Peer Group Influence as a Correlate of Secondary School Students’ Motivation towards Learning in Oluyole Local Government, Ibadan

This study investigated peer group influence as a correlate of secondary school student’s motivation towards learning in Oluyole Local Government area of Ibadan. The main purpose of this study is to determine the influence of peer group as a correlate of secondary school student’s motivation towards learning. In specific terms, the study is designed to determine whether peer group influence secondary school students’ motivation towards learning, the factors that can determine student’s motivation towards learning, whether peer group influence determines variation in Academic Performance of male and female students, whether age does determine the extent to which peer influence affects Academic Performance of students, just to, mention a few. The researcher employed descriptive survey method for the study. The population for the study was based on all the fifty two (52) secondary schools under Oluyole local government area of Oyo state; consisting of twenty seven (27) public secondary schools and thirty two private secondary schools. Sampling techniques used were multistage, stratified and simple random sampling technique. A multistage sampling technique was used due to two stages involved in selecting the sample. At the first stage, schools are stratified into public and private, and simple random sampling technique was used to select ten public secondary schools out of twenty seven and ten private schools out of thirty two which make a total of twenty schools. At the second stage, a simple random sampling technique was used in selecting only ten student’s from the selected secondary schools from both private and public secondary schools, five from junior secondary school and five from Senior Secondary School in Oluyole Local Government area in Ibadan making a total of two hundred students. A pilot survey was carried out by administering the research instrument to ten randomly selected students who were not part of the selected respondents after which the instrument was subjected to analysis and a cronbach Alpha value 0.757 was obtained. Descriptive statistical tool such as mean and standard deviation were used to analyse the obtained data to answer three questions while person product moment correlation was used to analyse Hypotheses 1 and T-test was used to analyse Hypotheses 2 and 3. All analyses were carried out at 0.05 level of significance. The perceived motivation status of secondary school students towards learning is higher through the weighted mean of 3.24. Peer influence on the academic motivation of secondary school students towards learning is high at 2.89. Peer group influence on secondary school students’ academic motivation is high at 3.02. There is significant relationship between peer group influence and secondary school students’ motivation towards learning at 0.005. There is no significant gender difference in peer group influence of secondary school student’s motivation towards learning at 0.958. There is no significant school type difference in secondary students’ academic motivation towards learning at 197. It is recommended that students should move with peer groups that will motivate them towards learning.