Effects of environmental variables on academic performance of secondary school students in Abuja municipal area council, FCT, Nigeria

Abstract

Academic performance of students is the center around which the whole education system revolves, the success and failure of any educational institution are measured in terms of academic performance of the students hence a need for research looking into improving students’’ performance. This study was carried out to analyze the environmental influence on academic performance of day senior school students in Abuja municipal area council. Purpose and Simple random sampling were used to select 250 respondents from 5 schools in the Federal Capital city Abuja. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to determine the relationship between the variables. The study revealed that most of the parents were married 88%, majorities are civil servants 63.2% and the students agree to eat a balanced diet 84%. It is evident that schools in the study area possess basic educational amenities and fairly good structures and the schools are not far from the student’s homes. However, eating a balanced diet, selling after school, family structure, presence of a cooling system (e.g. fan), and availability of medical facilities showed a significant relationship with students’ academic performance. Conclusively, policies must aim at ensuring that the school climate is conducive to aid teaching and learning. A conducive environment will motivate the students to learn. There is a need to educate parents and guardians on nutrition requirements necessary for the mental and psychological development of a growing child.