Self-Efficacy and Chemistry Students’ Academic Achievement in Senior Secondary Schools in North-Central, Nigeria

Abstract

Self-efficacy reflects the extent to which students believe that they can successfully
perform in school. It usually positively correlated with outcome expectations but it is
possible that a student’s has high self-efficacy does not transform into a high academic
achievement. This study sought to find out the relationship between chemistry students’
self-efficacy and their academic achievement in senior secondary schools in North-central,
Nigeria. The study is an ex-post facto research and is a descriptive survey. The subjects of
the study were one thousand one hundred and fifty (1150) senior secondary school III
chemistry students selected from Kogi, Kwara and Niger States of Nigeria. The data
collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics of mean, percentage
and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The findings revealed that no significant
relationship existed between self-efficacy and the academic achievement of the chemistry
students. The study concludes that students’ self-efficacy needs to be complemented with
a host of other factors to achieve high academic achievement in Chemistry. It is therefore
recommended that attention be paid to other factors necessary for better students’
achievement in chemistry to complement students’ high self-efficacy, so that a
combination of these factors could result in high academic achievement in Chemistry