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Abstract

The study investigated the influence of physical facilities on academic performance of community secondary schools students' in the form four national examinations in Longido District, Tanzania. The study was guided by one research question aimed at finding out how physical facilities influence academic performance of community secondary school students in form four national examinations. Social Learning Theory developed by Psychologist Albert Bandura in 1977 guided the study. Convergent design under mixed research method was adopted whereby probability and nonprobability sampling were used in selecting respondents. The target population for this study included 9 community secondary schools,9 heads of community secondary schools, 283 teachers and 1545 form four students in Longido District, Tanzania. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to obtain 4 schools, 32 teachers and 160 form four students where by 4 heads of community secondary schools were directly included from the study which make total of 196 respondents. Questionnaires, interview guides and document analysis guide were used to collect data from respondents. Cronbach Alpha was used to obtain reliability of quantitative data (r=0.78 for teachers' questionnaire and r=0.62 for students' questionnaire) While member checking and triangulation were used to obtain reliability of qualitative data. Quantitative data was analyzed and presented by using frequencies, percentages, means and tables while qualitative data were analyzed into words and developing themes from the research questions and presented in summaries and direct quotations. The study found out that shortage of school physical facilities like classrooms, dormitories, libraries, laboratories, dining halls and teaching and learning materials like books, chalks, manilas, laboratory apparatus and others influence poor academic performance of students. The study concluded that insufficient or sometimes absent of school physical facilities, had negative influence on students academic performance of form four students in national examinations in Longido District. The study recommends that government and all stakeholders to work together and collaborate in order to construct and provide school physical facilities in order to solve the problem of poor academic performance of students in examinations.