Academic Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control and Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria, emphasis has been placed on secondary school students' academic performance because of its direct positive impact on national development. Young students in secondary schools today are expected to be leaders of tomorrow and their academic performance is sine qua non for gaining admission into higher institutions and the quality of manpower the nation can boast of in the future. Unfortunately and generally, secondary school students' academic performance in Nigeria is a serious matter for concern. Many researchers in recent time are interested in the factors affecting academic performance with a view to finding permanent solutions to the problems of poor academic performance of secondary school students. It is on this premise that the current study was conducted to examine the influence of some psychological factors on students' academic performance. Descriptive research design of correctional type was used for the study. The sample consisted of three hundred and sixty four students randomly selected from ten secondary schools. Two standardized instruments were used to collect data from the sample while students' scores in their previous promotion examination were used to measure their academic performance. Through multiple regression analysis, the researchers found that academic self-efficacy and locus of control jointly predicted academic performance. Further analysis revealed that academic self-efficacy significantly predicted academic performance while locus of control was not a good predictor. It is recommended that teachers, school management, school administrators and counselling psychologists should use appropriate psychological interventions to enhance academic self-efficacy of secondary school students.

Relationships between Locus of Control, Self-Efficacy, Efforts and Academic Achievement among Engineering Students

“…Consistency in effort instead of total effort was associated with academic achievement [12]. In contrast to [9], [10] and [23] the current study fails to establish associational relationship between self-efficacy and CGPA. No correlation between self-efficacy and locus of control was found in this study which is similar to [20] and [23].…”

“…The current finding supports findings from previous studies in [23] and [21]. Data from the current study also indicate positive association between self-efficacy and learning efforts which is similar to [10] but contradicts [20].…”

Overloaded Curriculum, Excessive Daily Academic Activities and Students’ Learning Effectiveness

“…When students are continually bombarded with information and academic tasks by their teachers, the law of diminishing returns gradually set in. Academic burnout, loss of motivation and attention related problems are some of the possible downside of exposing the learners to enormous academic tasks; beyond what they can realistically surmount [17,23]. This finding is in line with the inference drawn by [15] that the length of time spent on instruction has influence on learners' achievement and study habit.…”

Nursing Student's Experience on Locus of Control and Its Relation with Learning Performance and Academic Support: A Comparative Study

“…These results was in the same line with [17] who study Academic Self-Efficacy, Locus of Control and Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Ondo State, Nigeria, they found that locus of control wasn't a good predicator for learning performance. While in contrast with [4] who carried out a study entitled "A Study on Locus of Control and Its Impact on Employee's Performance who reported that internal locus of control was a strong predicator for employee's performance.…”

“…It is important to investigate the contributions of psychological skills not only the IQ achievement such as self-locus of control to the prediction of academic performance, whether students have internal or external locus of control as the individuals, who have the internal locus of control, think that they have a big role on affecting the events which influence their lives. Furthermore, they assess themselves as possessing the power for the attitude they want to display by having the positive ego concept, and they believe that they can direct their lives whatever way they desire [17].…”