Abstract

The level of academic motivation and peer influence of undergraduates in Nigeria have great implications on the standard of education in the country. To this end, this study investigated the relationship between peer influence and academic motivation of undergraduates in University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Descriptive survey of a correlational type was adopted for the study and the population for the study was 44897 undergraduates of the University of Ilorin. Multi-stage sampling procedure was adopted to select a sample of 400 respondents from the target population of 400 level students that participated in the study. A questionnaire entitled Peer Influence and Academic Motivation Questionnaire (PIAMQ) was used in collecting data for the study. The content of the instrument was validated and reliability co-efficient of 0.79 was obtained. The data generated were analysed using percentages, mean and rank order, PPMC and t-test. All the hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that undergraduates in University of Ilorin positively influenced their peers and they also have high level of academic motivation. There was significant relationship between peer influence and academic motivation of undergraduates in University of Ilorin. In line with the findings of the study, it was recommended that undergraduates of the university of Ilorin should be continually guided to positively influence their peers especially in the academic areas and they should maintain high level of academic motivation so as to be able to achieve their desired goals in academics