INFLUENCE OF STUDENTS' CHARACTERISTICS ON BIOLOGY STUDENT ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN ETHIOPE EAST LGA DELTA STATE

The study examined influence of students characteristics on academic performance of biology students in secondary schools in Ethiope East LGA Delta State. Three research questions and three research hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The research design used was survey research design. The population of the study consists of all secondary school Biology students in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State for the 2023/2024 academic session. The simple random sampling technique was adopted for the study to sample one hundred and twenty (120) secondary school students from five (5) selected secondary schools. Data gathered were analysed using the mean, standard deviation and student independent samples t-test statistics. After data analysis, the following findings were made; (i) there is no significant difference in the male and female biology students performance (ii) there is no significant difference in the biology students’ performance based on age, (iii) there is a significant difference in the mean achievement scores of biology student in public and private schools. From the research findings it was concluded that (i) sex does not influence biology students performance, (ii) age does not influence biology students performance, (iii) school type influences biology students performance and recommended that; educators and policymakers should focus on developing inclusive biology curricula, governments and educational authorities should invest in upgrading infrastructure and distributing quality learning materials to public schools among others.