TIMBOU-AFRICA

PUBLICATION INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL

INTERNATIONAL
FEBRUARY, 2025RESEARCH
JOURNAL FEBRUARY, AND LIBRARY
EDITIONS. INTERNATIONAL JOURNALSCIENCE
OF:
2025 EDITIONS. VOL. 7 NO. 8 E-ISSN 3026-8478 P-ISSN 3027-186X
EDUCATIONAL RSEARCH & LIBRARY SCI. VOL. 7

R
ELATIONSHIP AMONG SELF
ESTEEM, SCHOOL
ADJUSTMENT AND ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS IN
ABSTRACT COLLEGE OF EDUCATION ILORIN,
This study KAWARA STATE, NIGERIA
examined the
relationship
among self- MAHMOOD SULEIMAN JAMIU, Ph.D
esteem, school
School of Education and General Studies (SEGS).
adjustment and
Kwara State College of Arabic and Islamic Legal
academic
performance of Studies (CAILS), Ilorin, Nigeria.
College of Corresponding Author: [email protected]
Education DOI: https://doi.org/10.70382/tijerls.v07i8.020
students Ilorin,
Kwara State,
Nigeria.
INTRODUCTION
Correlational
research design Students’ academic performances have been the area
was employed to of interest for higher education. Investigation of
collect the data. factors related to the academic performance of tertiary
Three research institution students become a topic of growing interest
questions, in higher educational circles. There is diversity in
hypotheses and
academic performance of students, some students
basic
perform very well while others perform poorly and low
assumptions
were raised to academic performance causes withdrawn from tertiary
guide the study. institution. It is the student’s efforts, attitude and

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The total population of the study was four thousand, nine hundred and
eighty-three (4,983) NCE II regular Students of College of Education Ilorin.
The researcher used adopted instruments namely; Rosenberg Self-Esteem
Scale (RSES), School Adjustment Questionnaire (SAQ), and Academic
Performance Test (APT) for data collection. Data was analyzed using
percentages for the demographic variables and Pearson Product Moment
Correlation Coefficient (r) was used to test the hypotheses. The findings
showed that self-esteem had significant positive relationship with academic
performance, school adjustment had significant positive relationship on
academic performance and school adjustment had significant positive
relationship on self-esteem. The study concluded that self-esteem and
school adjustment have positive relationship with academic performance of
College of Education Students Ilorin. Based on the findings, it was
recommended that school counsellors and lecturers should encourage
students to maintain a high self-esteem for better academic performance.
Efforts should be made by the school managements and counsellors to
encourage students to adjust well in school for better academic
performance.

Key words: Relationship, Self Esteem, School Adjustment, Academic

Performance and College of Education Students.

determinations that determines their academic performance Jamiu, (2023).

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham
Maslow. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations
of humans' innate curiosity. Humans are fueled by a desire to achieving goals.
Attaining goals helps human satisfy specific needs and desires. Maslow used
the terms "physiological", "safety", "belonging and love", "esteem", "self-
actualization" and "self-transcendence" to describe the pattern that human

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motivations generally move through. He is famous for his “Hierarchy of Needs”

and it also shows how important Maslow believed self-esteem to be:

Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Lower needs must be satisfied before higher order needs can be reached. The
needs are categorized into a hierarchy, by which certain needs must be met
before others (Kendra, 2018).
In line with idea of Jamiu, (2017) Education is the foundation for the
development of any society in all spheres of life. It is an investment as well as
instrument that can be used to achieve a more rapid economic, social,
scientific, technological and cultural development in the country. Jamiu, (2024)
opined that an educated person who is well and relevantly positioned in the
society is expected to be a valuable asset. Therefore, the purpose of education
is for human development which at first is seen through academic
performance. Hence, academic performance is a ladder or a stepping stone to
individual’s future prospect. It is the outcome of education that extent to
student, teacher and institution in other to achieved educational goals. The
quality of education is mostly assessed on the basis of academic performance
and achievement scores.
The school related factor may not be enough on whether an individual
academic performance will be good or bad. Thus, the student’s self-esteem

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plays tremendous roles in building the personality and determining academic

performance. Therefore, identifying factors that affect academic performance
and suggesting some measures is critically important in helping students
improve their academic performance Jamiu, (2023). He added that, it is
expected that students will perform better, when they adjust well in school.
School adjustment can be related to factors such as personal skill,
concentration, attention, motivation, social, cultural factor and psychological
factors. It is therefore helpful to students with needs, objectives, and desires
to make plans and attempt to accomplish those goals, because plans made and
not executed are as good as failure.
Jamiu, (2023). In another vain, said that, school adjustments plays vital role in
students’ academic performance because one of the pillar which student’s life
is based is on their progress, achievement, and attitude towards school
activities, social support and academic motivation. Therefore, for students to
adjust well in school, it is influenced with the combination of students’ personal
characteristics and their experiences. Students who are able to adjust well in
school to the change circumstances in their school can feel more comfortable,
live in harmony and well-adjusted life that enhances academic performance.
Thus, school adjustment is a person’s interaction with the environment and
enablement to cover academic achievement, personal growth and
accomplishment of life goals.
Self-esteem can be either positive (high self-esteem) or negative (low self-
esteem). Therefore, Students get disturbed through their acquisition of self-
esteem (high self-esteem and low self-esteem) which actually affect their
school adjustment. According to Aryana, (2018) students with high academic
achievement tend to feel more confident in contrast to those who lack
confidence in them may achieve less academically. However, self-esteem refers
to how an individual feel about or how an individual evaluates himself. This
evaluation serves as an important role because it affects an individual’s
attitude and behaviour towards academic performance. In addition, there is lot
of differences in the characteristics of low and high self-esteem individual. Low
self-esteem individual tend to underestimate their abilities and undeserved to
be successful, but these are absent in individual who has a high self- esteem.
Hence, having high self-esteem makes the individual to evaluate himself in a

