INFLUENCE OF HOSTEL SQUATTING ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

INFLUENCE OF HOSTEL SQUATTING ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the the influence of hostel squatting on academic performance, interpersonal relationship and emotional adjustment of students in University of Lagos. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. An instrument titled: Influence of Hostel Squatting on academic performance, Interpersonal Relationship and Emotional Adjustment of Students (IHSAPIREAS) was used to collect relevant data for the study. The representatives of the study involved were selected based on simple random sampling technique and the statistical tools employed to analyse the data collected were percentages while the inferential statistics of chi-square(x2) was used to test the stated hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. 200 sample sizes were used for the study.  Three (3) research questions and three (3) research hypotheses were designed and formulated for the purpose of the study. The study revealed that there was a significant influence of hostel squatting on academic performance of students. It also revealed that there was a significant influence of hostel squatting on interpersonal relationships among university students. The study further revealed that there was a significant influence of hostel squatting on emotional adjustment of students in university. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations and suggestions were made for students, parents, lecturers and university administrators and relevant agencies for further research.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

In the face of growing enrollment of students in tertiary education, students’ accommodation has become one of the teething problems faced by higher institutions in developing countries (Centre for Global Education, 2005). In many countries, especially in developing countries, governments have been the main provider of student accommodation for public higher institutions. As a result of limited government resources, government in developing countries are unable to adequately meet the accommodation demand for all public higher institutions. Over past two decades, governments in many developing countries have involved private hostel providers to participate in building hostels and halls of residence for students in order to meet the demand for more accommodation infrastructure (Centre for Global Education, 2002). This has attracted some private individuals into investment in students’ hostel accommodation.

The importance of accommodation covers the entire aspects of human life. Primarily, it involves physical protection from hazards which ordinarily may be regarded as shelter but also provide the setting from many of the basic biological and social processes necessary to sustain life, which permit the healthy growth and development of the mind. In all, accommodation as a unit of the environment of man, has a profound influence on the health, social behaviour, satisfaction and general welfare of the community. It reflects the cultural, social and economic values of a society as it is the best physical and historical evidence of civilization in a country (Aluko, 2009). Research on student development in higher education system in many developed nations is not restricted to academic activities; diverse issues relating to hostels are also involved (Shelton, Nicole, Tessa and Trail 2010; McCorkle and Mason, 2009; Hanasonso and Nadler, 2012). Thus, problems relating to students campus residential settings have been of interest to many researchers, most especially human resource practitioners, Social Psychologists, Sociologists and scholars in humanities etc, in these societies for decades.  Despite the prevalence of a large body of literature on college roommate relationships in developed nations, literature on roommate interpersonal relationships among tertiary students is very scanty in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA).

INFLUENCE OF HOSTEL SQUATTING ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS