Abstract
The study investigated the relationship between self-concept, test-anxiety and academic performance of students in Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto State, Nigeria; its implications for counselling. Three research questions and hypotheses were formulated to guide the study Research design adopted for this study was the correlational type. The population of the study comprised all National Certificate of Education (NCE II) students in the College numbering 4,435. A purposive sampling technique was used to select 4 schools out of 6 schools of academic programmes in the College. Research Advisors (2007) Table for determining sample size from a given population was used to select the sample of 351 respondents. Similarly, proportionate sampling technique was used to determine the proportion of the respondents from the sample due to the disparity of the figure in each school. Random sampling technique was used in selecting the respondents for the Study. Three (3) research instruments were used: - Adapted vision of Adolescent Personal Data Inventory to measure selfconcept with reliability index of 0.75, Adapted vision of Test-anxiety Inventory to measure students’ test-anxiety with reliability index of 0.65 and Academic Performance Test in Education core courses to measure students’ academic performance with reliability index of 0.72.Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and Multiple Regression Analysis was used in analyzing the data for the study. Findings of the study among others are: - there was significant relationship between self-concept and academic performance while test anxiety was found to be not significantly related to students’ academic performance. One of the counselling implications was that, as high self-concept is valued in the study, students with high self-concept should be encouraged to maintain their perception and low self-concept students to be encouraged to develop high self-concept. The recommendations are that, guidance and counseling offices should be made to improve the self-concept of students through modeling, mentoring and behavioural modification , especially students that were found to have low self-concept related to their academic performance and early intervention and proactive prevention programs that could help in reducing anxiety and nervousness in students that could create a high test or examination be develop and implement by Planners, Lecturers and Counsellors.