Contribution of Motivating Factors on Academic Performance of Senior Secondary School Students in South- West Nigeria

The paper examined the contribution of motivating factors such as school climate, school physical facilities, school principal’s leadership style, teachers’ influence, school curriculum implementation, instructional materials, classroom environment, peer group influence, and parental support on the academic performance of students. The study adopted descriptive survey type. The population comprises all the senior secondary schools in South West Nigeria. Three states, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti were sampled based on simple random sample and multi-stage random sampling technique. A questionnaire title Motivation and Academic Performance of Students (MAPS) was designed and administered on respondents on factors that could motivate students towards academic performance. 0.85 reliability co-efficient was obtained. Frequency counts, percentage scores, standard deviation and Multi-Regression were used to analyse the data. The hypothesis formulated were tested at 0.05 level of significance. It was revealed that motivation contributed greatly to the academic performance of students. The level of motivation of students was moderate during the period under review. The result further revealed that a combination of motivating factors such as school climate, school physical facilities, school principals leadership style, teachers’ influence, school curriculum implementation, instructional materials, classroom environment, peer group influence, and parental support were significantly related to the academic performance of senior secondary school students. The use of multiple regression indicates that classroom environment is the highest predictor of the academic performance of students while school climate is the least predictor. Based on the findings of this study, it was recommended that students in public secondary schools should be adequately motivated through an enabling school climate, adequate physical facilities, good principal leadership styles, positive teaches’ influence and cordial interaction with students, proper implementation of the school curriculum, good classroom environment, positive peer group influence and adequate parental support.