Influence of School Environment on Academic Performance of Biology Students’in Public Secondary Schools in Jalingo, Taraba State

ABSTRACT This study investigated the the influence of school environment on biology students’ academic Performance in public secondary schools in Jalingo, Taraba State. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The population of this study comprises of seventeen thousand five hundred and twelve (17,512) consisting of both teachers and students in 26 public secondary schools in Jalingo Local Government Area. The sample size for the study is one hundred and fifty (150) respondents consisting of 50 teachers and 100 students in Jalingo Local Government Area was selected randomly from the population. The instrument used for data collection was a self-developed and structured questionnaire, titled “relationship Between School Facilities and Students’ Academic Performance Questionnaire (RSFSAPQ). The validity of the instrument was established using three experts in Faculty of Education, Taraba State University, Jalingo as that was done to determine the adequacy, comprehensiveness and suitability of the items. To determine the internal consistency of the instrument, the questionnaire was administered to 20 respondents in some selected schools which was not part of the study area and the result obtained from the pilot test was 0.87 indicating that the instrument is reliable and suitable for this particular study. The data collected was subjected to analysis. This is descriptive statistics. The descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research question. Finding revealed that school environment has significant influence on students’ academic performance in Jalingo Local Government Area of Taraba State. The study concluded that school infrastructure, class size and school location has significant influence on academic performance among secondary school students in Jalingo local government area, Taraba State, Nigeria. The study recommended among others that government/proprietors should build more classroom blocks to decongest over-populated classrooms. And when giving admission to students’, school administrators should bear in mind the size, quality and staff strength of their schools; ministries of education should intensify efforts to ensure that proprietors/proprietress adhere to the guidelines on schools’ sites selection to avoid unhealthy environment.