Effects of self-concept on academic performance: A study of junior high school students in Elmina, Central region

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to determine the effects of self-concept on academic performance of Junior High School form three students in Elmina township. Simple random sampling was the technique used by the researcher in this study to draw the sample of schools. In all, 280 form three students from the six selected Schools were used as respondents for the study. The research design adopted by the researcher was the Ex Post Facto and the instrument developed and used for eliciting relevant data for the study was the questionnaire which was in the form of summated scales (or Likert type of scales). Multiple regressions and One-way analysis of variance statistics were used to analyse the data. The major result established by the study was that some constructs of self-concept including physical, self-esteem and academic self-concepts significantly influenced academic performance of students, while others did not. In view of this, it was recommended that constructs that have significant influence on students’ academic performance should be given prominent attention when counselling students to overcome their academic challenges.