An Evaluation of Factors Affecting Architecture Students Performance in Building Structure in Southwestern Nigerian Public Universities

Abstract

Building structure courses are compulsory courses in the study of Architecture as application of the knowledge obtained is necessary for building design stability. As important as these courses is, the performance of the students is observed to be generally low. There are many factors that are responsible for this low performance in the courses and this has not been adequately investigated. This study therefore evaluates the factors affecting academic performance of Architecture students in Building structure courses in Southwestern Nigerian public Universities, with a view to proffer solution to this problem and improving on students’ performance in the courses. Quantitative research approach was adopted. Five factors were selected namely: Students background characteristics, teaching style, learning style, classroom environment and structure curriculum. The study employed multistage sampling procedure. Five public universities approved by the National Universities Commission and Architects Registration Council of Nigeria namely: FUTA, LAUTECH, OAU, UNILAG and OOU were purposively selected and sampled. A total of 702 questionnaires were administered to all the pre-final and final year students in the Department of Architecture of the sampled universities, while only 541 questionnaires were adequately completed and considered fit for analysis. Cross tabulation with chi-square was used to summarize the data. Regression analysis was used to evaluate the itemize factors on students’ performances. The study revealed that there was a strong relationship between the level of students’ performance in the courses and the five selected factors combined. It was also revealed that the factor that affected students most was teaching styles. The study concluded that the performance in Building structure courses rests on teaching and learning styles, therefore, when a better performance in courses is desired, a strong priority should be given to the quality of teaching and learning, the two are inseparable.