INFLUENCE OF PSYCHO-SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT ON ACADEMIC ANXIETY AND ACHIEVEMENT AMONG SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN KATSINA STATE, NIGERIA

This study investigated the Influence of Psychosocial Adjustment on Academic Anxiety and Achievement among Senior Secondary School Students in Katsina State, Nigeria. two research objectives were raised and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Research design employed was descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised four thousand one hundred and seventy-two (4,172) SS2 students in all public senior secondary school in Daura Zonal Education Quality Assurance, Katsina State. The sample size of study was (346) students which were proportionately selected. Two instruments were adapted for data collection titled Students Questionnaire on Psychosocial Adjustment Programme (SQPAP) adapted from Jonah (2023) and Academic Anxiety Scale (AAS) adapted from Cassady (2019). The reliability index of 0.87 and 0.82 of the instruments were determined using Cronbach’s alpha. The data was analyzed using Pearson Products Moments Correlation, Analysis of Covariance and Multivariate Analysis of Covariance Finding of the study revealed that, Psychosocial adjustment has significant negative association to academic anxiety (r = -0.405, p = 0.001): and significant positive association with academic achievement (r = 0.409, p = 0.006). It has no significant differential association on academic anxiety and achievement (F= 0.694, P= 0.405). among Senior Secondary School Students in Daura Zonal Education Quality Assurance. From the findings, it was recommended that there is need for government at state level to device means through organizing workshops, seminars and conferences for school counsellors /teachers to improve, retain and refresh their psychosocial adjustment ability so that they can assist the students overcome the problem of academic anxiety which in turn help them to improve their academic achievement. School psychologists and counsellors /teachers should be given special attention to all students irrespective of their gender to make sure they are expose to psychosocial adjustment programmes that will help them to reduce academic anxiety