School physical environment and secondary school students discipline in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

This study was on school physical environment and secondary school students’ discipline in Bayelsa State of Nigeria. Three hypotheses was used to guide the study. The hypotheses were formulated based on the variables; physical facilities, class size and school location, as to determine how they relate to or influence students’ discipline. Students’ discipline was categorized into attendance, respectful behaviour, honest behaviour and constructive behaviour. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for this study. The sample consisted of 1,540 senior secondary class two students drawn from a population of 11,607 senior secondary two (SSII) students in the State. The main instrument for data collection was titled school environment and secondary school students’ discipline questionnaire (SESSSDQ). The data collected were analyzed using the Pearson's correlation analysis (r) and the independent t-test. The hypotheses were all tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The study findings were; there is a significant relationship between the availability of physical facilities, school location and students’ discipline in terms of respectful behaviour, honest behaviour, attendance, and constructive behaviour. The findings also showed that class size does not significantly influence students’ discipline in terms of respectful behaviour, honest behaviour and constructive behaviour; but significantly influence students’ behaviour in terms of attendance. Based on these findings, it was recommended among others that the Ministry of Education should ensure adequate provision and maintenance of school physical environment in order to restore discipline among secondary schools students in the state.