ABSTRACT

The main thrust of this study was to determine the influence of school variables on students’ academic performance in Calabar Municipal Area of Cross River State. To achieve the purpose of this study, five hypotheses were formulated to direct the study. Literature review was carried out accordingly. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 200 respondents was randomly selected through the simple random sampling technique. The questionnaire was the main instrument used fir the data collection. The chi-square (Xs) test analysis was employed to test the hypotheses.

All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the analysis revealed that school size, ownership, structure, type and location were statistically significant to students’ academic performance in Calabar Municipal Local Government of Cross River State. Based on the findings, recommendations were made such Government should provide more schools as much as possible which will help in decongesting the over-crowded schools and also the United Nation’s recommendation of a teacher to a maximum of thirty student in a class should be strictly adhere to.

Also, Educationist who practice in the private sector should tend to improve the quality of their teaching be employing qualified teachers and also strive to make the student academically independent by revealing their real performance to them and not doctored school results.

In addition to, Government should rather abolish boarding schools and create more highly spread and equipped schools so that students can attend from their location. That is government should create schools close to every citizens to enable them to attend without stress of traveling.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background to The Study

The school is a social and learning agent that provides the environment upon which a child may be formally educated in order to attain educational goals. Human beings, have unlimited capacity to learn, but may however be limited by the behavior patterns and facilities that the immediate environment offers. According to Umoh (2006), nature only provides the raw materials in form of potentials, but it is the environment that determines the extent of development.

In furtherance to the menace of low academic performance which had been on the high strain in the Nigerian academic system and cannot be over emphasized as it had eaten deep into the quality of students and eventual leaders produced into the Nigerian economy. It could be deduced that there exist a vacuum in the quality of students produced and the required quality of individual for various institutional need of the country.

 In accessing the cause effect of the level of student academic performance, the researcher consider some variables of the school as those instruments that could tailor the level of student academic performance. The school variable, which include the school size, school ownership, school type, school structure and school location is deem fit to affect  students’ academic achievement. Hence, the school variables remains an important area that should be studied and well managed to enhance students’ academic performance.

 The issue of poor academic performance of students in Nigeria has been of much concern to the government, parents, teachers and even student themselves. The quality of education not only depends on the teachers as reflected in the performance of their duties, but also in the effective coordination of the school variables. It is believed that the school physical features has a form of relationship with the student academic performance in terms of the school size, structure, ownership, location and type.

 A school with a highly populated students may result in the teachers not been able to monitor the performance of the students and thus reducing the students’ academic performance and also, research has postulated a form of severe relationship between the ownership of school and the students’ academic performance say public school and private school. Also, the location and availability of educational resources at the disposal of the students in terms of school variable affect their level of academic performance.

 Most excelling students tends to emerge from private school in the modern academic dispensation with the paradox of whose teachers emerging from the public school in the old academic dispensation in Nigeria. To complement these studies, the present research will examine the aforementioned areas of school variables as it affect students’ performance in Nigerian schools.

Most student in their quest for easy subject combination in school and choosing of a career path in the senior secondary school tend to avoid any calculation inclusive subject: as Mathematics also abhor Financial Accounting. And for the few focused student who decided to study Financial Accounting do find some limiting factors in pursuit of academic excellence on the subject and thus affecting their academic performance in the subject and to which such school variable are school size, type, structure, ownership and location.

 Theoretical Framework

The following theories will be used to form the basis for this study;

1. The System Theory of Bertalanffy&Weihrich (1988):
2. The Theory of Human Motivation by Abraham Maslow (1943)

 The System’s Theory (Input – Output Model)

The theory adapted for this study is derived from the System’s Theory Input – Output model developed by Ludwig Van Bertalanffy and Weihrich, (1988) which postulates that an organized enterprise does not exist in isolation; it’s dependent on its environment in which it’s established. They add that the inputs from the environment are received by the organization which then transform them into output after processing such inputs.

As adapted by this study, the student (input) are admitted into the school with different intelligent quotient, family and educational background; when they get into the school system, the school through its resources (both human and capital) process such students through the learning process which is aided or made easier through the resources/variables attributed to such school. The effectiveness of such variables is measured through the output of the student which is measured in term of their academic performance.

Robbins (1980) argued that organizations were increasingly described as absorber, processors and generators and that the organization system could be envisioned as made up of several interdependent variables (system advocate). According to Robbins (1980), it could be observed that a change in a variable within the organization have an impact on all other organizational variables and sub system components. Thus the inputs, the processors and the generators should function well in order to achieve the desired outcome.

