Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find out the influence of socio-psychological factors on the academic performance of students at the University of Buea. The objectives of this study were to find out the influence of peer pressure on the academic performance of students at the University of Buea.

To find out the influence of family background on the academic performance of students in the University of Buea. The descriptive research design was used to investigate the phenomenon with the use of a questionnaire to obtain quantitative data. To find out the influence of students’ self-efficacy on the academic performance of students in the University of Buea. In order to obtain the information from respondents’ questionnaires were distributed to 50 respondents from the University of Buea.

The research used simple frequency tables and percentages to analyze the results. From the results, it was seen that socio-psychological factors influence the academic performance of students at the University of Buea. From the findings, some recommendations and suggestions for further research were made on how to deal with children at home by their parents and in school by their teachers.

This research was guided by Albert Bandura’s theory of Social Learning which partly states that students learn by observing, imitating and actually reproducing what has been observed. Also, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1941), which talks about humans and their environment. Based on the finding of this research, recommendations were made to educational stakeholders, students, teachers, and parents.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Socio-Psychological factors can be seen as how thoughts, beliefs, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual imagined and implied presence of others socio-psychological factors are a combination of social (family background and peer influence) while psychological beliefs (self-efficacy). All this plays an important role in shaping the personality of an individual.

This chapter is mainly to highlight the influence of socio-psychological factors on the academic performance of students.

Background of the study

Historically, Socio-psychological factors like peer pressure, family background, and students’ self-efficacy play a great role in student’s academic performance and are essential for the delivery of high-quality teaching and learning process. They remain the key determinant of student academic performance (Fishbein, 1967; Bandura, 1986 & Brophy, 2001).

There is also a general belief that human behavior and actions are influenced by Peer pressure whereby peer pressure are seen as the cause and behavior as the effect (Chepchieng, socio psychology factors can influence academic performance both positively and negatively, negative factors distort teaching and learning techniques, positive psychosocial factors facilitate academic performance positively and outright expression of both lecturer and student intelligence because Universities or Colleges have no any value without students or lecturers as they are the greatest paramount quality for any educational institution.

 

Contextually, the development of any society is directly connected with students’ academic performance (Mushtaq et al., 2012). Students’ academic performance plays a crucial role in bringing qualitative graduates who will move a country to the right path in the near future (Ali et al, 2009 ). And poor students academic performance is not only frustrating the students and parents, but its effects are also equally grave on the society in terms of dearth of manpower in all spheres of the economy and politics (Aremu and Sokan, 2003)

Conceptually the study of socio-psychological factors on students’ academic performance indicated that there exist several factors that influence students ’academic performance but peer pressure, family background, student self-efficacy remained the key determinant of academic performance (Maina, 2012; Li, 2012; Tenaw, 2013; Adeyemo, 2007; Fan, 2012 and Swan, 2004).

According to Adunola (2011) and Ganyaupfu (2013), lecturing is a collaborative process that involves interaction between students’ and the lecturers that at the end brings about change in the students behavior. But, socio psychological factors in teaching and learning process is a multidimensional concept that measures various interrelated aspects of learning in an educational system which include peer pressure, students’ academic self-efficacy, and family background. Therefore, a consistent checkup of the aforementioned socio-psychological factors is very crucial most especially among students of the University of Buea since in practice, the factors are directly linked with students’ academic performance (Maina, 2012; Tenaw, 2013 and Fan, 2012).

Theoretically, socio-psychological factors especially peer pressure was guided by Albert Bandura on social learning theory. The social learning theory state learners learn by observing and imitating or it is a theory of learning process and social behavior which proposes that new behavior which proposes that new behaviors can be acquired by observing and imitating others, and this mostly takes place in a social context. Again, the social learning theory by Albert Bandura emphasis the importance of observing, modeling, and imitating the behavior, attitude, and emotional reactions of others. It also considers how both environmental and cognitive factors interact to influence human learning and behavior.

Also, observational learning plays a great role in a student’s life both positively and negatively dependent in the types of behaviors he observed. This study was also guided by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs; often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are psychological (food clothing), safety (job security) love and belonging needs (friendship) self-esteem, and self-actualization.

Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. This study would equally be guided by Albert Bandura who originally proposed the concept of a personal Judgment of how well one can execute courses of action required to deal with perspectives situations.

Educator Katty Kolbe adds belief in inmate abilities means valuing one’s particular sets of cognitive strengths. It also involves determination and perseverance to overcome obstacles that would interfere with utilizing those inmates abilities to achieve goals. There are both high self-efficacy and low self-efficacy students.

Statement of problem

A lot of socio-psychological factors do influence student’s academic performance. The learners learning outcome is affected either by peer pressure, family background, and student’s self-efficacy. It has a powerful influence either positively or negatively and varies from one student to another.

From my personal point of view, socio-psychological factors greatly influenced the academic achievement of students in the University of Buea in that, some of the factors prompt them to study hard thereby ending their goals. For instance, having good friends that lead in a right way of life such as always attend all their lectures, do assignments, always updated, study together make sure they are in class on time, such will enable student positive achievement for the students.

Further, if a student is from a family background where his/her needs are being taken care of receives proper attention and motivation positive teacher-parent relationship, then the is a high rate of positive performance and academic work.

Also, with highly self-efficacy of the learners, it is going to influence their performance greatly. On the other hand, a student is being influenced by bad companies, that don’t attend lectures, is not punctual, and fails to do assignments then the academic achievement must be negative.

Again, students from poor families lack providing the learner’s educational materials, school fees, or is no parents and teacher, relationship. Low self-efficacy will eventually yield negative achievement. It is for this reason that I study seeks to investigate the influence of socio-psychological factors on academic performance of students in the academic performance of students.

Research questions

Main Research question

What socio-psychological factors affect the academic performance of students at the University of Buea?

Specific Research questions

1. How does peer pressure affect the academic performance of students at the University of Buea?
2. To what extent does family background affect the academic performance of students at the University of Buea?
3. To what extent does student self-efficacy affects the academic performance of students in the University of Buea?