Sociology

The need of monitoring both students and lecturers academic performance has drawn the attention of many researchers around the globe. In recent time, studies have shown that learning outcome have predicted by many psychological factors as such, the study examine some psychological factors as predictors of students" academic performance in some selected Polytechnics in North Eastern Nigeria. Quantitative approach with correlational research design were used in the study. A sample of 416 respondents were selected through stratified and simple random sampling techniques and questionnaire was used as instrument of data collection. Interdependence theory had been adopted as theoretical framework for the study. The results revealed that not all the predicting psychological factors (students" attitude towards lecturers, studentslecturer interaction and academic self-efficacy) are contributing to academic performance. But only students" attitudes towards lecturers and student"-lecturer interaction are the two main independent variables that predict academic performance. Furthermore, based on the stepwise multiple regression analysis attitude appeared as the strongest predictor of student academic performance with 86.3% of variance (R 2 = 0.863) towards students" academic performance for the total of 416 respondents in this study. Therefore, it can be concluded that only academic selfefficacy could not predict academic performance. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that future research on psychological factors should adopt qualitative or mixed method approach in order to have an in depth and comprehensive understanding of factors that are related to student academic performance in Nigerian Polytechnics, since the present study adopted quantitative method.