SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SELF-AWARENESS AS PREDICTORS OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS STUDIES AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ABIA STATE.

Abstract

The study examined the extent social capital and self-awareness predict academic achievement in Christian Religious Studies (CRS) among secondary school students in Abia State. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlational research design. 439 sample of SS2 students were drawn through multistage sampling techniques from the population of 4392 SS2 students offering CRS in Abia State. Three researcher's developed instruments were used for data collection titled “Social Capital Questionnaire (SCQ), Self-awareness questionnaire (SAQ) and CRS Achievement Test (CRSAT). The instruments were validated by three experts. Cronbach's Alpha method was adopted to determine the internal consistency of the instruments which yielded reliability indices of 0.76 and 0.84 for SCQ and SAQ respectively while Kuder-Richardson (KR-21) was used for CRSAT which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.89. Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient (Pearson’s r) was used to answer the research questions while linear regression analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that Social capital and self-awareness were significant predictors of academic achievement in CRS among students in Abia State as they predicted 76.4% and 71.2% respectively. It was thus recommended among others that students should be provided with necessary information about the different social capital and self-awareness variables and how they could relate with school guidance counsellor for effective learning outcomes.