a handy document for high school and college that my assist in changing our atitudes in study habits and study skills so that we pass examinations and improve our grades and class performance

1. Assessment of Study Habits and theirImplications on Student Academic Performance:
A case study of Ngumbe Community Day Secondary School
Presented by:
Lickson Mchepa
On
6th
July, 2015
At
DOMASI COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
ACTION RESEARCH REPORT

2. Overview
1. INTRODUCTION
• Background to the
Study
• Statement of the
Problem
• Objectives and
Research Questions
2. LITERATURE
REVIEW
• Study habits
• Study Skills
• Academic
3.
RESEARCHMETHODOL
OGY
• Research Design
• Research Setting
• Sample Size and
Sampling Technique
• Data analysis
4. RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION
5. CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS

3. INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
• Acheaw, (2004) defines study habits as well-planned
and deliberate patterns of study which has attained a
form of consistency on the part of students towards
understanding academic subjects and passing
examinations.
• A good study habit is a prerequisite for good academic
performance(Jato e t. al., 2014).
• Children with poor study habits receive poor grades in
school, get easily distracted and frustrated.
• Success as the name implies is wished for by everybody
but it is not easily come by on a mere platter of gold; one
must work for it through hard work and diligence.

4. Statement of the Problem
• Due to the increasing nature of poor academic performance of
Ngumbe CDSS students in internal as well as MANEB
examinations, many questions had been raised by teachers,
parents and students as to why students perform so poorly.
• But for an excellent performance, there is need for the student
to form good study habits (Acheaw, 2004).
• It is clear from all indications that most secondary school
students have poor study habit which might lead to poor
academic performance.
• As true as this might sound, it is yet to gather adequate
research evidence to prove that it is a key factor on why
students fail.
• Therefore, the researcher wanted to investigate the study

5. Objectives of the Study
 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
– To assess the study habits of students and how they affect their
performance.
 SPECIFIC OBEJCTIVES
– To examine the study habits practiced by students at Ngumbe CDSS.
– To determine the frequency to which student of Ngumbe use the library.
– To ascertain the relationship between study habit and academic
performance at Ngumbe CDSS students.
 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
– What are the study habits among students at Ngumbe CDSS?
– How often do students use the library?
– Is there a relationship between (Students’) study habits and academic
performance?

6. Significance of the Study
 The following will benefit from the findings of
this study
 School Administrators
 Students
 Teachers
 Future researchers

7. LITERATURE REVIEW
 Literature review focused mainly on study habits,
study skills and study habits vs academic
performance.
Study Habits
• Most students do not know how to study probably
because they are not aware of what techniques to
apply in the study situation.
• Good and effective study habits, according to
Hills and Ballow (2000) include test preparation,
note-taking, time consideration, library use,
organizing material in a study and choosing a

8. LITERATURE REVIEW co nt.
Study Skills
• There is little doubt that no two people study the same way,
and it is a near certainty that what works for one person may
not work for another.
• However, there are some general techniques that seem to
produce good results. These include:
o The SQ3Rs method (Jato, e t. al. , 2014),
o PQRST Method of Studying (User, 2015),
o KWL studying method (Mansfield, 1996).,
o The Human Memory Graph (Ali, 2014), and
o The Human Attention Span (Ali, 2014).

9. Human Memory Graph
Source: CASA at: http://casa.tamucc.edu

10. Human Attention Span
 Source: Savage (2011)

11. LITERATURE REVIEW co nt.
Academic Performance
• Good study habits lead to good academic
performance but bad and defective study habits result
to poor academic performance (Moghadam and
Cheraghian 2008) .
• Jato e t. al. (2014) argued that study habits are
particularly important for students, whose needs
include time management, note taking, the elimination
of distractions, and assigning high priority to study.
• De Escobar (2011) observes that if learners earn high
grades it is concluded that they may also have
effectively studied hard while low grades indicate

12. RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY
Research Design
• This study used the quantitative approach to allow the
reporting of summary results in numerical terms
across many repetitions of answers.
Research Setting
• Ngumbe CDSS which partnered with Bearsden
Academy is located in Chileka, Blantyre Rural.
• The school has twelve classrooms, library, science
laboratory and computer laboratory. Each classroom
can accommodate fifty to eighty (50 - 80) students
depending on the form level.

13. RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY
cont.
Sample Size and Sampling Technique
• The population size of one hundred and five (105) students was
drawn from Ngumbe CDSS. This represents a (10.2 %) of the entire
Ngumbe CDSS student population of 1030.
• The sample size is supported by Babbie, (2005). He was of the
opinion that for a population of 1000 and above, a sample size of 10-
20% was acceptable.
• The population was sampled through a simple random sampling
procedure to avoid biasness.
• Form one and three contributed thirty four (34) each while form four
contributed thirty seven (37) respondents.

14. RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY
cont.
Data Collection and Instrument Procedure
• Data was collected using a self developed survey
questionnaire.
• The research questionnaire was described in terms of
time management, note taking, test preparation, study
environment, student examination performance and
library use.
• The researcher personally administered the
questionnaires to the respondents and retrieved them
on the same day.
• To improve the reliability and validity of the research
instrument, the questionnaire was pilot-tested.

