STUDY HABITS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS: A CRITICAL STUDY
Dr. Sanat kumar Mallik,
Headmaster, Kapashati Milan Bithi High School.
Kamal Krishna De, Visiting Professor, R.K.Mission, Sikshnamandira, Belurmath, Howrah, WB
RajibMukhopadhyay, Principal, GCBT College, Habra, 24 Parganas (N), WB,
Abstract: Study habits are the most important factors that lead one to academic goals. This work aims
at investigating the effect of study habits on secondary school-students gender and habitat wise. The
test on Study Habits developed by Anand & RCE, Bhubaneswar 2000). Internal consistency of the test
was found by Cronbach Alpha. The test was administered on 700 ninth grade students of both genders.
The analysis of data on study habits conclusively showed that students do not differ significantly
gender wise or habitat wise at 0.05 levels of significance. The interaction between gender & habitat is
also not significant. So, no significant difference occurs at any level comprising gender & habitat.
Keywords
:
Study habits; academic goals; Internal consistency; secondary students; urban-rural
Introduction: Study-habits are the essence of a dynamic personality. It is a process from which an
individual gets proper input to fulfill his thirst of knowledge. There is a direct relationship between
study habits and academic achievement and it leads to academic records. Study habits are defined as
those techniques, such as summarizing, note taking, outlining or locating material for the efficient
learning. According to Good’s dictionary of education, “Study habit is the tendency of pupil to study
when the opportunities are given, the pupil’s way of studying whether systematic or unsystematic,
efficient or inefficient.” The proper study habits enable an individual to progress in future. It plays an
important role in human performance in academic field (Verma, 1996; Verma & Kumar, 1999;
Satapathy & Singhal,2000; Vyas,2002). Ramamurti (1993) has rightly emphasized that despite
possessing good intelligence and personality, the absence of good study habits hampers academic
achievement. Hence, study habits of students play important role in learning and fundamental to
academic success. The habits of study help to achieve and learn in the class and out of class.
Learning and habits are correlated. The habits modify the learning goal and achievement of the
students. It refers to reasons that underlying behavior that is characterized by willingness and choice.
Study habits can create confidence in one's ability along with an increased value of education and
desire to learn. It is closely related to desired objects, hobby, goal and even mortality. The use of
reinforcement may either encourage or diminish the habits of the students. Teachers can create a
supportive classroom environment with respect to goal structures, attributions, and external
evaluation. It is important to analyze the habits because of its significant influence on learning at
school or interest in subjects. So, the present study has been conceptualized under this broad frame
work of study habits of the students
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Chaudhary & Lily (1991) pointed out that students belonging to government and private schools were
by and large similar with respect to their study habits. Naggappa & Venkataiah ( 1995) and Sanjeev
(2003) studied that the students studying in private schools have better study habits than the students
studying in government schools. Reddy and Nagaraju (2001) conducted a study on “Influence of Sex
and Locality on Study Habits of Class X Pupils” with the sample of 200 pupils from Class X, Kurnool
district in Andhra Pradesh and found i) Urban pupils differed from the rural pupils in their study
habits. ii) There is no significant impact of sex and iii) there is no interaction effect of sex and locality
on the study habits. Digmurati Bhaskara Rao and Sema Surya Prakas Rao (2004) conducted a study to
compare the study habits of boys and girls, private and government school students and students of
residence and non-residence schools with 200 secondary school students and found that secondary
school students are possessing high study habits.
Ozmert (2005) emphasized the importance of environmental influence as a major factor in the
development of students studying habit. Suda and Sujata (2006) conducted a study on “Academic
performance in relation to self-handicapping, test anxiety and study habits of high school children.”
with 200 students from government senior secondary school of Himachal Pradesh and revealed that
boys were poorer in study habits than girls. Hussain (2006) studied that the secondary school students
in public schools often come from economically poor and average income families and they have poor
academic performance.
