Influence of Learning Environment on the Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Makurdi Metropolis

Abstract

School environment has tremendous influence in the quality of teaching students receives and the extent of attention they pay to lesson in school. This implies that schools that fail to provide the necessary learning facilities and create conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning may hardly give the best to their students especially in the area of academic performance. This scenario is one of the reasons for poor academic performance of students in many secondary schools in the study area. The main thrust of this paper is to investigate the influence of learning environment on academic performance of secondary school students in Makurdi metropolis of Benue State. Three research questions guided the study. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of this study comprised 2, 090 secondary school students from which 399 were selected randomly from 30 secondary schools in Makurdi. A 15-itemstructured questionnaire developed by the researcher titled the Influence of Learning Environment on the Academic Performance of Students” (ILEAPS) was used for data collection. Mean and standard deviations were used to answer the research questions. The results of the study revealed adequate provision of infrastructures makes students learn with ease thus bringing about good academic achievement (3.82), poor and inadequate physical facilities, obsolete teaching techniques, overcrowded classrooms leads to poor academic achievement of students (3.67), unattractive school buildings and overcrowded classrooms contributes to poor academic achievement of the students in secondary school (3.60). The study also revealed that what happens outside school also affects learning progress (3.45), students from home that has educational facilities perform greater in school than those whose parent do not (3.43) and parental occupational status affects students’ academic performance (3.38). The study further revealed that indiscipline among teachers results to retarding students’ academic performance (3.50) and students who are taught by trained professional teachers perform better than those untrained professional teachers (3.42).The study concludes that learning environment influences the performance of students. Based on the findings, the study recommends that Benue State Government should provide adequate school facilities in secondary schools to enhance teaching and learning processes. The Parent Teacher Association (PTA), philanthropist and other charitable organizations are also implored to compliment the effort of the government to boost academic achievement of secondary school students by contributing to modern learning infrastructures to schools.