AN INVESTIGATION OF CO-HABITATION AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AMONG STUDENTS OF TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN NIGER STATE

The study focused on investigating co-habitation and academic achievement among students of tertiary institutions in Niger State, Nigeria. Two research questions and hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The research design adopted for the study was the descriptive survey design with a population of 7,701 final year students of tertiary institutions. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the required respondents for the study. A sample of 710 final year students’ of three tertiary institutions namely one Federal University, one Polytechnic and one College of Education were used in the study. The instrument for data collection was a researchers’ developed instrument entitled “Investigation of Co-habitation and Academic Achievement Score (PCAAAS)”. To ascertain the face and content validity of the instrument, it was given to three experts two in Measurement and Evaluation and one in Guidance and Counselling for appropriate modifications. The reliability of the instruments was established using the split-half reliability coefficient method. and the index ranged from .71 to .82 which was found reliable enough for data collection. The analysis was executed with descriptive and inferential statistical analysis such as mean, standard deviation, population t-test, and One-way ANOVA and the findings revealed that the level of cohabitation among students is a high level of cohabitation. Also, social factors have an influence on the academic performance of cohabiting students as the majority of the students indicated that most of them cohabit to gain social influence and protection from their spouse. It was recommended among others that parents should have interest and concern in terms of unprecedented visits to their children staying on campus to see how they are faring in school