Alex (2009) conducted a study on study habits and academic achievement with the sample comprising
of 186 students studying in class XI and class XII, of which 106 students hailed from broken families
and found there is significant difference between children from broken families and children from
normal families with regard to their academic achievement. Parua and Archana (2011) conducted a
study on “study habits of secondary school students in relation to their Scholastic Achievement” with
100 school students of Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana. The results of the study revealed that there
is a significant positive correlation between study habit and scholastic achievement of secondary
school students as whole.
“Influence of Sex and Locality on of Class X Pupils” with the sample of 200 pupils from
Class X, Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh and found i) Urban pupils differed from the rural pupils
in their study habits. ii) There is no significant impact of sex and iii) there is no interaction effect of
sex and locality on the study habits.
In WB there is a slender difference between urban and rural areas. Girls are motivated to
actively participate in school education. It is therefore incumbent upon to see whether under this
situation whether Learning Habits (LH) or Study Habits of the students have changed in this
perspective. Only Reddy and Nagaraju (2001) conducted a study on students on the basis of their sex
and locality. It is, therefore, demand of the time to undertake a work on the SH of students sex and
habitat wise.
The empirical research or any study on study habits is limited; even the findings of some
studies are extremely contradicting. Hence the present study -“Study Habits of Secondary School
Students: A Critical Study” would be able to provide information necessary for the teachers and
parents to understand the importance of study habits and also parental support to improve the study
habits of secondary school students.
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Summary and Research Gaps:
Some studies were identified on Study Habits (SH) with following results: Despite possessing good
intelligence and personality, the absence of good study habits hampers academic achievement.
Learning and habits are correlated. The use of reinforcement may either encourage or diminish the
habits of the students..
Research Gaps: No study was directly available on relation to study habits. There is a scope of study
relating study habits. It is important to analyze the study habits because of its significant influence on
learning at school or interest in subjects and academic achievement. So, the present study has been
conceptualized under this broad frame work of study habits of the students and the impact of some
learning variables over it.
Variables
A) Major:
Study Habits of the secondary school students
B) Categorical variables:
i) Habitat (urban-rural)
ii) Gender (boys-girls)
Definition of Study Habits:
Good (1998) define the term study habits as: The student’s way of study whether systematic, efficient
or inefficient etc”. Going by this definition it literally means that good study habit produces positive
academic performance while inefficient study habit leads to academic failure.
Azikiwe (1998) describes the study habit as “the adopted way and manner a student plans his private
readings, after classroom learning so as to attain mastery of the subject”.
Therefore, Study Habit consists of (i)way of study by an individual,(ii)self planning for the study
&(iii) attaining personal academic goal through study.
Operational Dimention: Study Habit indicates (i) self study habits (ii) habits of studying, (iii) habits
of doing seriously & (iv) habits of doing hard work .
Delimitation of the Study: The study was delimited to the Secondary school students, from the
selected district of West Bengal.
Area: Students of WB, in the district of North 24 Parganas, Nadia and Hooghly. The schools of the
concerned districts were selected randomly.
Class-IX (boys and girls both)
Medium of Instruction-Bengali, as there is no sufficient English medium or others medium of schools
in these selected districts.
Board-WB Board of Secondary Education.
Sample technique-Cluster Sampling
Sample Size-700 (Boys 354+Girls 346)
No. of schools-22 (Boys 11+Girls 11)
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Stratification:
Table no-1, students & habitat
Gender Habitat Total
Urban Rural
Boys 176 178 354
Girls 171 175 346
Total 347 353 700
Objectives of the Study:
i) To find out if there is any significant gender wise difference of study habits among the students.
ii) To find out if there is any significant habitat-wise difference of study habits among the students.
iii) To find out if there is any significant difference of study habits on students due to interaction of
gender and habitat.
Hypotheses:
The following null hypotheses are to be tested:
H01:The boys and girls do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits.
H02:The urban and rural students do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits.
H03:The urban boys and urban girls do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits.
