Belief System, Peer Pressure and Self-monitoring Skills as Determinant of Academic Achievement among Senior Secondary School Students in Ogun State

Abstract

This study examined the contributions of belief system, peer pressure, and self-monitoring skills to academic achievement of senior  secondary school students. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. A sample size of 1,800 was selected through  the stratified random sampling technique. Four research instruments was used for this study which include: Belief System Awareness  Questionnaire (BSAQ, Findings revealed that peer pressure and selfmonitoring skills Peer Pressure Scale (PPS, Revised Self-Monitoring  Scale (RSMS) and Measure of Academic Achievement (MAA). All the instruments were used for data collection and were analyzed using  descriptive statistics at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that peer pressure and self-monitoring skills significantly relate  with academic achievement of students from senior secondary schools, that belief system, peer pressure, and self-monitoring skills significantly contributed to academic achievement of students in senior secondary schools and that self-monitoring skills and peer  pressure were significant predictors of academic achievement of the adolescent students, but belief system was not a significant  predictor of academic achievement. Discussion based on the findings of the study was done. Adolescents must be educated about the  importance of harnessing and balancing belief system, peer pressure and self-monitoring skills in their educational lives is one of the  recommendations that was made.