Student-Teacher Relationship as a Panacea for Students’ Academic Performance in Nigerian Secondary Schools: An Attachment Perspective

Abstract

This study examined the practices involved in student-teacher relationship vis-à-vis its correlational effect on academic performance of secondary school students in an attempt to proffer a lasting solution to the lingering problems affecting student performance in Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted and the population comprised all public secondary schools in Nigeria, 300 respondents were selected from the sampled schools using homogeneous sampling. Two self-designed instruments namely; “Student-Teacher Relationship Questionnaire (STRQ) and Students Academic Performance Questionnaire (SAPQ)” were used to collect relevant data from the respondents. The face and content validity were done and the test-retest method of reliability was adopted to test the reliability of the instruments. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and Inferential Statistics and the three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study revealed that there was a significant relationship between the student-teacher relationship and academic performance of students in Secondary schools, the study also showed that classroom engagement and motivation were significantly related to students’ academic performance. The study recommended that teachers should be trained and equipped with classroom engagement skills and that teachers should be equipped through development programmes to enable them to develop various motivational strategies for better students’ academic performance among others.