H04:The rural boys and rural girls do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits.
H05:The urban boys and rural boys do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits.
H06:The urban girls and rural girls do not differ significantly in the mean scores on study habits
Methodology: While conducting administration of the test over the students, the researchers delivered
detailed instructions to the participants and they were asked to go through SH questionnaire and tick
the correct response according to their own choice. The answer scripts were scored by the researchers
for final test. Seven hundred (700) students between age group 14-15(class-IX) years formed the
sample of the study.
Tools
For the present study the researchers have adapted and standardized the tools on Study Habit scale of
Anand (2000) –having dimensions like self study habit, Habit of studying for comprehension, Habit of
doing the studies seriously, Habit of doing hard works at studies etc. The items were translated from
English into Bengali using recently used terms. The translation was checked by experts.
Definition of Dimensions of SH:
Self-study habits: Self-study habits are the habitual practices of one’s own study and learn. These
habits are the behaviors used when preparing for tests or learning academic materials. Self study habits
can help students achieve and maintain good grades.
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Habits of studying: Habits of studying means regular practice of reading and writing. Study habits
are the habitual practice one uses to help them study and learn. Good study habits can help students
achieve and maintain good grades
Habits of doing seriously: The habits of studying must be a sustainable one, for that matter students
must see the need to develop good study habits. Freeman and Mors (1993) have observed that it
should be regular, intense and should cover long periods.
Habits of doing hard work: It is related to hard labor for studies and career of the students. It is the
habitual and sincere long time practice one uses to help them study and learn. Continuous and
comprehensive study habits can help students achieve their careers.
Preparation of Items: Initially total no. of items in the test was 60 including both the positive and
negative statements each having 3 options –yes, no, can’t say. The scores of the each item were 3, 2, 1,
respectively for the options for a positive statement and 1, 2, 3 for negative statement respectively.
Maximum & minimum marks for the test as respectively 180 & 0
Item Analysis
Study Habits:
The face and content validity of the test were verified by the experts in a field of education 5 (five)
items had to be excluded as the raters (experts) could not agree on those items. Finally Cronbach’s
Alpha test had been taken for this test and its value was 0.800.
Table no: 2, Expert Rating: (Inter rater agreement ratio):-
Raters agreed on no. of Mean Inter
items Raters’
1st & 2nd&3rd 1st& Agreement Agreement Agreement Agreement
2nd Raters 3rd ratio1,2 ratio 2,3 ratio1,3
raters raters
62 58 60 62/65 58/65 60/65 60/65=0.923
After rejecting the unsuitable items under the advice of experts, 60 items were administered on 150
students of clas s IX. U sing Cronbach’s Alpha (CA) the reliability of the test (in terms of internal
consistency of the items) was estimated by SPSS 19.0 version. Only 60 items were finally selected for
administration. The CA for the test was 0.800. This value indicates the high internal consistency of the
items as shown in Table-2.
Test retest reliability: Total sample of the test was 700.The test in its final form was used to find the
test retest reliability coefficient over 150 students and its value is 0.994 –for df=148 which is
significant at 0.05 level .So the test has significant stability index in the form of test retest reliability
coefficient
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Table no. 3, Inter Correlation among the dimensions of SH
Self SH Habits SC Habits DSS Habits DHS SH test
Self SH 1.000 .422 .449 .388 .721
Habits SC - 1.000 .656 .464 .797
Habits DSS - - 1.000 .406 .817
Habits DHS - - - 1.000 .703
Method of Administration of the test.
In each of the chosen secondary schools, the tests have been applied for same duration of time starting
from the same period. Adequate examples and directions have been given before starting the
applications of the tests. Classroom environment has been maintained peaceful and similar as far as
possible.
