Assessment of school location, class size and academic performance of upper basic students in Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The main thrust of this study was to assess the influence of school location and class size on academic performance of upper basic nine students in Cross River State, Nigeria. The design adopted for the study was ex-post facto research design. A sample of 1600 upper basic nine students was drawn from 81 out of 464 secondary schools in Cross River State using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. The data analysis techniques used included independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance. The results revealed that, there was a significant influence of school location on upper basic nine students’ academic performance: urban students performed significantly better than their rural counterparts in core subjects like Mathematics and Basic Science. Again, there was a significant influence of class size on the academic performance of upper basic nine students. Recommendations were made among others that, class sizes in schools should be relatively small to encourage effective learning, and that modern facilities and instructional materials should be provided for rural students who lack the opportunity of urban life and learning experiences. Furthermore, conducive learning environment such as spacious classrooms, well-equipped laboratories, accessible library facilities, recreational facilities, etc., should be made available to all upper basic nine students, irrespective of their location – urban or rural schools.

Keywords: School location, Class size, Academic performance, Secondary education and Upper basic students