Parental Socio-Economic Status, Self-Concept and Gender Differences on Students’ Academic Performance in Borno State Colleges of Education: Implications for Counselling

Abstract

This is a survey study, designed to determine gender differences and socio-economic status, self-concept on students’ academic performance in Colleges of Education, Borno State: Implications for counselling. The study set two research objectives, answered two research questions and tested two research hypotheses. The target population of this study comprises of all the students of Colleges of Education in Borno State during 2013/2014 academic sessions. This study used Purposive Sampling Technique to select two Colleges of Education; Krejcie and Morgan’s (2006)’s principle of determining sample size for research was used to select the sample and proportionate sampling procedure was also employed to draw 322 NCE III students. The instruments used in this study consisted of Socio-economic Status Questionnaire (SESQ), student’s self-concept scale (SSS) and Students’ Academic Performance Aptitude Tests (SAPAT) with reliability indices of 0.87, 0.62 and 0.62 respectively. Based on the obtained indices coefficients, both the instruments were reliable for use in this study. Descriptive startistic was used to answer the research questions and t-test was used to test the hypotheses The results obtained in this study indicated that, there was significant differences exist between gender and socio-economic status among the students in Colleges of Education in Borno State. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected. Recommendations were made to government, College Authorities, parents, counsellors and other stakeholders in education, that College counsellors should use their techniques to counsel students to sustain and maintain the good relationship between the variables under study in Colleges of Education in Borno State.