Institutional factors as predictors of students academic achievement in colleges of education in South western Nigeria

Abstract

The enhancement of the academic achievement of the Nigerian students has continued to engage the attention of educational practitioners and policy makers. This paper investigated institutional factors as predictors of students' academic performance in Colleges of Education in South-Western Nigeria. The study employed the ex post facto design using a survey design and a multiple regression model. The samples used for the study consisted of 1,100 (200 and 300 levels) National Certificate of Education (NCE) students in Federal, State and Private NCE-awarding institutions in South Western Nigeria, using stratified sampling techniques. The validated research instruments used for the study had the following psychometric properties: Cronbach alpha (α) [0.79 (students) and 0.73 (lecturers); Guttman split-half 0.78 (students) and 0.71 (lecturers; and Spearman-Brown equal length results were 0.69 (students) and 0.70 lecturers)]. The study found that a number of institutional factors: student-teacherratio, lecturers' interest and commitment, school calendar stability and to a lesser extent, teaching method, were significant predictors of students' academic achievement in the colleges of education sampled. On the other hand, school leadership, school plant and library facilities were not found to be significant predictors of academic achievement. The study proffered a number of recommendations to improve the quality of educational policy outcomes geared towards improving students' educational performance and hence enhance the achievement of national economics goals.

The Relation between College Resources and Learning Outcomes: Considering the Mediating Effects of Student Engagement/Odnos između resursa visokih učilišta i rezultata učenja: razmatranje posredničkog učinka studentske angažiranosti

“…Applied here were: resources as the independent variable, engagement as the mediating variable, and student learning outcomes as the dependent variable. Although many studies have shown a statistically relevant and positive correlation between demographic factors such as residence status (Astin, 1999;Pascarella, Bohr, Nora, Zusman, Inman, & Desler, 1994), gender, and teacher qualification (Adeyemi & Adeyemi, 2014;Nurhadi, Zahro, & Lyau, 2017) on the one hand, and academic achievement on the other, the present study found out that gender, residence status, faculty qualification, and students' area of specialization did not lead to significant differences between the groups, and therefore, these factors were not considered determinant.…”

“…This is because learning involves interaction between students and their environment. The availability of adequate physical resources was found to have a significant contribution on students' academic achievement (Adeyemi & Adeyemi, 2014).…”

Factors Militating against Effective Administration of Secondary Schools in Anambra State

“…A failure to appropriately supervise instruction on the part of teachers might result in the failure of supervisory programme, which is a critical factor for school administration. The person who is task with the responsibility of supervision is the school head (Adeyemi, 2010). Despite the fact that supervision is very important in evaluating the effectiveness of schools, it is disturbing to note that it is irregularly conducted (Ezekwesili, 2007 and scarce number of qualified school supervisors.…”

“…School teachers should be made to understand that they can reach out to the school head with their grievances and obtain backing. In fact, Adeyemi (2010) opines that the way a school head relates with his or her staff has a positive or negative impact on the productivity level of the staff. In the same vein, the school head is in a solely in-charge as the administrator, who control school's resources for the purpose of attaining the aims and objectives of his school (Ikegbusi, 2014).…”

Modelling scholastic underachievement as a contagious disease

“…In most of the Nigerian institutions, it was observed that lack of concentration, lack of teaching equipment, lack of manpower, poor understanding of concept, inability to study well, poor attitude towards learning, and pleasure seeking attitude contribute to low academic performance. 4 Most of the negative consequences in the behaviour of students arise as a result of alcohol abuse. 5 Alcohol abuse among the university students has been studied for many decades starting with the work of Straus and Bacon.…”