CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

Many developing nations place a high premium on education of their young one. This is because they see education as a means to cultural, social, political, economic and technological emancipation. Nigeria in particular see education as a means of building a free, just and egalitarian society, a land full of opportunities for all citizens, able to generate a great and dynamic economy and growing into a united strong, and self-reliant nation (National Policy on Education (NPE), 2004:5).

          The analysis of the individual’s personality as a key determinant of student’s academic performance has been a growing interest in the last decades. This study has moved away from the almost exclusive role of the intelligence possessed by students. Several current researches suggest the academic performance is not only associated with these intellectual factors, but “it is an effect of multiple adaptive, behavioural and psychopathological variables” (De Guzman, Calderony Cassaretto, 2003).

          Academic performance can be understood as the level of knowledge in an area or subject of an individual, compared to the standard age and academic level (Jimenez, 2006). The literature indicates several factors that can affect or influence the student’s academic performance. Generally, previous research has considered socioeconomic factors, self-concept, parental background, attitude to school work, the width of the curriculum, teaching methodologies used, the difficulty of using an individual education, previous knowledge and concepts of student and the level of formal thought (Edel, 2003). Therefore, we have to consider that academic performance is a phenomenon influenced by multiple internal and external factors.

          Edel (2003) further observed the relationship between personal characteristics and academic performance in terms of part of the academic performance assessment in which: continuous assessment through several individual cases and group works, and an overall assessment through a final test of the subject content. He noted that student who have a higher achievement need and higher autonomy have obtained a better performance in continuous assessment practices. On the other hand, students who have a lower need achieve a greater performance in continuous assessment. And for the final test, those students with a higher ability for innovation and internal control have showed a better performance in this test.

          Accordingly, Pintrich (2007) acknowledged that research on student’s characteristics and school performance is central to research in learning and teaching settings. Pintrich (2007) has demonstrated that positive self-concept and attitudes of students positively relate to students learning and performance. When students monitor their responding and attribute outcomes to their strategies, their learning becomes self-regulated, and they exhibit increased self-efficacy, greater intrinsic motivation, and higher academic achievement. Self-motivation and self-concept play an important role in learning because it greatly explains academic performance (Pintrich 2007). Students are supposedly capable of instigating, modifying, and sustaining information. Student’s motivations and strategy use have some impact on student performance.

According to Schunk (2005) students must monitor, regulate and control their cognition, motivation, and behaviour as part of self-regulated learning. Psychologist believe that students who are self-regulating, self-motivated, demonstrate positive attitudes to school work, who set goals or plans, and who try to monitor and control their own cognition, and behaviour predicated upon these goals are more likely to do much better in school.

          Background of parents and students gender is sometime considered as determinant of academic achievements of students but as significance. However, for parents, better-educated parent are more likely to consider the quality of the local schools when selecting a neighbourhood in which to live. Once their children enter a school, education parents are also more likely to pay attention to the quality of their children’s teachers and my attempt to ensure that their children are adequately served. By participating in parent-teacher conferences and volunteering at school, they may encourage staff to attend to their children’s individual needs (Jimenez, 2006). In the aspect of gender, boys tend to do well in sciences and other arithmetic subjects than girls.

1.2     Statement of the Problem 

          Many studies have revealed that students characteristics such as student’s attitudes to school work, self-concept parental background have influence on student’s performance in school, but many parents and teachers who are close to the students tend to ignore these factors and rather focus on intellectual capacity of the students. Others consider school factors such as library, school environment, and quality of teachers.

          Therefore, this study probed into student’s characteristics that propel them to improve on their academic performance or cause deficiency in school achievement. The question which possess itself is whether attitude of students to school work, parental background, and self-concept have any relationship with academic performance of student in junior secondary school social studies in Ibiono Ibom community. In addition, the study investigates the performance difference between male and female students. The problem of this study put in a question form is: what is the relationship between self-concept, parental background, student’s attitude to school work on the academic performance of social studies students in junior secondary schools in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

1.3     Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between student’s characteristics and academic performance of social studies students in Junior Secondary School in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.

          Specifically, the study sought to achieve the following objectives:

1.       To determine the relationship between student’s attitude to school work and academic performance of students social studies in Junior Secondary School in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

2.       To determine the relationship between student’s gender and the academic performance of social studies students in Junior Secondary School in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

3.       To examine the relationship between parental background and academic performance of social studies students in Junior Secondary School in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

4.       To examine the relationship between student’s self-concept and academic performance of social studies students in Junior Secondary School in Ibiono Ibom Local Government Area.

1.4     Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated and answered to guide the study:

1.       Will there be any relationship between student’s attitude to school work and acade

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