Influence Of Student Support Services On Students’ Academic Performance
[A CASE STUDY OF COLLEGE OF EDUCATION IKERE EKITI, EKITI STATE]

CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODS
    This chapter is concerned with description of the procedures used in the conduct of the study. These are the research design, sample and sampling techniques, research instrument, validity and reliability of the instrument, procedure for data collection  and method of data analysis.
Research Design
    The research design is basically a descriptive correlation survey type. Adewale (2004) stated that descriptive correlation research is an approach that search for relationships on the basis of which prediction are based. The researcher focuses on the collection of information from a representative sample in which inferences are drawn on the opinion of the targeted population.
    Using this research design, it is possible for the researcher to measure the relationship between student support services (the independent variable) on students’ academic performance (dependent variable).
 
Population, Sample and Sampling Techniques
    The population of this study were the entire students of  College of Education Ikere-Ekiti.The present population of the school stand at seven thousand eight hundred and twenty five (7825).
 However, two departments will be purposively selected from each faculties in the institution, and the institution has five faculties.  The faculties are:
●  Faculty of Science
●  Faculty of Arts
●  Faculty of Vocational Studies
●  Faculty of Education
●  Faculty of Social Science
 Furthermore, twenty (20) respondents will be purposivelly selected from each departments; making 200 respondents that will be as sample through purposive sampling technique. Hence, sample is a small amount of something that gives you information about the thing it was taken from, and sample technique is concerned with the method of choosing a subset of individuals from a statistical population, while purposive samling is a sampling technique in which researcher  relies on his or her own judgement when choosing members of population to participate in the study.  
This subject have been defined by many authors including Kuzel,(1992) and Palys.T, (2008).
    Therefore, purposive  sampling technique will be used to select the 200 respondents from each departments.
Research Instrument
    The research instruments that will be used for this study will be questionnaires. The questionnaires will be tagged “Student Support Services Questionnaire” (SSSQ). The questionnaires will be divided into two parts. Part A will relate to the demographic characteristic of the respondents such as sex, department, level and so on, while part B will also relate to items that will be designed to evaluate the response and feelings of the students about the student support services provided  in the College.