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positive way and feel good with strong view of success. Therefore, high self-
esteem motivates the individual internally to work hard in order to achieve
successful academic performance.
Self-respect is about the individual having the courage to stand up for
themselves when they are being treated in a manner that is less than what they
deserve. It is also about knowing their worth and having the ability to adjust
their life and remove people from it if they are treating them poorly. If an
individual have respect for themselves, they will naturally demand respect
from others without having to do much of anything. People who have self-
respect treat everyone else with respect, but acknowledge that not everyone
else will do the same Aryana, (2018).
Components of self-esteem as stated by personal self development.Co.uk as
follows: sense of control and personal responsibility, sense of belonging and
acceptance and lastly sense of competence.

Figure 2: Components of Self-esteem – source – Development.Co.uk, (2017)

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Self-esteem is a form of self –acceptance, personal appreciation and subjective

respect of individual. It is to evaluate the difference between individual’s image
of self and ideal self. Muhammad, Syed and Khalid (2019) stated that to
understand the self-esteem level of the individual, it is by looking at the
discrepancy between how the individual perceive oneself and the self they
could like to be. Hence, self-esteem represents the individual’s feelings such as
self-acceptance, personal appreciation, overall acceptance of the personality
and self-love. Therefore, it is the negative and positive attitude of the individual
to oneself, as it arises in the result of self-evaluation on the individual basic
psychological needs. Hence, self-esteem and school adjustment works
together for better academic performance. It is in this respect that the
researcher embarked on a study to examine the relationship among self-
esteem, school adjustment and academic performance of College of Education
Students Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Statement of the Problem

The poor academic performance of students has become a source of great
concern to all stakeholders in education. As observed by the researcher,
College of Education Ilorin is not an exception. Many students enter into school
with the ambition of coming out with flying colours but unfortunately, they
encounter a lot of problems which is attributed to self-esteem and school
adjustments.
Some students spend time, energy and money in studying without fruitful
result, they end up being frustrated as their goal is not realized. Perhaps, the
fear of failure as a result of self-worth leads students to the alarming rate of
examination malpractice. This in turn, poorly affect their attitude to academic
activities because when a learner fails to adjust well in college, his academic
performance will be negatively affected. In order to achieve this desire of
qualitative education and fill the gap of performance between students’
academic excellence the researcher feels it is necessary to examine the

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relationship among self-esteem, school adjustment and academic

performance of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Objective
The objectives of this study are to determine:
1. The relationship between self-esteem and academic performance of
students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
2. The relationship between self-esteem and school adjustment of
students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
3. The relationship between school adjustment and academic
performance of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria.

Research Questions
The following research questions were raised in line with the objectives:
1. What is the relationship between self-esteem and academic
performance of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria?
2. What is the relationship between self-esteem and school adjustment
of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria?
3. What is the relationship between school adjustment and academic
performance of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria?

Research Hypothesis
The following hypothetical statements are formulated for the purpose of the
study:
1. There is no significant relationship between self-esteem and
academic performance of students in College of Education Ilorin,
Kwara State, Nigeria.

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2. There is no significant relationship between self-esteem and school

adjustment of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria.
3. There is no significant relationship between school adjustment and
academic performance of students in College of Education Ilorin,
Kwara State, Nigeria.

Methodology
Correlational research design was adopted for this study. Thus, correlational
design simply aimed at determining the relationships between two or more
variables and how strongly they related to each other. This is justified based on
the view of Baji, Mamman and Ugochukwu (2018) that when researchers want
to find out about the relationships between variables, then correlational design
is more appropriate.

Results
The analyses of the data and discussions arising from the findings of the study
are stated from demographic data to hypotheses testing.

Table 1: Presentation of Demographic Data in Frequency and Percentages by

Gender.
Gender Frequency Percent
Male 126 57.8
Female 92 42.2
Total 218 100.0
Showed the presentation of the bio data variables in frequencies and
percentages. This includes the sex of the students all from the College of
Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. A total of 126 representing 57.8% are
males and the rest 92 or 42.2% are female students.

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Hypotheses Testing
Hypothesis one: There is no significant relationship between self-esteem and
academic performance of students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara
State, Nigeria.

