CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Educational activities are geared towards ensuring that students achievemastery of educational objectives. In school , the extent to which these objectiveshave been achieved, is determined by their level of peer pressure, timemanagement as students’ success are reflected in their academic performance.Peers play a large role in the social and emotional development of adolescentsAllen (2005). Their influence begins at an early age and increases through theteenage years, it is natural, healthy and important for adolescent to have and relyon friends as they grow and mature. A peer could be any one you look up to inbehaviour or someone who you would think is equal to your age or ability(Hardcastle, 2002). On the other hand, the term “pressure” implies the process thatinfluence people to do something that they might not otherwise choose to do.According to Hartney, (2011) peer pressure refers to the influences thatpeers can have on each other. Peer pressure is emotional or mental forces frompeople belonging to the same social group (such as age, grade or status) to act orbehave in a manner similar to themselves (Weinfied 2010).Jones, (2010) defined peer pressure as the ability of people from the samesocial rank or age to influence another of same age, bracket peer pressure is usuallyassociated with teens although its influence is not confined to teenagers alone.

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Mature adults, teens, young adults and children can be seen doing things in orderto be accepted by their peers. Peer pressure is commonly associated with episodesof adolescent risk taking (such as delinquency, drug abuse, sexual behaviours),because these behaviour commonly occur in the company of peers. It can also havepositive effects when youth are pressured by the peer toward positive behaviour.Such as volunteering for charity or excelling in academics (Kellie, 2013).However, peers can also have a negative influence. They can encourage eachother to skip classes, steal, cheat, use of drugs or alcohol, or become involve inother risky behaviours. Majority of adolescents with substance abuse problemsbegan using drug or alcohol as a result of peer pressure. Negative peer pressuremay influence in various ways like joining group who drink alcohol, smokecigarette and Indian hemp among others. It may also lead to the decision to have aboy friend/girl friend, Peer pressure indulges youth into loitering about in thestreets, watching films and attending parties during school hours, taping asalternative to stealing which may eventually graduate into armed robbery. (Arief,2011),Peer pressure may be present in the workplace, at school or within thesociety, it can affect people of all ages. It may affect people in different ways buthere, the focus is on peer pressure as it influences academic performance of inschooladolescents. Peer pressure may have a positive influence and help to

challenge or motivate one to do best. Peer pressure may also result in one doingthing that may not fit with ones sense of what is right or wrong. In other words,when peer pressure makes one do things that people frown at, it is a negative peerpressure. Operationally peer pressure is a force exert by people that is influencedby ideas, values and behaviour either positively or negatively and alwaysassociated with adolescents. Study shown that many popular students who do notmanage their time well make lower grades than less socially accepted adolescent(Hartney, 1990). This is possibly due to the fact that popular students may spendmore time worrying about their social life rather than studying.Time management has to do with planning and scheduling activities,organizing tasks in a prioritized order and allocating time to the tasks according totheir order of importance and helping one achieve desired objectives (Achunine,1995). Time management is the ability to manage and control time. (Lakein, 2003).The use of planners, calendars and the like are effective tools in managing time.Time management is the art of arranging organizing, scheduling and budgetingone’s time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity.(Lakein, 2003). Time management is important for everyone, while timemanagement books and seminars often focus on business leaders and corporations,time management is also crucial for students, teachers, professionals and homemakers. Time management is mostly about self-management. One may be right to

say that time management is the ability of an individual or group of individuals tomake proper use of their time in order to achieve set goals.Time management is explained as behaviour that is believed to aidproduction and alleviate stress, productivity (Misra, 2000). Implementing timemanagement strategies helps to organize aspects of one’s life, therefore allowingone’s time to complete all the tasks necessary to reduce one stress level. Incompleting the task on schedule, a student will also enhance his academicperformance. It can be deduced from Misra (2000) view, that an in-schooladolescent who spends his time on irrelevant things instead of concentrating onstudies may end up having poor academic performance. The issue of studentsloitering about, holding parties at the expense of their studies tends to suggests thatstudents in Abia State do not manage their time well. Hence, academicperformance might be affected.Operationally the researcher defines time management as the art of setting agoal and following it sequentially in order to achieve the target. Hillary Retting hasidentified over-giving of attention to family, friends, and work, volunteerism oractivism, as prime obstacles to managing ones time. This author thereforerecommends solutions to management of time to include being aware of one’smotives for instance in striving, to be a “hero” or self-sacrificing “saint,” and