15. RESEARCHMETHODOLOGY
cont.
Data Analysis
• Data that was extracted from the
questionnaires was classified, organized
and tabulated accordingly.
• Microsoft excel was used for analysis and
interpretation of data.
• The researcher used excel to easily enter
and create graphical or visual
representation of data. It is also simple to

16. FINDINGS ANDDISCUSSIONS
 The researcher’s final
respondents were lowered into
one hundred and five (105) from
the expected number of one
hundred and ten (110) due to the
absence of some respondents
upon data gathering.

17. FINDINGS
study habits of the respondents
Figure 1.1 Figure 1.2

18. FINDINGS co nt.
Figure 1.3 Figure 1.4

19. FINDINGS co nt.
Frequency to which student of Ngumbe use the
library.
Figure 2.1

20. FINDINGS co nt.
The relationship between study habits and academic
performance of Ngumbe CDSS students.
Score
Subject Less than 40 40-59 60-69 70-79 80 & above
Total
F % F % F % F % F % F %
Biology 9 37.14 40 38.10 11 10.48 7 6.67 8 7.62 105
100
Mathematics 54 51.43 23 21.90 13 14.29 8 7.62 7 6.67 105
100
P/Science 36 34.29 35 33.33 16 15.24 11 10.48 7 6.67 105
100
Chichewa 12 11.43 36 34.29 29 27.62 19 18.10 9 8.57 105
100
English 36 34.29 35 33.33 20 19.04 7 6.67 7 6.67 105
100

21. FINDINGS co nt.
Figure 3.1
Figure 3.2

22. FINDINGS co nt.
Figure 3.3 Figure 3.4

23. FINDINGS co nt.
Figure 3.5

24. DISCUSSION
Study habits in terms of study environment, time
management, note taking and test preparation.
• The result on the first four figures (figure 1.1 –
1.4) show poor study habits among students
of Ngumbe secondary School in terms of time
management, test preparation, note taking
and study environment.
• The results agreed with many authors such as
Nouhi e t al. (2008), Aquino (2011), Nagaragu
(2004) and Sarwar e t al. (2009).

25. DISCUSSION co nt.
Study habits in terms of library use
• The results in figure 1.6 revealed that there
was poor use of the library.
• Dent (2006) reported that a study conducted
by Lance (2000) showed that students that
used school library regularly had 18 percent
higher achievement tests scores than their
counterparts without a school library.
• The findings of Acido (2010) also revealed that
two students who scored above average in
reasoning skills studied regularly.

26. DISCUSSION cont.
Impact of study habits on student academic performance
• The academic performance of the respondents as shown in table 3.1 was poor.
• The poor academic performance of the students could be attributed to:
– the failure of the students to manage time (figure 1.1).
– students studied in places where there were distractions and
disturbances (Figure 1.2).
– most students studied hard a day before the actual day of writing
examinations
– students did not use the school library regularly
• This is also in agreement with the findings of Koko, (1999), that
poor academic achievement or failure is a consequence of poor
study habits.
• Demola (2012) reported that Facebook; Yahoo; Twitter;
MySpace; English Premier League; European Football Leagues
among other things have taken over the time students could have
used for reading and studying.

27. DISCUSSION cont.
• A discrepancy in study habits between high and low-achieving
students was also noted in figures 3.1 – 3.5 which showed that high
achievers have excellent study habits while low-achieving students
has average to poor study habits.
• This is in agreement to Yu (2010) who found out that high-
achieving students had a more positive attitude toward study in that
they detected and reacted positively to the favorable aspects of the
situation they found themselves in, while the low-achieving
students tended to be fault-finders, reacting to the negative aspects
of study.
• However, both high-achieving and low-achieving students seem to
have same level of study habits in study environment and library
use. This might be that the school does not provide best conditions
necessary for students to do well in these areas.

28. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CONCLUSIONS
• Based on the findings, the researcher concluded that students of
Ngumbe CDSS had poor study habits in terms of time management,
note taking and test preparation.
• He also found out that the school has no conducive environment for
study.
• The study also found that there were no library periods in the
school time table. The school library also opens irregularly and the
school library is too small to accommodate students who would like
to study in the library.
• Many students never study outside of the class each day, and never
know what was covered/to be covered in the examinations.
• Thus poor study habits invariably led to poor performance among
the students.

29. RECOMMENDATIONS
 Based on the findings and conclusions gathered, the
researcher would like to recommend the following:
• The researcher recommends use of study system
"SQ3R"
• The researcher recommends that students must use
the human memory graph, KWL, mapping or
charting method to condense and synthesize
reading, lessons and discussions.
• There should be a library study hour on the school
time table

30. RECOMMENDATIONS cont.d
• Students should find suitable and comfortable places to study
outside the class each day, especially at home to compliment the
study at school.
• There is need for the students to study and cover the syllabus on
each subject in order to know what will be covered in each
examination.
• The amount of time used in studying must increase in order to
devote more time to quality study both at school library and at
home to prevent poor academic performance currently being
experienced in the CDSSs.
• Lastly, the researcher recommends that students must learn to
manage time effectively. Make study schedules or plans and
stick to them, make list of things to do and less cramming. These
will help to have good time management.

31. Area of Further Research
 The researcher is of the view that the topic of
study habit is very wide and dynamic. Areas of
study of students’ study habits are
inexhaustible, It is therefore of paramount
interest that another study be carried out on
relationship between study habits and attitude
of students towards their school.

32. I THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION