The Effects of Residential Status on the Academic Performance of Students in Second Cycle Schools in Accra

Abstract

The overall aim of this thesis is to determine how students’ residential status enhances their academic performance. The study specifically tried to compare the performance of boarding and day school students in Accra as regards academic performance, investigate relationship existing between residential status and academic performance, look into the contributions of day and boarding SHS teachers as well as parents to the academic performance of their students/wards. Causal-comparative (ex-post facto) design was adopted for the study. A total of 460 respondents were selected using the stratified random sampling, purposive random sampling and the simple random sampling procedures. Instruments used were questionnaires. With a Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.831, data analyses were done using tables, frequencies, means, percentages and bar charts. It was established that absenteeism and lateness to school problems are better managed at boarding SHSs than in day SHSs in Accra. The ease of accessing the boarding students, especially outside normal school hours, make implementation of remedial interventions more effective than when dealing with day students in Accra. It came out clearly that being in a boarding school has numerous advantages which enable boarding students to perform better than day students in their academic work. It was recommended that parents/guardians should step up supervision and monitoring of day students’ studies at home. Headmasters were also tasked to intensify their supervision and monitoring of teachers. Boarding houses should be built for day schools in Accra. Both selected day and boarding schools should be provided with resourced health posts.