ABSTRACT

The study investigated school plant management as correlate of boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools in South East, Nigeria. The study used a correlational design. Ten research questions and ten hypotheses guided the study. A sample size of 538 respondents consisting of 456 boarding students, 64 Principals and 18 porters were randomly selected using multi-stage sampling procedure. Two sets of research develpoed questionnaires were used to collect data for the study. The first questionnaire titled: School Plant Management Questionnaire (SPMQ) with 79 items was designed to collect information on school plant management while the second questionnaire titled: Secondary School Boarding Students’ Adjustment Questionnaire (SSBSAQ) with 25 items was designed to collect information on adjustment indices for boarding students. The data generated through the pilot testing of the instrument were analyzed using Cronbach Alpha reliability test to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. Reliability coefficients of .77 and .82 were obtained for school plant management and boarding students’ adjustment questionnaires respectively which indicated that the instrument is highly reliable for the study. Data were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation to answer research questions and linear regression to test the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. Findings revealed that provision of administrative facilities to a non-significant positive low extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, utilization of administrative facilities to a non-significant negative low extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, maintenance of administrative facilities to a non-significant negative moderate extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, provision of instructional facilities to a non-significant positive low extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, utilization of instructional facilities to a non-significant negative high extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, maintenance of instructional facilities to a non-significant negative moderate extent correlate to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, provision of boarding facilities to non-significant positive high extent correlates to boarding students’ adjustment in secondary schools, utilization of boarding facilities to a non-significant negative very low extent correlate to students’ adjustment in secondary schools. Some of the recommendations made include; school administrators should strengthen their effort in providing, utilizing and maintaining especially the administrative and instructional facilities to boost boarding students’ adjustment and enhance academic performance in secondary schools, teachers and porters should be encouraged to adequately utilize and maintain the provided instructional and boarding facilities to improve boarding students’ adjustment and academic performance in secondary schools.