INFLUENCE OF PEER GROUP ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SAGBAMA AND EKEREMOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS, BAYELSA STATE

This paper is on peer group and academic performance of secondary school students in Sagbama and Ekeremor Local Government Areas, of Bayelsa State. Two objectives, translated to research questions and hypotheses defined the study. In this study, descriptive survey method of research was used to generate useful information. The study was carried out in Sagbama and Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. The research was focused only on the secondary school students in the selected Local Government Areas of Bayelsa State. The population for this study consists of all the SS2 Students in the public Secondary Schools. Six secondary schools (three each from the two local government areas) with a total of 575 Students. A sample size of 200students were drawn from the six (6) public secondary schools. The simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. The instrument for data collection was a set of questions in a questionnaire titled "Peer Group Influence and Academic Performance of Secondary School Students Questionnaire (PGIAPSSSQ)"The questionnaire was designed based on the research questions. The total number of items in the questionnaire are twelve (12) four each. The result showed that there is no significant effect on the extent which peer group influences students based on gender. This means that peer group influence on academic performance of students based on gender is not significant. Also, there is no significance in the extent to which peer group influence student from intact and broken homes. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected. It was recommended among others that the principals of the schools should develop a cordial teacher/student’s relationship and understand the needs of their students. Students should be encouraged to choose their friends wisely as some may have negative influence on their academic performance, especially those who sneak out of school, use drugs and those who do not attend school regularly