I opened a discussion in my last post to analyze the impacts of peer pressure and time management on the academic performance of students. I received feedbacks inform of comment from @semilore and @olayiwola.
@semilore comment read thus:

The impacts of peer pressure cannot be underestimated in young people nowadays especially college students. They engage in so many awkward behaviors that one should not mention. The failure of parents in their responsibilities made it worst. I really find this article useful. I am patiently waiting to know the outcome of your research. I implore parents to know the kind of company of friends their wards keep. This research should be encouraged in schools. Thanks @Rubies

@olayiwola shared that he was once a victim of peer pressure with I believed that some of us too had our shares of the influence of peer pressure.

@rubies, thanks for the enlightenment, I was once a victim of negative peer group influence, thank God it wasn't too late before I came back to my senses. I always like it when people call younger one's attention to some bad influence and properly orientate and current some negative influence caused by peer pressure in them. You have to a wonderful work.

The last comment I had on the post was from @utopian-io to show that I was upvoted. I was so glad to see the @utopian-io comment on my post. A million thanks to @utopian-io and the steemSTEM management team, you are just the best.

Before we make progress, let's have a summary of the last post

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By Joe Hall - CC BY 2.0, Academic performance

Recap of the last post
I got inspired to carry out a little research to ascertain the effects of peer pressure and time management on the academic performance of students when I discovered a tremendous decline of student academic performances. I made a guess from my experience as a student counselor that the decline might be due to the influence of peer pressure and time management of students.

The concept of peer pressure was described as an external force that influences the decisions or and actions of a group of people of the same age to do something that they wouldn't have done without the imposed force. It is normal for students or teenagers to depend on each other as they grow up to make some vital life decisions. Therefore, it is necessary for parents and guardians to monitor the kind of friends or peers their wards keep and dime it fit to correct some of their unworthy actions and provide adequate mentorship to them so as to neutralize some negative influence of peer pressure. I also made it clear that peer pressure is not peculiar to students or teenagers alone, it can be expressed among people of the same age, status, group, tribe, religion to behave in a similar or the same manner. Influence of peer pressure can either be positive or negative.

Time management, on the other hand, is the ability of students or an individual to manage and to take adequate control of time. Proper time management is the ability of an individual (students) to properly schedule or allocated time for his or her day to day activities and following it or adhere to it strictly and sequentially. Proper time management can be achieved through some tools like blocking of the calendar, schedule alarm reminder, timetable, planners e.t.c. While academic performance is a function of the ability of a student to remember what has been thought by an instructor or a teacher and being able to reciprocate it by reproducing it either verbally in an oral interview or written form during an examination. To read the last post, click yes

Image taken by me when administer questionnaire to students

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Having made the summary of the last post, let's discuss the outcome of the research work

Result Analysis and Discussion
Data for this research was collected using questionnaire which was administered to students. The questionnaire contains structural questions to be answered by students under the supervision of their class teacher. A total of 200 questionnaires was distributed and all the 200 questionnaires were retrieved. The nature of structure questions depends on the kind of information intended to be retrieved from the students. Examples of such questions were discussed in the last post. Space for student name is not to be provided on the questionnaire to lure students to provide the correct answers to questions knowing well that such answers will not be traced to such students, but there are ways that teacher could identify the actual student to which a particular questionnaire belongs to, like the comparison of handwritings or making hidden signs of the questionnaires.

The data collected was analyzed by estimating the mean and standard deviation (SD) of all parameters involved and the resulting cluster mean and standard deviation were also estimated. Correlation analysis was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level of significant

The cluster mean and standard deviation used to determine the level of peer pressure among students are 1.70 and 0.60 respectively as shown in table 1 above. These values show that the level of student's peer pressure is low because the cluster mean value is below the 2.50 which is the accepted value to conclude that a parameter is high. The influence of peer pressure is minimal in the secondary school considered.

Also, the cluster mean and standard deviation used to determine the level of time management among students are 1.65 and 0.63 respectively as shown in table 2above. These values show that the level of time management of student is low because the cluster mean value is below the accepted value of 2.50 to accept a parameter to be high. It was clear the students of the school in consideration do not inculcate the habit of time management and control.

To know the level of the relationship between peer pressure and academic performance, a correlation analysis of peep pressure and academic performance was carried out. Peer pressure was correlated with student's academic performance in Junior Secondary Examination. The analysis resulted in r = 0.58 and R² = 0.34 at 0.05 significant level. The value r = 0.58 shows the level of correlation, which means that there was a medium positive relationship while between peer pressure and academic performance While the value of coefficient of performance of 0.34 can be interpreted that 34% of peer pressure affect the academic performance of students, therefore, the remaining 66% is accounted to other factors that affect students academic performances.

The level of relationship between time management and students academic performance was determined by correlating time management with the academic performance of students. The values of correlation (r) and the coefficient of performance (R²) are 0.70 and 0.51 respectively. 0.70 correlation indicates that there is a medium positive relationship between time management and the academic performance of students while 0.51 coefficient of performance indicated that only 51% of time management is responsible for students academic performance, while the remaining 49% is accounted to other factors affecting the academic performance of students.

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Conclusion

It is clear that both the peer pressure and time management have a medium positive relationship with the academic performances of students. This means that peer pressure and time management affect the academic performances of students in one way or the other. Further analysis is needed to know the significance of the relationships of these parameters so as to decide if to reject or accept the null hypothesis, a regression analysis is considered.

By Jerry Daykin, CC BY 2.0, Peer group display

From the results discussed above, we can conclude that there are some other parameters or variables that also contribute to the academic performance of students, such factors include single parenting, unavailability of adequate academic materials and resources to students to aid learning, non-conducive environment for learning, poverty and some other distractions. I shall consider the impacts of single parenting on the academic performance of students if time and resource permit me.

You are implored to carry out similar research in schools to ascertain the significant effects of peer pressure and time management on academic performances of students. To read on how to go about the statistical analysis involved in this post, kindly click here