Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate “The influence of school peer relationships on student’s academic performance in secondary schools in Buea municipality” A descriptive survey research design was used on a sample of sixty (60) students using the simple random sampling technique.

A closed-ended and open-ended questionnaire was used for the collection of data. The respondents were required to strongly agree, agree, strongly disagree, and disagree to identity and its influence, competition, and its influence and relation amongst school peers. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics particularly frequencies, averages, and percentages.

The findings showed that relationships amongst school peers have an influence on students’ academic performance which arises from some causes which could be; they perform poorly when influence by friends, they perform poorly when they admire friends of negative influence and they perform poorer when trying to maintain relationships with the opposite sex.

It was therefore concluded that school peer relationships affect students negatively in their academic achievement but it can as well be managed or reduced in order to improve upon their performance. Given these results, conclusions, recommendations, and suggestions for further study were made.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Peers are individuals who have similar feelings, attitudes, Cirese (1985) and are part of the same social group. As such school, peer relationships are the interaction of students among their friends in school with similar feelings which has an influence on their academic performance. There are three types of peer groups and how these groups relate with each other.

Firstly there is the Friendship group which is the smallest type of peer group and is the pairing of two individuals who are likely to have similar personalities and temperaments. The second type is the Cliques; they are larger in size and individuals have common interests and strong emotional attachments to one another.

Lastly, there is the crowd which is more impersonal and lacks strong bonds of attachment. These different types of peer groups have both positive and negative impacts on the members of the groups. This study focuses mainly on: how identity amongst school peers influences their performance in school, to find out if competition among school peers affects their academic performance, investigate whether relations among school peers affect their learning.

Chapter one of this works will be looking at the background of the research, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the research, the research questions, significance of the study, delimitations, and definition of related terms. All these constitute chapter one of the research. Chapter two will be looking at the review of related literature on the research.

That is the theoretical review, conceptual framework, contextual framework, and empirical framework. Chapter three will have to do with the research methodology that is research designs, area of the study, the population of the study, instructions of data collection. Chapter four is the analysis of data through demographic information. Chapter five consists of discussions of findings, conclusions and recommendations.

Background of the Study

Society is characterized by social interaction through which people who share common characteristics come together as a group of equals. This is a result of the perception and influence they have on each other. Looking at the concept of the school, students who share similar attitudes tend to form relationships.

These are often referred to as peer groups Vastrogiovanni (2002). They make decisions among themselves as well as they set goals to be achieved. Schools have been seen as a vehicle of social change most especially where students formally learn about sexuality, others take schools a place where they would exercise their patriotism and others to show they believe in God.

Looking at the background concept of the study, peer relationship refers to a state of connectedness between groups of people who share similar qualities (friendship). Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, This is the most social context which influences peer relationships in schools since peers spend more time in schools than at home. As such the school becomes a social context that influences peer relationships Wormian c. (1992)

Adolescence has to do with the stage of development between puberty and adulthood. The stage of adolescence tends to be the most difficult one throughout the life cycle Black (2002), for it is characterized by dramatic physical, psychological, and social changes that are often not well understood by adults.

Adolescence is the developmental stage that begins at puberty and encompasses the period from the end of childhood to the beginning of adulthood Erickson (1990-1994), that is from 13years to 19 years of age at this stage adolescence begin to ask questions such as how do I spend my time, is there any importance of school in me.

Adolescence is members of a minority group at home, but in their peer groups, their status is equal to that of others in the group. The choices that adolescence makes regarding their engagement and achievement in school and life, as well as the satisfaction they obtain from their choices, depending on parts on the context in which they make their choices Ryan(2000).

Becoming an adolescent marks the beginning of their personal friendship. Adolescence wants to know how their friends think about them Younise and Smoller (1985). Peer groups which adolescence relates with providing social reference points for this adolescence. Palma (2008) noted that peer relationships are amongst the most significant social context in adolescence.

Academic achievement represents performance outcomes that indicate the extent to which a person has accomplished specific goals in a subject matter Tambo (2003). They help to establish norms of behavior and normally develop a culture that manifests itself in like language,, dressing, and drinking habits As they feel comfortable being together, they tend their group to be a reference group which is that which shows one identity towards attaining school goals, Black (2002).

Peer relations create and maintain a culture separate from home in which adolescence is raised. Many young people spend more time with their peers than with their parents or family members. Friends are really important to teens.

As they grow, parents recognize that friends play bigger and bigger roles in their lives. They become romantic partners, they help teens develop social skills, try new activities, and provide them with lots of supports and encouragement Cillessen & Mayeux (2004).

Meanwhile, parents often worry that teen’s friends aren’t always good influences. They may isolate, tease and bully each other. They may promote attitudes that parents don’t like, and they can put pressure on each other to be sexually active, use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, and engage in other risky behaviors.

Even though parents can’t control teen relationships, they have a lot of influence on their teen friendship choices and the quality of those relationships, including romantic relationship in which parents help their teens to make good choices and grow successfully.

Social learning theory by Albert Bandura (1977) states that behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning, Children obverse from the people around them who behave in various ways, which influence them. Cameroon secondary schools are made of peer relationships of different ages. In addition, there are peer-group influences in work places such as companies

In the Contextual background, Cameroon is made up of many secondary schools in all the regions of the country under the minister of secondary education. In most of these secondary schools, there exist so many relations amongst school peers, either friendship, cliques, or crouds which has impacts on the lives of the students involve in the groups. For the case of secondary schools in the Buea municipality, students from such relationships in order to have the feeling of belonging and also gain popularity as they interact with their school mates.

Statement of the Problem

Peer pressure causes one to feel and believe that there can be nothing more existing than belonging to a peer relationship. The fear of isolation drives them to peer relations which might be doing everything to fit in the group.

Adolescence has always been exposed to peer relationships which influences everything they do, from what adolescence choose to wear, engages on drug abuse and other bad practices which influence their performance in school.

Equally relations among school peers cause some students to perform best in class as a result of competing with high knowledgeable students in their class. Through these indicators of school peer relations, the researcher notice that most students will either perform well or poorly depending on the type of relations they share among their groups.

This inspired the researcher to carry out research to find out if identity, relations amongst peers, and competition among school peers have an influence on students’ academic performance in secondary schools.

Objectives of the study

Main objectives

This study seeks generally to find out the extent to which school peer relationship influences students’ academic performance whether positively or negatively.

Specific objectives

The specific objectives of the study include the following;

1. To find out if identity among school peers influence their academic performance
2. To find out if competition among peers influence their academic performance
3. To find out if relations among school peers influence their academic performance