GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

ABSTRACT The study was conducted to investigate students’ attitude and interest as they co-relate in academic performance of junior secondary school students in social studies in South Africa. To guide the study, two specific purposes, research questions and null/hypotheses respectively were formulated. The expost-facto survey design was adopted for the study. The population comprised of all social studies teachers and JSS 1 to 3 students in South Africa, estimated to be 8663. A sample size of 200 respondents was selected using simple random sampling techniques. The researcher developed instrument entitled: Students’ attitude and interest in social studies Questionaire (SAISS) to generate data for the study. The instrument was validated by an expert in test, measurement and evaluation and also the supervisor. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the reliability coefficient that yielded reliability index of 0.84 and 0.92 respectively. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data obtained while the hypotheses were tested using Pearson product moment correlation analysis. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant relationship between students’ interest in social studies and their academic performance in the subject. The result also proved that there is significant relationship between students’ attitude toward social studies and their academic performance in the subject. It was recommended that negative behaviors should be discouraged in the school by the school administrators in order to roll out negative academic outcomes. KEY WORDS: Students’ attitude, Students’ interest, Academic performance, Social studies, South Africa.