Descriptive Analysis of Student Academic Performance Data at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Understanding the factors associated with academic performance in Nigerian tertiary institutions is essential for designing support interventions that improve student outcomes and institutional effectiveness. This study conducted a descriptive analysis of undergraduate academic performance data at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, North West Nigeria. Anonymised GPA records of 2,400 undergraduate students across eight faculties for the 2019 to 2022 academic sessions were obtained from the university registry with institutional ethics approval. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, box plots, and correlation analysis were applied to explore associations between performance and variables including faculty, mode of entry, gender, year of study, and scholarship status. Science and Engineering faculty students demonstrated the lowest average CGPAs (2.87 out of 5.0), while Law and Social Sciences students performed consistently higher (3.41). Students admitted through unified tertiary examination outperformed direct-entry students by 0.24 CGPA points on average. Scholarship recipients demonstrated significantly higher performance across all faculties, with a mean difference of 0.39 CGPA points compared to non-recipients. Performance declined progressively from year one to year three before recovering in year four. Female students showed higher mean performance in Humanities but lower in Engineering faculties. Missing data in early academic session records affected completeness of historical analysis. Recommendations include faculty-specific academic support programmes, early identification of at-risk students using performance trend data, and standardised digital record systems to enable longitudinal data analysis across ABU academic sessions.

Keywords: student performance analysis, academic records, Ahmadu Bello University, descriptive statistics, GPA prediction