Chapter 1

In the era of globalization and technological revolution education is considered as a first

step for every human endeavor. It plays a vital role in the development of human capital and link
with individual well-being and opportunities for better living. It ensures the acquisition of
knowledge and skills that enable individual to increase their productivity and improve their
quality of life. Success as the name implies is wished for through hard work and diligence.
School colleges and universities have no worth without student. The social and economic
development of a country is directly linked with student academic performance, the desire of
success is derived from individual’s concept of himself and in term of the meaning of various
incentives as they spell success and failure in the eye of others.
The student performance play an important role in producing the best quality graduates
who will become great leaders and man power for a country thus responsible for the country
economic and social development (Ali et al 2009) students’ performance occupies a very
important place in education as well as the learning process. It has been recognized that in the
process of learning the study habits of the student plays an important role in their academic
performance. Learning is reflected in the way student respond to environment, social, emotional,
and physical stimuli and understands new information. The key to better learning and better
academic performance in schools are good teachers, lectures, good study environment, parent’s
cooperation, high quality books and the most important is the study habits.

Study habits are learning tendencies that enable students to work privately (Azikime
1998) describes the study habit as the adopted way and manner a student plans his private
readings after classroom learning so as to attain mastery of the subject. According to her “good
study habits are good assets to learners because the habits assist students to attain mastery in
areas of specialization and consequent excellent performance, while opposite constitute constants
to learning and achievement leading to failure.

Introduction

Good Students are not born but are made by constant and deliberate practice of Good
Study Habits for which there is no substitute. Thus in order to improve one’s academic
performance it is essential to improve our study habits so as our desired outcome should be
achieved. It is unfortunate that many students consider themselves as they are not good learner
and that little can be done to their achievement. This faculty belief often remains with individual
throughout their lives and limits their goals and aspiration, the problem is not that these students
are incapable and being successful learners they simply do not have the practiced of good study
habits, successful students are those who have the ability and endeavor to manage their time and
give emphasized on the significant factors of good study habit.

Academic performance is a complex student behavior and underlies several

abilities like memory, previous knowledge or aptitude as well as psychological factors such as

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motivation, interests, temperaments or emoticons. Students getting higher marks had more
effective study habits as compared to students who had ineffective study habits and thus lagged
behind in studies. Academic performance can be simply defined as student self-motivation, self-
efficiency and power to cope with the study environment with a primary goal of achieving
excellent in school.

Good study habits are essential ingredients for excellent academic performance, for study
to be effective the habits of the studying must be a sustainable one, for that matter students must
see the need to develop good study habits. Such research was conducted to find out what are the
different study habits that every students should practice in order for them to gained better
academic performance in school.

Statement of the Problem

How does study habits affect the academic performance of freshmen engineering
students?

Due to increasing nature of the academic performance of freshmen engineering students

educationist tend to shift that blame on the teaching methodology adapted by the teacher’s, poor
quality of the textbooks including environment factors. However, these might not be the main
reason why students perform poorly in examination. It is clear from all indication that most
freshmen students have poor study habits which might lead to poor academic performance.

The following question where raised to guide the study:

1. Is there any relationship between students study habit and academic performance?

2. What is the nature of relationship between students study habit and their family
background?

3. How important is method of study habit on academic performance of students?

4. Do the school environment, student personality and peer group affect the study habit of
students?

Scope and Delimitation

The present study is limited only on the study habits of 40 freshmen engineering students
of Baliuag University consisting of 26 males and 14 females of different blocks regarding
their practice of study habits. Before the study was conducted a permit was requested, upon
approval of concerned people the researchers pursue their research by asking the respondents
to cooperate and give time to fill up the questionnaires which was exclusively focused on
their study habits as a freshmen engineering students.

Importance of the Study

Time and again the trend in education wherein quality graduate seem to be deteriorating,
it is of great important to every educators to evaluates the attitude of both intellective and

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non-intellective factors affecting students’ academic performance a close scrutiny should be
made on students study habits so that barriers and failures in the future be avoided study
habits should be develop from time to time as the child starts going to school much so in their
college years. Study habits and attitudes are some of the non-intellectual factors that affect
students academic performance they are essential to every student if the students want to
learn something he has to learn it by himself. Students will not stay in school for the rest of
their lives hence, they must be prepared to face the world on their own.

This study is significantly important to:

Students- excellent academic performance will be achieved if good study habits will be
practiced.

Teachers- the effectiveness of study habits depends on the motivation that a teacher gives to
his students.

Parents- realizing the importance of parental guidance to children study habit help boost
students to perform academically.

Administrator- concerned among administrator is highly important for learning to be very

fruitful.

Future researchers- a great challenge if further study will be conducted to help students
improve their academic performance.

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Conceptual Framework

Study Habits Academic

Implication
Performance

Historical Results
Definition Definition
Context

Figure 1: The Implication of Good Study Habits on the Academic Performance of Freshmen
Engineering Students.