ABSTRACT
This study was intended to assess the factors responsible for the poor academic performance in public Junior secondary schools. This study was guided by the following objectives; Ascertain environmental factors as causes of poor academic performance of students in Junior secondary schools in Business studies, Examine teachers factors as causes of poor academic performance of students in Junior secondary schools in Business studies, Determine the attitudes of students as causes of poor academic performance of students in Junior secondary schools in Business studies, Find out attitudes of parent as causes of students poor academic performance in Junior secondary schools in Business studies.
The study employed survey method; questionnaires in addition to library research were applied in order to collect data. Junior secondary and secondary data sources were used and data was analyzed using a number of statistical techniques at 5% level of significance which was presented in frequency tables and percentage. The respondents under the study were 149 teachers from five selected Junior secondary schools in Chikun Local Government Area. The findings from the study revealed that environmental factors such as crowded classrooms, inadequate instructional materials as well as supervision and poor students background as well as poor infrastructures in school leads to poor academic performance.
This study also revealed that teachers factors such as lack of quality teachers, inadequate teaching skills, inability of school management to organised training and re-training for their staff as well as extreme dependence on textbooks leads to poor academic performance in Junior secondary schools.
The outcome of this study will also help the government the non-go-environment agencies and the society at large to know and appreciate their effort and give necessary support for the improvement of teaching and learning in Junior secondary schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
It is true that many students in Business studies today do not have secondary school background in Business studies unlike Mathematics, Economics, “English, Government and the likes, and therefore they tend to have a negative attitude at the very beginning of the course at the secondary school and assume that business studies is a very difficult course. Atieh (1997) shows that the Saudi Arabian students have a negative attitude toward business studies, considering it a difficult subject. This is usually manifested by their poor performance and high rate of failure in Principles of business studies. Supporting the above, Osoghe (2010) reported that non-business studies students of Business Administration in Al-Labal Secondary school wrote to the secondary school administration to exclude business studies courses from their curriculum. They asked a question “why is engineering and medicine not a foundation and compulsory course for all engineering and medical science student in the secondary school”? This further demonstrates high level of hatred the students have for business studies.
