Classroom Factors and their Effect on Secondary School Students’ Academic Achievement in English Language in the Buea Municipality, South West Region of Cameroon

The study sought to investigate the extent to which classroom factors affect secondary school students’ academic achievement in English Language in the Buea Municipality, South West Region of Cameroon. The study employed a convergent parallel design. The target population was made up of 37 schools (public, confessional and lay private) with 18,365 students targeted and 215 teachers targeted making a total of 18, 580 targeted respondents. The accessible population was made up of 1, 380 students and 103 teachers from 8 selected secondary schools with a total of 1,483 accessible respondents. Multi-stage sampling procedures which respectively included stratified, simple random and purposive sampling procedures was used to select a sample of 295 students and 8 teachers from selected public, confessional and lay private secondary schools in the Buea Municipality. The instruments used for data collection were a questionnaire and an observation schedule. They were validated by triangulation and the overall index value was 0.83 and a reliability coefficient of 0.895. Quantitative data were analysed using both the descriptive and inferential statistics while qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis approach. Students’ achievement in English Language was measured through their skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, as well as through students’ scores from the regional mock exams of 2022. Findings revealed that instructional materials, teaching methods, class size and teacher-students’ interaction as constructs of classroom factors have a significant effect on students’ academic achievement in English Language as they greatly (more than 50%) affect students’ academic achievement in English Language in the Buea Municipality, South West Region of Cameroon. Interventions to help improve classroom factors were recommended among which are that there is need for resource centers and English laboratories to be instituted in schools to serve as reservoirs of those instructional materials that would be used to facilitate teaching and learning in English Language, teachers should make use of innovative teaching techniques like discussion, dramatisation and debates which will make their teachings highly effective, more classrooms should be constructed to reduce overpopulated classes and personal involvement of low achievers should be enhanced through better inter-personal relationship and teacher’s special attention. Thus, improving students’ achievement in English Language.