Peer Pressure Self-concept And Emotional Intelligence As Predictors Of Academic Achievement Of Secondary School Students In North- Central Nigeria

In spite of the efforts of stakeholders in the education sector to improve educational achievement, students’ achievement in the English Language has been consistently poor over the years. This has made researchers to shift attention to identifying factors that may be responsible for secondary school students’ poor achievement in the English Language. It is against this background that the researcher investigated peer pressure, self-concept and emotional intelligence as predictors of English Language achievements of secondary school students in North-central, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to examine: (i) level of secondary school students’ peer pressure, self-concept, emotional intelligence and English Language achievement; (ii) the joint contribution of peer pressure, self-concept and emotional intelligence as predictors of English Language achievement; (iii) the contribution of each of peer pressure, self-concept and emotional intelligence as predictors of English Language achievement; and (iv) peer pressure, self-concept and emotional intelligence as predictors of English Language achievement based on gender and school type.rnThe correlational research design was adopted for the study. A sample of 1,500 senior secondary school II students was drawn out of a population of 1,232,367 from both public and private schools in North-central, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure involving simple random, stratified and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the three states, three senatorial areas, and 50 secondary schools in North-central, Nigeria. Three adopted questionnaire and one researcher-designed achievement test were used to collect data. The four instruments were validated using test-re-test reliability procedure, which yielded reliability coefficients of 0.77, 0.87, 0.69 and 0.84, respectively. The research questions were answered using mean, while the hypotheses were tested using Multiple Regression at alpha level of 0.05 significance.rnThe findings of the study were that:rn(i) peer pressure, self-concept, emotional intelligence and English Language achievement had a mean scores of 88.32, 91.02, 201.38 and 63.65, respectively which were above average;rn(ii) peer pressure, self–concept and emotional intelligence significantly predicted secondary school students’ English Language achievement at df = 3/1,496; r =0.7; F =2.89 sig at 0.03;rn(iii) peer pressure and emotional intelligence did not significantly predict achievement of secondary school students in English Language whereas self–concept significantly predict achievement of secondary school students in English (Beta=0.06; t=2.46; sig=0.01); andrn(iv) peer pressure, self–concept and emotional intelligence did not significantly predict English Language achievement of secondary school students on the basis of gender and school type.rnThe study therefore concluded that the joint influence of peer pressure, self-concept, and emotional intelligence, if adequately enhanced in the teaching and learning of English Language, as well as positive encouragement of self-concept, could be a good factor in improving students’ academic achievement. The implication is that independent variables had a low significant predictive power on secondary school students’ achievement in English Language. It was recommended that teachers and educational psychologists should make desirable effort to maintain and sustain the influence of peer pressure, self-concept and emotional intelligence in the teaching and learning of English Language at Secondary School level in North-central, Nigeria.

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