PEER GROUP CHARACTERISTICS AND SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN COMMERCE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
One of the key social influences on adolescent behavior is peer groups, which can have an impact on more significant choices like short- and long-term educational goals as well as day-to-day choices about clothing, hairstyles, music, and entertainment. Peer influence is influenced by things like students’ ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ties to their families, and interests in particular groups. Throughout the adolescent years, peers are valued even more than parents, guardians, and teachers, and adolescents’ peer-influenced behavior can have long-lasting consequences. Parents value peer groups, as evidenced by the neighborhoods, schools, and extracurricular activities they select.
Peer influences on learning are widely acknowledged. In spite of this presumption, no one can agree on how peers affect one another. Various theories attempt to explain this; some contend that peers’ average
Ability affects one’s academic performance negatively, despite some claims to the contrary (Marsh, 2005). Peers may indirectly affect students as well. This is primarily brought on by the way teachers respond to different student groups. One possible outcome is that teachers will be better able to tailor their lessons to their students’ needs since the group will be more homogeneous, which will be beneficial to all students, if students are enrolled in courses according to their abilities. Instead of focusing on differentiating the channels through which peer effects operate, this work’s main objective is to empirically demonstrate the existence and direction of peer effects.
Peer impact is significant, and both families and policymakers have made peer quality a priority in decision-making in education. For instance, parents are more likely to use residential options and other school selection options to find better friends for their kids. The goal of many divisive educational initiatives, including school desegregation, ability monitoring, and vouchers, is to improve student performance by reshaping peer groups. Nevertheless, it can be challenging to pinpoint peer influences. The most serious problem is that families and children frequently choose peer groups and schools that share their traits. Peer characteristics may therefore simply be a proxy for other unobservable individual factors that affect outcomes, such as student motivation to work hard and parental aspirations and resources. This endogenous decision gives rise to a selection bias issue. This leads to the well-known simultaneity bias issue, also
similar to the Manski reflection issue (1993).
Few studies have been conducted to show a negative peer effect on academic achievement, despite the fact that a lot of research supports the positive peer influence in the learning community (krik. A. Johnson, 2000). Communities are thought to absorb people’s sense of responsibility, which is thought to support effective learning (J. Scott Armstrong, 2012). According to social psychology, this division of responsibilities among community members causes social loafing, in which people exert less effort than they would if they were working alone to achieve a shared goal (Karau. Steven J & Williams Kipling D, 1993, and Gilovich, T; Keltner, D & Nisbett R. E, 2006). Such a sense of irresponsibility and disconnect has a big impact on
performance of students and ongoing evaluation. Negative peer pressure has been associated with lower academic achievement levels in the United States almost as much as a Hispanic or African-American minority group (krik. A Johnson, 2000). Academic performance can also suffer from spending a lot of time around bad people, such as a bad roommate. According to a study on the effects of peers and alcohol use among college students, men who shared a room with a roommate who had previously consumed alcohol had an average lower GPA.
This ambiguity in attribution regarding whether peers have a positive or negative influence has been eliminated in the Karau and Williams Collective Effort Model (1993, 2001). The paradigm states that highly motivated individuals offer social facilitation (i.e., enhancing one’s effort in
the company of others), but those who lack motivation are more likely to engage in social loafing (Forsyth, D. R, 2010). Additionally, Karau and Williams found that motivation is correlated with the value and difficulty of the task (Forsyth, D. R., 2010); the harder the task and the more valuable it is, the more motivated people are. This study focused on secondary school students in the Isu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. It is widely believed that peer group variables like students’ ethnicity, socioeconomic background, family relationships, and group interests have a significant impact on students’ academic performance.
SITUATION OF THE PROBLEM
It’s been a long time since some academics have focused on the connection between peer
School learning outcomes and social interactions. According to numerous studies, a child’s peer group has an effect on both their social and academic growth, and these effects start as soon as they start attending formal school. Children’s behavior, including study habits and individual academic growth, is influenced and motivated by a variety of people, including their parents, teachers, and other close friends. Due to the amount of time a child spends with friends every day, peer influence on a teenager may be quite significant.
Peer effects also become more noticeable over time, peaking around puberty. Children must therefore cultivate healthy peer groups from a young age in order to mature.
into happy adolescents and possibly adults. A child can learn how to interact with others, resolve conflicts, and build trust, to name a few skills, by having classmates. The emergence of serious social disorders is influenced by the absence of strong peer connections. For instance, peer rejection during early infancy and adolescence is a powerful indicator of future social and academic difficulties. Therefore, the goal of this study was to examine how peer group factors affected secondary school students’ academic achievement in Commerce in Ebonyi State, Nigeria.
1.3 QUESTIONS FOR RESEARCH
Some of the questions that this study seeks to address include the ones below:
I How common are peer pressure factors and academic success in commerce?
students in the Isu Local Government Area who attend secondary schools?
ii) What effects do peer group characteristics have on the academic achievement of secondary school students in the Commerce subject in the Isu Local Government Area?
iii) How are parents of secondary school students in the Isu Local Government Area working to raise Commerce academic achievement?
1.4 THE STUDY’S OBJECTIVES
Examining the influences of peer group factors on academic achievement in the Commerce subject among secondary school students in Ebonyi State, Nigeria, was the main objective of this study. The specific goals were as follows:
I find out how often peer pressure affects students’ academic success in commerce at the secondary level in the Isu Local Government Area.
ii) to determine
Peer group dynamics have an impact on secondary school students in the Isu Local Government Area’s academic performance in the Commerce subject.
iii) to investigate the steps taken by parents of students in the Isu Local Government Area’s secondary schools to ensure greater academic success in the subject of commerce.
1.5 RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER STUDIES
This study may help the government of Ebonyi State, Nigeria, develop and implement policies that improve students’ performance in relation to peer pressure. The study’s conclusions may also assist schools in removing harmful peer pressure that lowers students’ achievement in commerce. Additionally, it would be advantageous for researchers because it would help create new literature in the fields of peer group dynamics and academic achievement in commerce among secondary school students in the
Local Government Area of Isu.
1.6 THE STUDY’S SCOPE
This study examined the relationship between secondary school students in the Isu Local Government Area’s peer group variables and academic performance in commerce. The focus of the study will only be on students from the Isu Local Government Area.
Limitations of the research
Despite having insufficient time, the researcher closely adhered to the time frame. The respondents were hesitant to provide information because they believed it was being used for business purposes, but confidentiality was guaranteed. Lastly it was not easy to get some respondents to respond to the questions but the researcher was patient and made several trips to collect the questionnaire.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
The following terms were used in the course of
this research
Academic Progress: Grades received on the final exam for Form 1.
A social science field called commerce studies how people behave when they buy and sell things.
A group of classmates who are enrolled in the same course.
1.9 Participants in the study
The study background, the statement of the research problem, the study objective, and the study scope are all included in the first chapter’s introductory section.
The second chapter provides a critical analysis of additional literature that is pertinent to the study’s goals and theoretical framework. While the third chapter discusses the techniques used in the study’s data collection, sampling, and analysis. The focus of the fourth chapter is the research findings, which include an analysis of how it relates to earlier discoveries The summary of findings, the conclusion, and the recommendations based on the study objectives are included in the fifth chapter.
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