STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF SOME FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THEIR ACADEMIC

INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
    There is much evidence from the past that there was explosion in population of secondary school students. More teachers were thus needed and government had no option than to organize crash training programme of secondary school teachers from different background. Giving the nature of their training, the teachers may or may not have acquired the necessary competences for teaching in secondary schools. If they did not, their performance could be responsible for poor learning outcomes of secondary school students in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State.

    It could be possible that students perform poorly because teachers teach poorly, and teachers teach poorly as a result of poor training received because of the explosion in population of secondary school students and government needed teachers urgently. As a result government employed without proper screening such as employing by connection of friends, relatives and so on.
    Ukaonu (1996) opined that background of parents affects how far parents send their children performance in school. That is if they are learned parents they will often go to their child’s teacher to find out how their child performance look like, to enable them know whether their child is progressing or not, while the parents with little or no educated background don’t care. Parents income, occupation and status permit parents proper plan for their children’s schooling, buy their uniforms and books, provide them with adequate equipment for the facilitation of their education. Children from parents with adequate income, good occupation or job and high status are likely to be provided with high quality private education from the nursery up to the university level. Whether education is free or not, poor parents can still send some of their children to school. But what happens is that they have to make a decision as to which child goes to school or not. Transer (1990) concluded that environmental factors contribute mostly to the academic performance of children and these environmental factors are partly economic, motivational and emotional.
    Since the inception of western education, evaluation of students’ academic performance has been in place in order to enable educationists find out whether the students are making progress or not. Education has been faced with how to achieve a good academic performance of the students for effective pedagogical process in secondary schools since the initiation of western education. It has been assumed that the quality of learning is directly related to factors, although the National Policy on Education make little or no specific reference to this vital aspect (Schein, 2004).
    There are many studies that sought to examine this issue and the findings of this studies point out to hard-work and discipline, previous school attended, parents’ education, family income and self-motivation as factors that can explain differences in students’ performance. Thus, Siegfried and Fels (1979) concluded that the students’ aptitude is the most important determinant of his/her learning. Kennedy and Tay (1994) concluded in their survey article that the research on the factors affecting students’ performance in secondary schools points out to students’ aptitude as the most important determinant of learning. Based on this background, this study is carried out to determine the perception of students of some factors that influence their academic performance in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State.

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