Relationship Between Students’ Perception of Deficit Needs and Academic Performance of Senior High School Students in the Techiman North District

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between students’ perception of deficit needs and their academic performance in the Techiman North District. The study was nested in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. In the quest of achiebving the purpose of the study, correlational research design was adopted for the study. The targeted population was all the students from the five public Senior High Schools in the Techiman North District. The accessible population was the second year students from the five public SHS in the Techiman North District. The stratified and simple random sampling techniques were employed to sample 290 respondents from 1,171 students. Five Needs Satisfaction Measure Scale and test scores in the four core subjects were used to ascertain the perception of deficit needs and the academic performance of the respondents respectively. It was established that esteem needs and safety needs predicted the academic performance of students’ more than other deficit needs. Results from the study suggested that psychological needs have a statistically significant positive but low relationship with academic performance. However, the study did not establish a statistically significant relationship between safety needs and the academic performance of students. A statistical significant relationship was established between the perception of esteem needs and academic performance. It is recommended that school authorities should place much emphasis on the physiological needs of students to help them improve on their academic performance as the study has established significant relationship between perception of Physiological needs and academic performance.