Factors Affecting Academic Performance of Architecture Students in Nigerian Private Universities
The role of higher education in the development of nations is well acknowledged. Successful completion of educational pursuits is usually determined by acceptable standard of academic performance. Poor academic performance will often lead to students' dropping out of school, waste of resources and frustration of both students and their parents. There have been serious concerns over the decline in academic performance of students in higher institutions in many parts of the world, including Nigeria. Consequently, the factors determining academic performance of architecture students in selected Nigerian private universities are investigated in this study. This has been necessitated by increasing number of private universities offering architectural training in Nigeria, the challenges they often face and their high financial burden on parents. The survey method was adopted to obtain quantitative data from students in selected schools using structured questionnaire. Data was subjected to both descriptive and principal components analysis (PCA) of factor analysis using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 20) Results indicate that determinants of academic performance are multi faceted and include learning environment, parents' characteristics and level of study, ethnic group, mother's occupation and source of counseling, students' personal characteristics, learning resources, parents' profession, gender of students and their receipt of counseling services. The paper thus recommends that institutions should strive to provide conducive learning environments including cordial student/lecturer relationships in order to enhance students' academic performance. Findings of the study are expected to provide both government and the universities empirical evidence that will guide policies and reforms aimed at improving the academic performance of architecture students in Nigerian private universities.