Relationship Among Self-Esteem, Attitude to School and Students’ Academic Performance among Federal Government Colleges in North-West Zone of Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between self-esteem and attitude to school on students’ academic performance among Federal Government Colleges in Northwest zone of Nigeria. Three research questions, objectives and research hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive correlational design. A sample of 269 SSII students was drawn from the population of 3,430 through multi-stage sampling technique and with the aid of Research Adviser (2006) table for determining sample size. Two set of instruments were adapted in the study: Akinboye (1985) Adolescent Personality Data Inventory (APDI) Sub-scale A to measure the students’ self-esteem with a reliability ‘r’ index of 0.67, Adapted version of Federal Ministry of Education Questionnaire on Attitude to School Scale (PES) to measure student’s attitude to school with a reliability ‘r’ index of 0.87 and researcher designed tests in English language and Mathematics with a reliability ‘r’ indices of 0.71 and 0.66 respectively. Findings revealed no significant relationship between self-esteem and academic Performance of students while the results of the multiple regressions analysis shows that attitude to school is a better predictor of academic performance than self-esteem of students in Federal Government Colleges in Northwest zone of Nigeria. Based on the findings, recommendations were made including that parents, teachers and counsellors should try to encourage positive attitude to school in students in order to enhance their academic performance since it is indicated in the research finding that attitude to school is a better predictor of academic performance of students.