational goals.” (Kpolovie, Joe, & Okoto, 2016). Academic performance is a multidimensional construct that encompasses academic achievement, acquisition of skills, and the attainment of learning objectives (York, Gibson, & Rankin, 2019). It is a measure of knowledge gained and skills acquired in specific academic areas or subjects (Furlonger & Anderson, 2019). Academic performance is the measurement of student achievement in curricular areas of study, typically represented by grades, test scores, or other quantitative measures (Greven, 2019).

Students’ academic performance in Economics can be influenced by a number of factors.

Study is a factor in students’ academic performance in Economics. Study habit refers to techniques of summarizing, note taking, outlining or locating materials which learners employ to assist themselves in the efficient leaning of the materials which is at hand.  It ensures the acquisition of knowledge and skills that enable individuals to increase their productivity and improve in their quality of life. Paivio (2020), noted that study habits are formed in school and have greater significance and students must realize the need to acquire these effective study habits. Effective studying helps students to prepare schoolwork in less time to achieve greater degree of mastery of the lesson. Students who study effectively and efficiently utilize methods of learning which aids the acquisition, retention, application of knowledge, facts and information from textbook and class discussion, lectures and other resources. According to Pascual (2019), study habits or study strategies are approaches applied to learning. They are generally critical to success in school and are considered essential for acquiring good grades, and useful for learning throughout one’s lifetime. There are arrays of study skills, which may tackle the process of organizing and taking in new information, retaining information, or dealing with assessments. They include mnemonic, which aid the retention of lists of information; effective reading and concentration techniques, as well as efficient note taking. Effective study habits are often up to the students and their support, however there is an evidence that they are increasingly taught at secondary schools and university levels. It is believed that the development of study habits helps a person become successful and productive.

Students’ participation in learning activities implies taking part in the teaching and learning process. Not as passive listeners, but active participants. Active participation in class improves objective and subjective students’ performance in any given school subject. Active learning techniques and the associated student engagement during teaching leads to a greater number of students meeting the learning outcomes and thus, by extension, improved academic performance (Olaniyi, 2021). Student participation requires mental and emotional involvement of students in order for them to achieve their aims (Frymier & Houser, 2018). Their participation in class is usually spontaneous, and occurs naturally (Abdullah, et al, 2020). Participation of students in group activities is usually not the same and they participate in different ways. The goal of increasing participation is not to have every student participate in the same way or at the same rate. Instead, it is to create an environment in which all participants have the opportunity to learn and in which the class explore issues and ideas in-depth, from a variety of viewpoints. Certain students will raise their voices more than others; this variation is as a result of differences in learning preferences, as well as in personalities. Teamwork can help overcome many shortcomings of traditional learning methods and provide benefits for the students and teachers, where students become more active (Brown, 2012). Students can learn better when they are participate and get involved mentally, and are committed in the process of investigation, discovery, and interpretation (Tesfaye & Berhanu, 2018).

Learning environment encompasses how students interact with and treat one another in the pedagogical setting. Further, the educational setting (learning environment) which is conducive for effective learning includes the natural ecosystem, grouping of students, arrangement of desks and seating order in specific ways, audio, video and digital technologies. The qualities and characteristics of learning environment are also determined by a wide variety of other factors such as policies of the institution, governance structures and financial stability. Literature on learning environment can be categorized into three broad aspects; academic environment, physical environment and psychological environment and all these affect the overall academic success (Lizzio, 2019). Some experts in education distinguished learning environment into positive and negative. Positive learning environment includes conducive physical and social settings that facilitate effective learning. Learning environment that is with facilities such as seating arrangements, conducive light, podium and the white and black boards in addition to digital and electronic equipment in the classroom such as multimedia and sound systems create positive learning environment while classroom environments with bare minimal facilities of with congested students numbers can be termed as negative. The concept of learning environment as perceived by Balog (2018), consists of learners, teaching materials, technical tools, learning resources, curriculum, training and instruction, and physical learning space. Malik and Rizvi (2018), segregate learning environment into physical and human. Learning environment is so important because it help students to have maximum effectiveness in the learning process. It is in the light of the foregoing that this study investigated factors influencing Economics students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Asaba, Delta State.

Statement of the Problem

The social and economic development of a country is directly linked with students’s academic performance; the desire for success is derived from individual’s concept of himself and in term of the meaning of various incentives as they spell success and failure in the eyes of others. Students’ academic performance in Economics in external examinations over the years have not been encouraging. Essey (2022) observed that many students perform poorly in Economics, especially in external examinations. This has raised the concern among educators, parents, stakeholders and other concerned citizens as to what could be responsible for the mass failure of students in a very important subject as the Economics. Many have attributed it to teachers’ method of teaching, others have attributed it to students’ poor study habit, participation in learning activities and learning environment. It is against this backdrop that this study is seeks to examine the perceived factors influencing academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban.

Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to examine the perceived factors influencing academic performance of Economic students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban. Specifically, the study sought to:

1. examine the influence of study habit on academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban
2. examine the influence of participation in learning activities on academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban.
3. examine the influence of learning environment on academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban

Research Questions

The following questions guided the study.

1. To what extent does study habit influences academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban?
2. To what extent does participation in learning activities influence academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban?
3. To what extent does learning environment influence academic performance of Economics students in public secondary schools in Asaba Urban?

Significance of the Study

Findings of this study could be beneficial to students, teachers, government and researchers. Students could find this study beneficial because it could help them understand the various factors that influence their academic performance in Economics. Having identified that their study habit influence their academic performance, it would enable them improve their study habit so as to enhance their academic performance. It would also enable them to understand the influence of their participation on their overall academic performance. This woull motivate to be more active in learning activities for enhanced academic performance.

Teachers would equally find this study useful because it would help them understand better how students’ study habit, participation in learning activities and learning environment influence their academic performance, especially in Economics. This would go a long way in motivating them to find ways of encouraging students to develop good reading habit that would help them participate active in learning activities that would result in excellent academic performance.

For researchers, the study would form a basis for further research which will serve as a reference material for those who may wish to carry out related studies.

For Government, the study would be of immense benefit because it would identify certain factors that influence students’ academic performance in Economics which will enable them allocate resources and build infrastructure that will improve students’ academic performance.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

This study is delimited to perceived factors influencing academic performance of Economics students. With study habit, participation in learning activities and environment as variables of interest. The respondents of the study are public secondary school teachers in Asaba Urban.

Pages:  64

Category: Project

Format:  Word & PDF               

Chapters: 1-5                                          

Source: Imsuinfo

Material contains Table of Content, Abstract and References.