INFLUENCE OF SENIOR SECONDARY STUDENTS’ INTRINSIC FACTORS ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN CHEMISTRY BY Inyang, N.E.U. (Ph.D.) and Adah, Stephen Akomaye

ABSTRACT
The study investigated the influence of Senior Secondary(SS) students’ intrinsic factors on achievement in chemistry. Specifically it examined the relationship between students’ reasoning ability, aspiration, attitude and their achievement in chemistry. 300 SS2 Chemistry students drawn from a population of 640 from six secondary schools in Obudu Local Government Area of Cross River State constituted the sample for the study. Four research instruments namely Chemistry Achievement Test(CAT). Reasoning Ability Test(RAT). Chemistry Students Aspiration Questionnaire(CSAQ) and Chemistry Attitude Scale (CSAS) with reliability coefficient of 0.76, 0.72, 0.81,and 0.85 respectively were used for data collection. The data were analysed using Pearson-Product moment correlation coefficient(r) and multiple regression analysis(R). The results showed that there is a significant relationship between student’ reasoning ability (r = 0.83), aspiration (r = 0.53) and their achievement in Chemistry. There was a non-significant relationship between students attitude (r=0.15) and their achievement in Chemistry. Further the study showed that about 20% of the total variances in students achievements is attributable to joint influence in reasoning ability, aspiration and attitude. With regard to their relative contributions in predicting achievement in Chemistry, the results showed that reasoning ability had the greatest contributive influence (Beta wt. 0.72) followed by aspiration (Beta wt. 0.33) and then attitude (Beta wt. 0.11). On the basis of the findings recommendations were made for studies aimed at identifying more intrinsic factors of Chemistry students.