COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN PHYSICS AMONG PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MANI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF KATSINA STATE

Abstract

This study is a comparative study of academic achievement of students in Physics in Mani local government area of Katsina state. Seven (7) senior secondary schools were selected for this research, four public and three private schools. To guide this study, three research questions and a hypothesis were developed. Two types of research instruments; teachers’ questionnaires and physics achievement test (PAT) for students were developed to collect relevant data. 21 teachers and 119 students were selected from the chosen schools using random sampling techniques. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation to answer the research questions and t-test statistical method to test the hypothesis. The result obtained showed that; the mean difference in terms of the academic achievement of the students between those in public schools and that of those in private schools is 2.27 and Ho1 is accepted as p-value =0.249 which is greater than the alpha value of 0.05. That indicates there is no significant difference in the academic performance of students in Physics among public and private senior secondary schools in Mani local government. It was also found that among other factors, lacks of enough physics teachers in schools affect students’ achievement which in turn militates against uniform

academic achievement of the students. Inadequate instructional materials may be another constraint that hinders the uniformity of the students’ achievement. It was recommended that government should recruit more teachers that are qualified so as to have acceptable teacher students ratio in public senior secondary schools and where there is scarcity of materials/equipments, teachers should find a way and means of improvising the unavailable materials/equipments.