Influence of home and school factors on academic achievement of high achieving secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between home environment, school environment and academic achievement of high achieving secondary school students in Abeokuta, Ogun State. The study adopted descriptive survey research design of correlational type. Simple random sampling technique was used to select six secondary schools from two local government areas in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Two government secondary schools and one private secondary school were picked from each of the two local government areas. In each of the six schools, Slosson Intelligence Test was used to screen the intelligent ones among the Senior Secondary School II students. The continuous assessment records were carefully looked into in order to randomly select 35 high achieving students from each of the four government schools used and 30 high achieving students from each of the two private schools selected. The participants were two hundred (200) in all. The three main instruments used were students' rating scale on the influence of home and school factor on academic achievement of high achieving students, multi-dimensional approach (Teacher's nomination, school records and examination results) and Slosson Intelligence Test Two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC). The results revealed there was a positive relationship between home environment and academic achievement of high achieving secondary school students (r=.797); there was no significant relationship between school environment and academic achievement of high achieving secondary school students [r= .- 242). Based on the above findings, it was recommended that parents must always ensure that their home environment is worked upon and made highly stimulating and conducive for learning since it has been established in this study that a stimulating home environment does have positive influence on academic achievement of high achieving students. It was also recommended that parents should give birth to the number of children they can take proper care of and that they must always keep a watchful eye on their children to ensure that they do not keep bad friends who can have negative influence on their academics.