RESOURCE UTILIZATION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between resource utilization by principals and academic achievement of secondary school students in Southwest, Nigeria. The study examined the extent to which the principal utilizes resources in the schools and how this tells on the academic achievement of students. The study adopted the descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consisted of all the 2,719 principals and 72,676 teachers in all public secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria. The sample for this study was 990 respondents, comprising 90 principals and 900 teachers from 90 public secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure which involved, simple random, stratified, proportionate and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the sample for the study. Three set of instruments tagged: “Principals Resource Utilization Questionnaire (PRUQ)”, “Students Affective and Psychomotor Domain Questionnaire (SAPDQ)” and an Inventory on Students’ Academic Performance (ISAP) were administered on respondents in the study. The three instruments were validated by experts. PRUQ and SAPDQ had reliability coefficients of 0.76 and 0.74 respectively. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while the only hypothesis in the paper was tested using inferential statistics such as Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that the extent of principals’ resource utilization and the level of academic achievement of secondary school student in secondary schools in Southwest, Nigeria were moderate. The study also revealed that principal resource utilization is significantly related to academic achievement of secondary school students. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that effort should be put in by stakeholders to ensure prudent and efficient utilization of resources in the secondary schools towards enhancing better students’ academic achievement.

Keywords: Principal, Resource utilization, Academic achievement, Secondary schools