Abstract:
Although, healthy dietary practices have been identified as very important predictor of
children and adolescent’s development however, what continues to remain a puzzle in
this discussion is how the continuous consumption of healthy breakfast contributes to
student academic performance. This study investigated how breakfast intake influence
student’s academic performance at the secondary school level. Specifically, the main
objectives of the study were; to examine breakfast consumption habits of Ghanaian
second cycle school students, to investigate the specific factors that lead to student’s
breakfast skipping behaviours, to explore how the consumption of breakfast affect
students’ academic performance and lastly to compare student’s academic
achievement between breakfast skippers and breakfast takers. The study population
came from all the second cycle schools within the Ashanti Region hence, 50 of these
schools within the region were targeted. The study employed a cross-sectional design
hence, distributed questionnaire to collect specific information on the students’
breakfast consumption patterns. Again, the academic scores of the respondents on all
the core subjects; core mathematics, English language, social studies and integrated
science were used as the proxy to assess the sample academic performance. The study
employed SPSS tool to analyse the study data on the basis of descriptive (i.e.
frequency and percentages) and inferential analysis (probit regression analysis).
Results from the study revealed that taking breakfast did not only improve the
participants exams score in all the core subjects; core mathematics, English language,
social studies and integrated science but it equally reduce the failing rate of breakfast
takers. Again, it was established that most of the respondents skipped their breakfast
mainly because they dislike most of the meals served to them as breakfast. Since,
taking breakfast on a regular basis has been found to have a positive influence on
University of Education, Winneba http://ir.uew.edu.gh
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students’ academic performance, it equally becomes prudent to have a variety in the
meals served to the students or if possible take feedback from the students with
regards to the meals they will prefer to be served to them as their breakfast since this
approach can in any way increase the students intake of breakfast.
Description:
A Thesis in the Department of HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM EDUCATION,
Faculty of VOCATIONAL STUDIES EDUCATION, submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies, University of Education, Winneba, in Partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the award of Master of Philosophy
(Catering and Hospitality) degree
NOVEMBER, 2020