Table 2: Pearson Product Moment Correlation between Self-esteem and

Academic Performance of Students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara
State, Nigeria.
Variable N Mean SD Df R P–value
Self-esteem 218 28.5321 3.10067
216 0.667** 0.013
Academic Performance 218 13.6239 4.04534
**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level.

The result revealed that p value of 0.013 is lower than the 0.05 alpha level of
significance while the correlation coefficient r = 0.667 at df 216.Results of the
Pearson Product Moment Correlation (r) statistics revealed that significant
relationship existed between self-esteem and academic performance of
students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria implying that
the higher the students’ self-esteem, the higher their academic performance
and vice versa. Therefore the null hypothesis which states that there is no
significant relationship between self-esteem and academic performance of
students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria was rejected.
Hypothesis Two: There is no significant relationship between School
Adjustment and Self -Esteem of students in the College of Education Ilorin,
Kwara State.

Table 3: Pearson Product Moment Correlation between School Adjustment

and Self Esteem of Students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria.
Variable N Mean SD Df r P- value
Self esteem 218 28.5321 3.1006
216 0.725** 0.001
School Adjustment 218 63.0321 6.3828
**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level

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The computed p value of 0.001 is lower than the 0.05 alpha level of significance
while the correlation coefficient r = 0.725 at df 216. Results of the Pearson
Product Moment Correlation (r) statistics showed that significant relationship
existed between school adjustment and self- esteem of students in the College
of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria implying that the higher the students
school adjustment the higher their self- esteem and vice versa. Therefore the
null hypothesis which stated that there is no significant relationship between
school adjustment and self-esteem of students in the College of Education
Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria was rejected.
Hypothesis Three: There is no significant relationship between self-esteem,
School Adjustment and academic performance of students in the College of
Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Table 4: Pearson Product Moment Correlation between Self-esteem, School

Adjustment and Academic Performance of Students in the College of
Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
Variable N Mean SD Df r P- value
self-esteem, School 218 63.0321 6.3828
Adjustment
216 0.709** 0.020
Academic Performance 218 13.6239 4.04534
**Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level.

The p value of 0.020 is lower than the 0.05 alpha level of significance while the
correlation coefficient r = 0.709 at df 216. Results of the Pearson Product
Moment Correlation (r) statistics revealed that significant relationship existed
between self-esteem, school adjustment and academic performance of
students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria implying that the
higher the students school adjustment, the higher their academic performance
and vice versa. Therefore the null hypothesis which stated that there is no

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significant relationship between self-esteem, school adjustment and academic

performance of students in the College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria was rejected.

Discussions
The major findings of this study showed that self-esteem and school
adjustment correlated with academic performance of students. Theoretically,
the findings were supported by William self –esteem theory and Rosenberg
theory of self-esteem that focused on the role self-esteem plays in individual’s
lives and psychological well-being. In agreement, Maslow theory of needs
viewed that human behaviour is driven by needs, one of which is the need for
a sense of personal importance, value or self-esteem. Hence, the need for
individual satisfaction of self-esteem becomes relevant in life. In addition,
Skinner proposed that differences in individuals learning experiences are the
main reason behind individual differences in behaviour. Therefore, Skinner is
based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behaviour.
The best way to understand behaviour is to look at the causes of an action and
its consequences (Mcleod, 2017). To this learning theory, behaviour is learned
and any learned behaviour can be unlearned. According to social learning
theory in congruence with the findings, it emphasized that behaviour is learned
from interactions and observations individuals experience with other people.
Within this theory, learning takes place indirectly by receiving information,
observing others or modelling.
The result of this study revealed that a significant relationship existed between
self-esteem and academic performance of students in College of Education
Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria (r = 0.667, p = 0.013). This is in agreement with the
findings of Aryana (2018) who investigated a study on the relationship between
self-esteem and academic achievement in the pre-university students. The
result revealed that there was significant (p<0.01) positive relationship
between self-esteem and academic achievement. The study suggested that

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high self-esteem is an important factor and strengthen the prediction of

academic achievement in students. Muhammad, Syed and Khalid (2019) in their
study on self-esteem and academic performance among University students,
also found that there was a significant positive relationship (r=0.879, p<.01)
between self-esteem and academic performance, which is in agreement with
the findings of the result.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of this study, the researchers concluded that positive
relationship exists between each of the variables based on the responses from
the respondents, it was concluded that self-esteem of students of College of
Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria is high and that self-esteem had
relationship with academic performance of students in College. Secondly, from
the findings, relationship existed between school adjustment and academic
performance of students in College of Education Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
Thus, the students that were interested in their courses improved better in
their academic performance. Therefore, school adjustment and self-esteem of
students have positive relationship on students’ academic performance.

Recommendations
In line with the above findings, the researcher recommended that:
• School counsellors and teacher should encourage students to maintain
a high self-esteem for better academic performance.
• School adjustment of the students can be further improved by school
counsellors and school authority encouraging students to develop a
positive attitude towards school work and activities that are helpful to
enhance academic performance.
• Efforts should be made by the school counsellors and managements to
encourage students to adjust well in school through guidance and
counselling services for better academic performance.

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