Saleem (1997) in agreement with Robbins (1980) state that all systems must work in harmony in order to achieve the overall goal of such system. According to the input – output model, its assumed that the school with high level of variables will enable the students produce a high level of output which can be measured in term of their academic performance. Therefore, student will perform well in an academic environment with the best facilities/variables in term of school size, ownership, type, structure and location.

Oso and Onen (2005) states that the inter relationship among the parts of a system have to be understood by all parties to ensure their inter-dependent nature of the parts. The outcome of the student academic performance is dependent on the level of availability of basic school variables.

• The Theory of Human Motivation

This theory is also known as the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this theory emphasize the need for human motivation in oreder to bring out the best possible potentials in human efforts.

According to this theory, human is constantly preoccupied with need that must be met at a point in time and which in response gives birth to another need which are mostly insatiable in the long run. The need are categorized into the following stages;

• Physiological Needs;
• Safety needs;
• Social needs;
• Esteem needs;
• Self-Actualization.

This theory postulate that the satisfaction of a stage of need automatically gives rise to the next level of need. This study derives its motivation form the Maslow theory of motivation and as such could align it with the study in pushing for excellence in their academic pursuit. Variables such as school size, structure, ownership, type and location tends to motivates student in the attainment of their academic excellence.

• Statement of the Problem

Academic performance, which is measured by the examination results, is one of the major goals of a school. Hoyle (1986) argued that schools are established with the aim of imparting knowledge and skills to those who go through them and behind all this is the idea of enhancing good academic performance.

 The poor academic performance of student in financial accounting had in the past give a cause for concern for academician and school operators and such variables that could tend to influence the student performance. Therefore, it’s pertinent to investigate the composition of school variables and their effect on student academic performance in Financial Accounting in school in Calabar Municipality.

 Much as the situation described here causes concern, it is not yet known why some students fail to attain the standards expected of them. The researcher would therefore like to establish the influence of school variables such as school size, school ownership structure, school type, and school structure and school location on student academic performance in financial accounting in Calabar Municipality.

1.4     Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of school variable on academic performance. Specifically, the study sees to findings into the extent to which;

1. School size influences academic performance.
2. School ownership influences academic performance.

• School type (co-educational/single) influences academic performance.

1. School structure (Day/Boarding) influences academic performance.
2. School location (areas on to fringe of Calabar-suburb) influences academic performance.

1.5     Research Questions

The following questions guided this study

1. To what extent does school size influence academic performance?
2. To what extent does school ownership influence academic performance?

• To what extent does school type influence academic performance?

1. To what extent does school structure influence academic performance?
2. To what extent does school location influence academic performance?

1.6     Research Hypotheses

          The following hypotheses guided this study;

1. There is no significant influence of school size on academic performance;
2. There is no significant influence of school ownership on academic performance;

• There is no significant influence of school type on academic performance;

1. There is no significant influence of school structure on academic performance;
2. There is no significant influence of school location on academic performance;

1.7     Significance of the Study

The study is highly significant in enabling parents, educationist and educational stakeholders in measuring the effect of school variable in relationship student academic performance. The findings of this study will help determine the relationship between school variables and student academic performance and also this study will be of benefit to educationist who are interested in knowing how non classroom factors/variables affect student academic performance.

This study is also germane to parents who are interested in the educational performance of their student most especially in Financial Accounting and parents who are tending to mold their children to become an accountant in the future as this study tends to access the effect of school variable and student academic performance.

Also, this study will be of immense contribution to professional accounting bodies who programed of catching the best accountant young in their fields as this study will explain the relationship between the variables and such student performance in the field of accounting and as such enable them to make proper plan of hunting the best student in Financial accounting and also understand the cause-effect of school variable and student academic performance.

1.8     Scope of the Study

The study will be conducted in ten Secondary Schools in Calabar Municipality. The variables to be cover in this study include school size, school ownership structure, school type, school structure and school location.

This study is aimed at investigating the effect of the aforementioned variables on the academic performance of students in financial accounting. This study is also limited to the identified variables used in the study.

1.9     Assumptions of the Study

          The assumptions underlying this study are:

1. That schools differs in facilities availability;
2. That variables involved in this study are measurable;
3. That the effect of school variables on student performance can be investigated;
4. That questionnaire respondent are sincere in their response;
5. That examination is the only means of judging students’ academic excellence and ability.