Table no-4, Dimensions of test-questions
Sl. Dimensions of test-questions Number of items
No
1 Self-study habits 15
2 Habits of studying 15
3 Habits of doing seriously 15
4 Habits of doing hard work 15
TOTAL 60
Presentation of Data:
Table no. 5: The descriptive statistics sex-wise and strata-wise
Pupils Total Boys Girls Urban Rural U.boys U.girls R.boys R.girls
No. 700 354 346 347 353 176 171 178 175
Mean 82.635 80.672 84.644 81.446 83.804 79.886 83.052 81.449 86.200
Median 83.000 80.000 86.000 82.000 86.000 80.000 84.000 80.000 88.000
SD 13.129 12.625 13.347 12.927 13.239 12.103 13.573 13.109 12.974
SKWN -.302 -.069 -.572 -.264 -.357 -.294 -.327 .078 -.842
KRTS -.235 -.184 .013 -.157 -.262 .489 -.565 -.750 .946
The mean (82.635) and median (83.000) of the total sample are very close to each other. The
distribution, therefore, is almost normal.
Administration of Test: The final form of the test was administered on 700 students selected by
cluster sampling method for 40 minutes. The papers were scored. Maximum scores obtained for the
test =114 and minimum scores obtained = 33
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Table no. 6: Frequency distribution of SH scores for the total Sample
30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-99 100-109 110-119
Scores
Freq(f 02 04 18 98 158 183 161 72 04
)
cum% f
40- 50- 60- 70- 80- 90- 100- 110-
49 59 69 79 89 99 109 119
veforTotal
(SH)
Data Analysis
For testing the null hypotheses, a 2x2 ANOVA and t-tests have been used. To find the main effect of
Sex and Habitat ANOVA has been used. To find the interaction of sex and habitat explicitly t-tests
have been used. For ANOVA 4(four) cells have been used as Urban Boys(UB), Urban Girls(UG),
Rural Boys(RB), Rural Girls(RG). For each cell 50 SH scores have been randomly selected from the
total number of the corresponding cell. The descriptive statistics of the SH scores of 200 students have
been tabulated below sex and habitat-wise.
Table no: 7. Mean and SD of the 4 cells of ANOVA
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Categories N Mean SD
U.BOYS(UB) 50 82.6400 10.88673
U.GIRLS(UG) 50 83.4200 14.86276
R.BOYS(RB) 50 84.1800 13.40224
R.GIRLS(RG) 50 86.6600 14.26371
Table no. 8: 2x2ANOVA for SH scores
SOURCES Df SS Mean F Sig P Remarks
SS
Sex 1 285.605 285.605 1.581 .210 P>0.05 NS
Habitat 1 132.845 132.845 .735 .392 P>0.05 NS
Sex x Habitat 1 36.125 36.125 .200 .655 P>0.05 NS
ERROR 196 35402.300 180.624
In Table no. 8, there is no significant difference in mean SH scores Gender & Habitat –wise.
Interaction (Gender x Habitat) is not also significant. So, post hoc t-test is not necessary.
Interpretation: ANOVA in table (no. 8) shows that differences of mean SH scores are not
significant at 0.05 level sex-wise and habitat-wise. So, (i) Boys and Girls do not differ significantly in
their mean scores. Hence the null hypothesis H01 retained. (ii) Urban and Rural students do not differ
significantly in their mean scores on SH. Hence the null hypothesis H02- is retained. Since the
interaction between sex and habitat is not significant at 0.05 level mean scores between UB&UG;
RB&RG; UB&RB; UG&RG are not significant. Hence the null hypotheses H03, H04, H05 & H06 are
retained.
Findings:
The results in this study show that there is no significant difference of mean scores on study habits
between boys (B) and girls (G); and also there is no significant difference among urban (U) & rural
(R) students and between any interactions of sex and localities.
Limitation of the study:
The present study suffered from several limitations which are as:
i) Literature for this study was severely limited on SH.
ii) Sample could not be always collected strictly in accordance with rule of cluster sampling due to
administrative compulsions of some schools.
iii) Due to time barrier, schools were only selected randomly from three districts like North 24
Parganas, Nadia & Hooghly of West Bengal.
