Peer group influence on the academic performance of undergraduate students of Makerere University
Abstract
Little has been known about the influence of peer groups on the academic performance of students
in higher institutions. Therefore, this study assessed the influence of peer groups on the academic
performance among students at Makerere university. A sample of 100 third year students from the
five courses at School of Statistics and Planning were interviewed using a well pretested
questionnaire programmed in the Kobo-Collect App installed on smart phone. Responses or data
collected was exported from Kobo-Collect server to STAT version 15 for data processing that
involved cleaning and sorting and later analysis that was done at both univariate and bivariate
levels.
On average the respondents were aged 23 years. Sixty percent of the respondents were males and
most (75%) of them were residing in hostels and university halls. On the aspect of academic
performance, 74% of the respondents at least had second class degrees. Nearly over half (54%) the
respondents spent most of their time with peers with most (62.96%) of them having single sex
groups. On average the groups composed of 4 members with most (74.08%) of them having met
at least one-year back at campus and the friend were always reading, jazzing and parting/going out together. For those that did spent most of their time with friends like being alone and some did not
like being influenced by the peers. It was revealed that 30% of the respondents were negatively
influenced by peer groups with regard to academics and only 12% were positively influenced
though 58% were not influenced in one or another. At bivariate analysis, chi-square results showed
that peer group influence significantly affected student`s academic performance where over (77%)
of the respondents that were positively influence by peer groups with regard to academics had at
least a second class upper degree (CGPA=3.60 to 5.00) as compared to only 13% of the
respondents that were negatively influence by peer groups with regard to academics had a second
class upper degree (CGPA=3.60 to 5.00)
The researcher therefore, recommends that university students should be conscious of the groups
there are associated to since different peer groups significantly influences their academic
performance in one way or another. She further recommends further study on the influence of peer
groups on students` life style during the course of study at university