Factors affecting basic school students’ academic performance the case of St. Gregory Basic School, Gomoa Buduburam

Abstract

The essence of this research was to study the various factors that affect the academic performance of students in St. Gregory Basic School in Gomoa Buduburam in the Central region of Ghana. The study employed the qualitative approach and made use of one-on-one interviews and a focus group discussion. In all, a total of ten respondents were involved in this study. Specifically, the study focused on some administrative factors such as educational resources, teacher absenteeism and the role of the parent teacher association. Environmental factors considered in this study were class size, distractions and pupil teacher ratio. In addition, psychological factors such as how teachers motivate students and allow for class participation given are also discussed. The analysis procedure was largely based on the recommendation of Braun and Clarke (2006) which stresses a flexible yet detailed analytic technique, hence, a thematic analysis approach was adopted. Themes were chosen and organized into a theoretical framework, which meant that coding was done with specific problems in mind. The study found that insufficient resources in the school was influencing the academic performance of students negatively. In addition, the punctuality of teachers in the school positively affected the academic performance of students. More so, the large class sizes also affect the academic performance of the students negatively. Lastly, distractions from their home and school environment negatively affect the academic performance of students. From the findings, the researcher gave recommendations that the school authorities must liaise with the parents to provide the needed resources for the school, school authorities must work to do away with all distractions from the school’s environment while parents also strive to reduce all forms of distractions at home for the students to help improve their academic performance.