Discussions: The present study on Study Habits on the secondary school students is integrally
associated with the progress of education. The academic achievement, academic relationship, self-
concept, and subject achievement of the students have been explained in the earlier studies study and
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researches. Adequate research on Study Habits of secondary school-students has not been noticed by
the researchers. Results of the present study indicate that no difference can be visualized among the
students so far as their study habit is concerned. One of the reasons of this result might be the ready
accessibility of the school books to the school children. Moreover they are easily exposed to different
learning materials more particularly e materials irrespective of gender and habitat of the children.
Reddy & Nagrajan (2001) studied the difference of study habit gender and locality-wise. It was found
that girls are better on Study Habit. The present study found no such difference.
The present researchers also administered several standardized tests on the same sample as was used
in SH. The result is tabulated as follows.
Table-9, Matrix coefficient of CORRELATION among the major variables of research
SH-1 ICT-2 LS-3 AM-4
1-SH - .304 .517 .472
2-ICT - - .275 .218
3-LS - - - .435
4-AM - - - -
No. of students= 225 (selected), df= 223
SH: Study Habits; ICT: Information and communication technology motivation; LS: Learning Style;
AM: Achievement Motivation. All coefficients of correlation are significant at 0.05 level of
significance for df=223.
From the findings and the tests (ANOVA and t-test), of the study it is said that the girl students are
more conscious about their learning habits and motivation: as the self-sufficiency, creativity and social
spaces have been increased among them. Study Habits does not differ habitat wise. It appears that all
school students (class IX) are almost similarly motivated for study and learning. Now a days,
educational communications and learning aspirations have motivated the urban and rural students
almost same. So, it is quietly sure that the future students even the parents and teachers or educators
will be conscious and enriched to follow up this study. Moreover, it can help to enhance the quality of
education with advanced practice, attitudes methods, improve Study Habits and engagement for better
education and better result.
Educational implications of the study
The present study is of immense educational importance to the students, course writers, teachers and
counselors. It will help the students to change their defective and faulty study-habits.
(i)The school should provide better environment to improve the study habits with the help of different
kinds of SH. When proper infrastructural facilities of SH would be available in WB, only then
enrichment of study habits is possible. (ii) The students must be motivated in the field of academics to
modernize their SH with better e- library, digital library facilities etc. The learning materials and ICT
will be provided for students to spend more time in reading and preparing for cognitive development.
iii) The students require more guidance and counseling with regard to study habits. iv)School
education should be made need based and practical oriented. This will promote school effectiveness
and students’ learning. V)The students can increase their level of aspiration, student-teacher
relationship and can modify their project works. So teachers should often point out the importance of
study habits and techniques of their use in the class room or out of class room.
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Suggestions for further studies:
The present study is limited to strata- sex & habitat only. But study habits of a student depend on so
many factors like personal, socio economic, cultural factors as fond in studies (from1991- 2011) on
study habits. A study on the subject may be extended by including students of different socio
economic status, castes, age groups, grade level, residences, management of school, school boards,
mediums and characteristics of habitats and technological advancements.
The scale for study habits might be developed by incorporating study with ICT
Conclusion:
Students have been developing new designs of study habits day by day. In the traditional paradigm
study habits includes study at home and library. The habits involved reading and writing beyond the
class hours. Now studies may be continuous and mostly depend on the motivation and planning for
study.
Study may be a part of cooperative learning or individual learning. SH habits may, therefore, depend
on the LS. In addition to the traditional books and tutors ICT has outstanding influence of study habits.
The present learning devices are not the monopoly of a particular section of people sex-wise or caste-
wise or locality-wise or by any other criterion. Rather learning and study depend on personal
characteristics like (LS, Motivation and motivation for ICT). The above correlation matrix (Table-9)
supports this view.
Since the process of study has been democratized today, the survey research was destined to show that
there is no significant difference of study habits in any strata of population
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