THE INFLUENCE OF PEER GROUP ON ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR PERFORMANCE IN SCHOOL
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THE INFLUENCE OF PEER GROUP ON ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR PERFORMANCE IN SCHOOL
ABSTRACT
The goal of this study is to find out how peer groups affects adolescent‘ academic achievement. The study method adopted was descriptive. In the Egor Local Government Area of Edo State, 100 students from four secondary schools were chosen using random selection methodologies.
To gather data, questionnaires were devised. Using the t-test and Parson’s analysis, the data was examined. The results of this study showed that adolescents enrolled in school could experience a good or negative impact on their academic performance depending on their peer group.
According to the findings of this study, parents and educators should give teenagers the necessary direction so they can comprehend how their choice of companions can either have a beneficial or negative impact on their schoolwork.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY OF THE STUDY
A child’s educational foundation is established at home. When the child reaches the appropriate age, his informal education begins with his time with his parents before he is sent to school to complete his formal education. The youngster is exposed to a variety of people at school, including the teacher, other students, and the school’s staff.
These individuals who are involved in a child’s education undoubtedly have a big impact on the children. Since the youngster spends the majority of his time with his classmates and peer group, these individuals have a significant impact on his academic success.
The peer group is therefore the child’s first attempt at social acceptance outside of the household. Each peer group has a code of behavior that may or may not align with established standards. The peer group acts as a vehicle for learning and enculturation. Even very young children form an opinion of themselves based on how they see significant individuals in their environment, such as family, teachers, and peers.
Socioeconomic position, ethnicity, and parents’ occupations have an impact on how families see themselves and the socialization of their children. (Bornstein, 2002). Later, when kids are out of the house, how their peers perceive them affects how they perceive themselves and how they interact with others.
Children start to build relationships and friendships emerge via play when they leave the home and go to daycare facilities, school, and the larger community. Behaviors are influenced by these relationships. Even very young children have been seen interacting with other young children by caressing them, sobbing when others cry, and subsequently by providing care or comfort.
Early friendship starts to have a more permanent effect about age three (Parke, 1990), and peer influence on behavior gradually gains more sway.
Peer groups can include boys scouts, girls scouts, guides, choristers, sports teams, social organizations, or peers who are in the same class as you and belong to the same society, according to Smart and Smart (2000). The impact of peer groups on pupils’ academic achievement is significantly influenced by their abilities and potential.
According to Derville, B. (2001), as a youngster matures, his own peer group of friends is likely to become more significant to him than his parents and teachers. Although that extreme position has been challenged by other researchers, Harris (1998, 2002) and Rowe (1994) argued that peer groups had an even bigger influence than that of parents. (Berk, 2005).
Children gradually learn that others can experience similar emotions, attitudes, or varying levels of guilt. Children’s perceptions of their own families will be influenced by the viewpoints of others. Children typically observe their own culture and other cultures from a familial perspective.
They frequently have to reconsider their own viewpoints as a result of encountering different viewpoints. The thought that other families might function drastically differently from their own while still sharing many of the same attitudes and beliefs and being equally caring and secure can be tough for chuckler to accept.
Children can gauge their thoughts about themselves and their family by looking at their peers. Children’s social skills development is also influenced by their peer group. Children who have early friendships learn how to bargain and interact with others, including their siblings and other family members.
Peers teach them how to work together and interact socially in accordance with accepted norms and behaviors. The child’s peer group has the power to affect what they value, understand, dress, eat, and study.
However, other contextual factors, such the group’s children’s ages and personalities, have an impact on how much of this influence there is. (Harris, 1998, Hartyp, 1983). In its most accepted form, peer groups serve as a healthy coming-of-age arbitration through which kids learn how to negotiate, handle conflict, and solve problems in a social setting.
The peer group can require blind adherence to a group standard in its most damaging form, which can lead to socially alienated gangs with pathological ideologies. (Peer, 1987). The fundamental tasks of growing up—finding a place in a sense of belonging, identifying and mastering tasks that are generally acknowledged as having values and can thus earn respect by learning how to deal with them—remain true today despite the vast changes in society.
These tasks also include developing dependable and predictable relationships with others, particularly a small number of close friends and loved ones. The Latin word “stud,” which means to grow, is where the idea of “students” originates. The transition from childhood to maturity takes place throughout this time frame.
According to research by Wentzel (1989) and Lingrett (1995), as kids get older and enter adulthood, peer identity participation and influence rise while the modelling value of the family falls. The modelling significance of the parental milieu throughout early childhood is typically replaced by peer influence.
Students are under a certain amount of pressure to follow the peer convictions or rejections as a result of the social validation they seek. It’s crucial for parents, teachers, and policymakers to understand how social interaction affects pupils’ academic performance. A student’s peer group’s influence, particularly during adolescence and the early stages of adulthood, is a significant factor in both pre-social and anti-social development.
