STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS

School, colleges and universities have no worth without student. Students are most essential

asset for any educational institute. The social and economic development of the country is

directly linked with student academic performance. The determinants of students' performance

have been the subject of ongoing debate among educators, academics, and policy makers. There

have been many studies that sought to examine this issue and the findings of these studies point

out to hard work and discipline, previous schooling, parents‟ education, family income, self

motivation as factors that can explain differences in students' grades. This students‟ performance

(academic achievement) plays an important role in producing the best quality graduates who will

become great leader and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country‟s economic

and social development (Ali et.al, 2009). Determining the factors that affect the student

performance is also important because, primarily institutions and lecturers have to find out ways

to increase student performance, and to motivate students for better performance. In order to do

this, first they need to determine which factors play significant role in student performance. For

example, if attendance increases student performance, lecturers can do something to increase

students‟ attendance rate such as integrating attendance rate into grading policy.