PREDICTING STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN ECONOMICS THROUGH THEIR STUDY HABITS AND ACADEMIC ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF JOS METROPOLIS, PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study sought to determine the variation in students’ academic achievement in Economics that can be attributed to study habits and academic engagement in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State. The study was guided by two research questions and two null hypotheses and correlational survey design was adopted. Population of the study comprised 2,698(1,341males and 1,357 females) senior secondary school II (SS 2) Economics students in forty-two(42) public secondary schools in Jos Metropolis of Plateau state. A sample of 400 SS2 Economics students were selected using Taro Yamane sampling formula and multistage sampling procedure. Instruments for data collection were Economics Achievement test, Study Habit Scale and Academic Engagement Scale. Reliability indices of 0.77, 0.81 and 0.83wereobtained for the EAT (using KR-20), SHS (using Cronbach alpha) and AES (using Cronbachalpha) respectively. Data collected were coded into SPSS and analysed using regression analysis. Findings of the study showed that: 81.1% and 89.1% of variation in students’ achievement in Economics can be attributed to their academic engagement and study habits respectively. The study recommended that teachers should adopt interactive and student-centered teaching methods—including group discussions, project-based learning, and collaborative tasks—to enhance students’ academic engagement in Economics.