Factors Contributing to the Low Academic Achievement of Students at the Basic Education Certificate Examination in Some Public Junior High Schools of a Political District in the Western Region of Ghana: Students’ and Teachers’ Perspective (Published)
The key to sustainable development of every nation is largely dependent on the quality of education that it offers to its citizens, more especially at the basic level. Therefore, any issue that may affect the aim of building and achieving quality education for national development needs to examined and addressed. This paper reports on an analysis of factors contributing to poor academic performance of students of a political district in the Western Region of Ghana, in the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE). In all, four hundred and sixty respondents comprising two hundred and thirty-eight (238) students and two hundred and twenty two teachers were used for the research. Among other things, the study discovered that in all, there are eight dimensions underlying the poor performance of students at BECE in the political district, which accounted for; of variance in students’ response, and of teachers’ response in the original variables. In sum, the constructs considered to be contributing to poor performance were: teacher failures, parent shortcomings, reactive learning, passive learning, unfavourable economic conditions, uncongenial circumstances, administrative lapse, and truancy. Stakeholders of education are advised to focus on these dimensions to ensure quality education for sustainable national development.
Keywords: Factor analysis, Poor Academic Performance, Principal Component Factoring
A STATISTICAL MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE USING FACTOR ANALYSIS – A CASE OF A BANK IN GHANA (Published)
The growth and progress of any organization depends on its ability to perform at the highest level on a continuous basis. Knowing what determines organizational performance is important especially in the context of the current Ghanaian banking business environment because factors identified to be driving performance could be given priority attention in order to improve or maintain the organizational performance. This paper reports on an investigation into what is influencing the performance of a given bank in Ghana. Two hundred and ten (210) respondents were used for the study. Among other things, the study results reveal that there are four dimensions informing the performance of the bank, which accounted for 63.5% of the variance in the original variables. In conclusion, the dimensions adduced to be influencing the performance of the bank were: Repeat purchase, Customer experience, Customer satisfaction and Intelligent responsiveness. Management of the bank are encouraged to focus on these dimensions to ensure that the performance of the bank is at the prime.
Keywords: Factor analysis, Organizational Performance, Principal Component Factoring