RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDY HABITS AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN IKA NORTH-EAST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF DELTA STATE (GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING PROJECT TOPICS AND MATERIALS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
In every school setting, learning and studying is one of the most important responsibilities of students. Maintaining good study habit will help them study their materials to succeed.
Study habit is the tendency of a student to learn a systematic and efficient way when opportunity is given. It is also defined as the devotion of time and attention to acquire information or knowledge especially from books or in other words, it is the pursuit of academic knowledge by a detailed investigation of a subject or situation (Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus of English Language, 2000).
Study habits tell a person how much he will learn and how far he wants to go and how he wants to earn. These all could be decided with the help of one’s study habits throughout the life.
The importance of study habit in student’s life is that it plays a major role in their academic achievement because without studies no one can be successful. However, poor study habits will make it hard for learners to excel in their subject (Standford, 2012).
As we all know, students are perpetually in search of academic success which is their ultimate goals. The credit of an educational system depends on the learning of its students or learners. Academic performance are affected by many factors which includes; personality, intelligent quotient, gender, age as well as learning style otherwise called study habits (Grede and Kuncel, 2008).
Furthermore, numerous studies have been carried out which focused on cognitive factors as predictors of academic success, recently, there has been a growing interest on the non-cognitive factors. A number of research have examined the role of non-cognitive variable such as study skill (Fazal, 2011, Demir, 2012; Awang, and Sinnadurou, 2011). Study motivation (Tella, 2007; Nonis and Hudson, 2008; Yana-Yang, 2011; Crede and Kuncel, 2008; Nuthana and Yenagi, 2009); Kurshid, 2012; Mutsotso, 2010) and attitude (Sarwar, 2010 and Yu, 2011) on academic achievement. Some argued that these factors have strong relationship with academic performance of students while other concluded that it was the combination of different factors that could explain students’ academic performance.