avoiding procrastination, setting his motives and working hard to wards achievingthe motive enhance academic performance.Academic performance refers to how well a student is accomplishing his orher tasks and studies (Scortt’s, 2012). Grades are certainly the most well-knownindicator of academic performance. Grades are the student’s “score” for theirclasses and overall tenure. Grades are most often a tallying or average ofassignment and test scores and may often be affected by factors such as attendancean instructor opinion of the student as well. Grading systems vary greatly bycounty and school; common scales include a percentage form 1-100, letteringsystems from A-F, and grade point averages (GPA) from 0-4.0 or above.According to Ward, Stocker and Murray-Ward (2006) academicperformance refers to the outcome of education; the extent to which the student,teacher or institution have achieved their educational goals. Academic performanceis the ability to study and remember facts and being able to communicate one’sknowledge verbally or written on paper (Answers, 2010). In the context of thisstudy, academic achievement refers to the extent to which students have achievemastery of the objectives of the subjects they are exposed to in school. Accordingto (Aremu and Sokan 2003) academic achievement has been observed in schoolsubjects especially mathematic and English language among secondary schoolstudents.

The trend of poor achievement of secondary school students has also beenconfirmed by the West African Examination Council (WAEC). The WAEC resultanalysis for the years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 revealed the followingstatistics of the performance of Nigerian student in secondary schools in publicexamination. The percentages of students who passed during the years were reportto be 22, 54, 13.76, 22.54, 24.94, and 25.99 percent respectively. That is, on theaverage, less than a quarter (21.94 percent) of the students that sat for theMay/June West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinationsobtained credits in five subjects including English and mathematics during the fiveyears (WAEC, 2007-2011).According to the West African Examination Council Zonal Co-ordinator,revealed the statistics of the 2012/2013 WAEC. A total of 324, 998 candidatesregistered for the Examination 168,835 are Males: while 141,242 are Females:candidates who registered for the WAEC examination. Withheld results, the resultsof 51,876 candidates, representing 16. 73% of candidates are being withheld by theWAEC Board, based on various reports, mostly for these candidates allegedinvolvement in examination malpractice, while another Statistics shows that awhooping number of 250,487 candidates representing 80. 78% have 2 credits andabove, while 217,161 candidates, representing 70. 03 of the total 2012 WAECcandidates, have three credits and above. Several factors have generally been

identified as causes of poor academic performance. Morakinyo (2003) believes thatthe falling level of academic performance is attributable to teachers’ non-use ofverbal reinforcement strategy. Welsh (2007) also found that the attitude of someteachers to their job, poor teaching methods and the like influence students’academic performance.The blame for poor academic performance among secondary school studentscould be attributable to a variety of factors such as student inability to manage theirtime, peers influence, family factors and the likes. Parents, teachers, curriculum,experts and evaluators have expressed considerable concern over the deterioratingstudents’ performance in public examinations.Therefore, an in-school adolescent should avoid negative pressure suchloitering along the street during school hours holding parties at the expense of theirstudy, skipping school and drug abuse. That will create room for poor academicperformance. The adolescent should move with people that study their books inorder to have good academic performance.Adolescence is a developmental period in which an individual changes (overa varying length of time) from childhood into adulthood. This creates confusionabout the self because society considers them neither children nor adults.Adolescence is also a period of sexual maturity (of sex organs and the developmentof hormones) and the development of sexual urge. The pattern of thinking is that in

which immediate needs tend to have priority over long term ones and because theylack knowledge and skills to make healthy choices, they tend to go into riskybehavior and tryout experiences which often leads to mistakes and regrets in mostadolescents it marks the beginning of sexual activity Steinberg, (2008) Adolescentssubstance use, or antisocial behavior are often considered as “problem”behaviours.