INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL SKILLS ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN PEACOCK COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, JALINGO, TARABA STATE, NIGERIA

This study examines the Impact of Social Skills on Academic Achievement among Senior Secondary Schools Students in Jalingo metropolis of Taraba state, Nigeria. Three research questions were raised in line with the study objectives. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. the target population for this study are the (parents/guardians, teachers, girl child and or elite youth) puts together a one hundred and fifty respondents. Data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation and percentage to answer the research questions. The finding revealed that students with strong social skills tend to perform better academically than those with weaker social skills in Jalingo metropolis, also most students without strong social skills tend to perform poor academically than those with strong social skills in schools or ended up been withdrawn from school. Based on the findings, we can conclude that revealed that there is significant correlation between social skills and academic achievement in Jalingo students. which corroborated our finding where item 1 shows that 113 respondents representing 80.1 % agreed, 24 respondents representing 17.0 % strongly agreed, that students with strong social skills tend to perform better academically than those with weaker social skills. Based on the findings it was recommended that Parents should encourage their children developed different social skills i.e reading, communication skills, etc that will facilitate teaching and learning effectively when enrolled into school.; Parents should ensure that they sufficiently train their child with good sound moral training that provide good and affective social skills and also, teachers at various levels, should help build-in various skills for effective learning to take place.