In-depth research has also been done on academic performance. According to Caltern (1998), there is a significant correlation between peer acceptance and school adjustment behavior. Furthermore, it was discovered that strong and positive peer relationships influence both academic success and ease of transition between schools. One of the most common examples of harmful peer impact is peer pressure.
It happens frequently because children are compelled to spend a lot of time in rigid groupings (school and the divisions within them), regardless of how they feel about such groups. They are also immature and unable to manage it. Additionally, it is only natural for kids to want to act badly towards people who are not in their peer groups.
Students, however, can also have beneficial effects. For instance, if one is associated with a group of individuals who are ambitious and working hard to succeed, one may feel under pressure to follow suit in as to not feel left out of the group.
The student’s sense of self, sense of self-worth, and sense of independence all play a role in positive peer influence on academic success. Peer pressure can energize students and inspire them to succeed. Peers can and often do serve as motivating examples. negative actions that would be rejected by his or her values otherwise. A student’s academic performance is impacted if they are negatively influenced by their peers.
Stronger students do affect their peers and do contribute to an overall improvement in academic performance. For instance, students who are friends with secondary school dropouts tend to be absent more frequently, perform worse academically, have lower grades, and have less positive attitudes towards education. They are also less popular and are less likely to plan to attend higher education institutions.
However, if the dropout keeps in touch with friends who have continued their education, these friends might offer encouragement to go back to school. Peer attitudes, aspirations, expectations, and standards all have an impact on an individual’s efforts and academic success. For many secondary school students, academic success is directly at odds with peer acceptance.
But students are most likely to learn about problematic behaviors like drinking, smoking, cheating, and poor academic performance from their peers. Positive peer impact leads to more creative problem-solving, more mature solutions, and less aggressive students than negative peer influence.
Students are drawn to peer groups because they offer them the resources they need to succeed academically, professionally, psychologically, or in other ways, as well as feedback on the appropriateness of their emotions, especially when they are under or highly stressed. (Schachter, 1989).
DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEMS
Peer group has a significant impact on one’s academic performance. It is important to investigate and record how peer pressure influences students’ academic achievement. This will help parents and counsellors comprehend peer impact patterns and solutions to reduce harmful peer influence.
STUDY QUESTIONS
Negative peer group behaviors may lead the teacher to use poor teaching techniques.
Lack of school supplies might cause students to be sluggish in their academic work, which could foster harmful peer behaviors and lead to lower academic achievement.
Academic performance can suffer when there is indiscipline in schools because it may encourage peer group members to engage in harmful behaviors.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The following goals about the academic performance of pupils in secondary school in the Egor Local Government Area of Edo State are the goals of this study or research endeavor.
Analyze the idea and characteristics of peer groups.
highlight the difficulties that kids face
Examine the methods used by school pupils to discuss peer group influence’s consequences on students’ academic performance.
IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is crucial for a number of reasons. First, the study will give the researcher a thorough understanding of how the peer group’s actions actually effect. Second, the researcher will develop a resource to inform teachers and parents on how unchecked negativity in the peer groups that their kids are a part of might affect or improve academic achievement.
Finally, the study will help to identify areas where peer group activities may have a detrimental impact on schoolchildren so that parents and teachers may look into them.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study focuses on how a student’s peer group affects their academic achievement. This study examines four particular secondary schools in the Edo State’s Egor Local Government Area.
RESTRICTIONS OF STUDY
Due to the restricted time available for the conduct of the study, the researcher only included four schools in Benin City in her investigation. All of the schools are centered in Benin City because of the time factor and transportation costs.
TERM DEFINITIONS
The following terminology that are used in the study’s material are defined here for clarity’s sake.
student body. Children or teenagers who have the same age or maturity level, and who often interact with one another, are referred to in this phrase.
student body.
Peer pressure is the pressure that teenagers experience from their peers.
academic standing. Children’s educational programmes at schools focus on teaching students how to read and write, speak fluent English, solve math problems, and use their initiative in every situation.
Adolescent. This is the transitional stage from childhood to maturity.
The adolescent years span the ages of 12 to 18.
sociable hour. This is related to discipline and providing both teachers and students with constructive feedback on their academic work. There is enough room for academic success where there is the capacity to submit voluntarily to discipline.
Adolescent in school. In contrast to youth who have dropped out of school, this refers to teenagers who are still enrolled in formal education.
social position.
This is related to the intellectual and familial backgrounds of the parents of the study’s subject children. When it comes to their ability to speak and write plain and proper English, it has been noticed that children from higher social backgrounds typically perform better in academic work than those from poorer social backgrounds.
Truancy.
It is an unjustified absence from school taken on a child’s own initiative and without parental or educational authorization. Any child who often skips school because they prefer other activities to schoolwork and everything it represents is considered a truant.
He can be someone who simply does not want to attend school and plans to do anything different. He veers away from these challenges while at least halting the slide into criminal activity.
Truancy is one of several sociocultural issues that can result in adolescent delinquency and, ultimately, criminal activity. Students who skip class frequently struggle with anxiety and are overly sensitive, which makes it difficult for them to interact with other students.
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