Abstract:
Peer groups play a vital role in the social, emotional and academic development of students.
Understanding the prospects and challenges of peer group is crucial for the productivity of educational
processes and the organizational design of school systems in order to improve students’ academic
achievement. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of peer group and other
associated factors on students’ academic achievement in Mirab Abaya woreda general secondary
schools. The researcher used mixed research method with survey research design and the data was
collected from a randomly selected 325 (145 male and 180 female) students” and purposely selected
three principals and three vice principals from study area. Questionnaire and interview used to collect
data. The data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation and multiple
regressions) with the aid of SPSS version 25. The finding of the study revealed that, peer groups, parent,
social and school related factors on standard model are significantly predict students academic
achievement. In addition to that, there is statistically significant weak relationship between peer group,
parent, school, and social related factors and academic achievement with sig. value 0.000 which is less
than 0.05. The coefficient of determination of R-squared value for the regression model summary was
0.699. This value shows that 69.9% of the variance in the peer group, school, parent and social related
factors predict students’ academic achievement. Based on the findings, it was recommend that students
should be encouraged to choice their friend wisely as some have negative influence on their academic
achievement, especially those who sneak out of school, use drugs and those who do not attend school
