Assessment Of The Relationship Between Study Habit And Academic Performance Of University Students In Department Of Nursing Sciences South East, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Several authorities and researchers have carried out studies around academic

performance of students. The reviewed works showed that academic performance of

students have been an issue of concern to all stakeholders in the field of education. It

was noted from the reviewed works that there are several interacting factors to

academic performance which study habit is one of them. The purpose of the study

was to assess the relationship between study habit and the academic performance of

University students in the Department of Nursing Sciences in the South East, Nigeria.

Five objectives were set for the study which were to assess the relationship between

study materials used by the students, planning of the study of students, assimilation of

content of study, study environment and demographic statues of the respondents in

relationship to their study habit and academic performance. Also six hypotheses were

set for the study. Related literatures were reviewed and relevant theory to the study

applied. Co-relational design was adopted for the study. The target population of the

study was 1784 students from Departments of Nursing Sciences in five Government

owned Universities in South East Nigeria and sample size of 348 respondents was

determined using power analysis. Stratified simple random technique was used to

select sample size from each university. Self structured questionnaire with reliability

of 0.76 and students’ result were instruments used for data collection. Data derived

from the study were subjected to simple descriptive statistics. Hypotheses were tested

with Pearson’s Spearman Correlation at 0.05 level of significance. Findings show that

there is generally poor study habit (60.4%), and fairly moderate academic

performance (37.4%). Also there is poor use of study materials (mean=1.93), poor

assimilation of content of study (mean=1.81) and poor study environment with mean

of 1.91. The study also revealed that there is significant relationship between study

materials used by the students (p = 0.572), study environment (p = 0.250) and

planning of study (p = 0.274) of the respondents with their academic performance p

0.05. Based on the findings, it was recommended that

training of students on study habit should be reinforced and also included as a course

in curriculum of students in our institutions of higher learning for better academic

performance.