ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent cognitive and non-cognitive skills serve as correlates of in-school adolescents’ academic achievement in South-East, Nigeria. The study was guided by twelve research questions and twelve null hypotheses formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a correlational research design. The sample for the study consisted of a total of 1,998 SS II students drawn through multistage sampling techniques from the entire population of 39,960 senior secondary class two students in government owned secondary schools in 2022/2023 academic session in South East, Nigeria. Three instruments titled “Cognitive Skills Questionnaire (CSQ), Non-Cognitive Skills Questionnaire (NCSQ) and Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT)” were developed by the researcher and were used for data collection. These instruments were subjected to face and content validation by three experts. The Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) was in addition validated by two specialists from Mathematics Education using the Table of Specification. The stability of the instruments was determined using Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and reliability indices of 0.77 and 0.79 were obtained for CSQ and NCSQ respectively. The internal consistency of the items were determined using Cronbach’s Alpha method which yielded reliability estimates of 0.83 and 0.85 for CSQ and NCSQ respectively. The reliability of the MAT was determined using Kuder-Richardson (KR-21) formula and reliability coefficient calculated was 0.79. Data generated were analyzed using Pearson’s r, R² (coefficient of determination) to answer the research questions while linear regressions and multiple regression analysis were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 levels of significance. Results revealed as follows: Joint cognitive skills (memory, attention, perception, logical reasoning, and thinking speed) correlated with academic achievement of the in-school adolescents to a very highly positive and significant extent. However, perception had the highest percentage contribution of 66.7%; followed by memory with 63%, attention with 60.5%, logical reasoning with 42.7% respectively, and lastly thinking speed which predicted 40.3% of academic achievement of the in-school adolescents; Non-cognitive skills (motivation, perseverance, self-control, self-perception and resilience) jointly correlated with the academic achievement of the in-school adolescents to a very highly positive and significant extent. However, self-control had the highest percentage contribution of 71.7%; followed by resilience with 67.9%, perseverance with 59%, motivation with 58.5% respectively, and lastly self-perception which predicted 41.6% of academic achievement of the in-school adolescents. Among the educational implications was that the study could provide supportive frameworks from which one can assess the extent cognitive and non-cognitive skills could serve as correlates of in-school adolescents’ academic achievement; since in recent times, the education system has changed a lot due to changes in society, culture, demographics, family structure, domestic and world economic states. It was thus recommended among others that parents, guardians, teachers, psychologists and counsellors should educate students on the importance of cognitive and non-cognitive skills in academic achievement.