RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC SELF-CONCEPT AND THEIR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN EDO STATE

Abstract

Academic achievements of secondary school students have been source of concern in Nigeria in recent years. As a result, this study investigated the relationship between secondary school students’ academic self-concepts and their academic achievements in Edo State. The study was guided by five research questions and two hypotheses. Population of study comprised all SS2 students of the state owned (public) secondary schools. A sample size of 1201 students in SS2 was randomly drawn from 30 senior secondary schools, out of the 310 state owned (public) secondary schools. The research design was correlational survey and instrument used for data collection was academic self-concept scale (ASCS). The instrument was adopted for use with the authors’ established Cronbach alpha reliability co-efficient (internal consistency) of 0.84 for (ASCS). Other instruments used in the study were end of term results or students’ achievement scores of Mathematics and English Language. Administration of research instrument was done through direct delivery approach and the data were analysed using summated scores, percentages, Pearson r, t-test of simple regression analysis. Hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance and findings revealed that 1042(86.8%) have good academic self-concept. While 232(19.3%) of the students had excellent academic achievement in Mathematics, 378(31.5%) of them had excellent academic achievement in English Language. It was also revealed that relationship existing between secondary school students’ academic self-concept and their academic achievements was neither significant in Mathematics nor in English Language. Hence, the study concluded that there was no correlation existing secondary school students’ academic self-concepts and their academic achievements in Edo State. Based on the findings recommendations were made.