Influence of Single Parenting on the Academic Performance of Secondary School
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
The objective of this study were to examine the impact of single parenting on the academic performance of senior secondary school students in Government as a subject in Zaria Local Government ARea in Kaduna state. The study was carried out to achieve the following.
- To find out the extent to which income status of single parents influences the academic performance of students from such homes in
- To investigate the level at which educational attainment of single parents influenced their children’s/wards academic performance in
- To assess the level of students’ academic performance between those of single parents and two-parents.
- To identify if occupational status of single parenthood has an impact on children’s academic performance in schools.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Introduction
This chapter reviews all relevant literature of scholars relating to the present study. The literatures reviewed are as follows: concepts of family and single-parenting, causes of single parenting, factors that influence students’ performance of single parenting, effects of single parenting, challenges of single parenting on the society, empirical study and others. The above sub-themes shall be discussed in details relating to the central theme of the research work.
Conceptual Framework
Literarily, parenting connotes the care, responses, control which parents’ make on their children, in other words, the rearing/training which parents’ give to their children. It could be single male or female parenting depending on the type of family type. Single parenting is a product of marital separation with a deleterious effect on the child exemplified by fluctuation in parental attention and a weakening social bond. The situation is worst hit with a male dominated single parenting (Otite and Ogionwo, 1989). They argued that children who are reared under this type of condition rarely do well in school because of lack of care, love and attention that they received from their parenting father.
Most children who are reared by single male parents’ are reported to be having a weak academic records (Denga, 1983 and Kelly, 1991). In adducing reasons for such low achievement, they agreed that such children’s school progress is never monitored by the parent as well as their school attendance and out of school activities. Children from these homes been aware that their movement and activities are not being monitored and as such, get involved in anti-social behaviours like absenteeism, partying, truancy, hooliganism, etc which give no room for any good academic performance (Denga, 1983).
Investigating the causes of academic underachievement, Nye (1986) found a correlation between single parenting and local academic achievement. The study reported that children reared by single parenting lack the care, motivation that is essential to academic growth. In a related study, Ruther (1990) compared the academic achievement of children of both parenting and single parenting and found significant difference between the two groups. Craft (1981) sees single male parenting home as being hostile and high handedness breeding frustration and resignation of children academic endeavour.
Scroate, Cooper and Dehat (1996) observed that a lot of differences exist in behaviour between children brought up by one of the two parents’ and those brought up by both parents’. Female headed families are simply those families headed by mothers as single parents. These could be single unmarried mothers, divorced or separated and widows. Eshleman (1985) and Devall (1986) concluded that children from single female parent are likely to have good social adjustment, good self-esteem and intellectual development comparable to others in the same socio-economic status. However, the major problems in these types of families are stem from poverty and stigmatization. In Nigeria, the traditional belief was that having female headed families are forbidden and create unnecessary stigmatization from the societies. Also the negative effect of stigmatization is associated with lower self-esteem in such children at school and within their communities. Furstenbeg and Kusick (1993) observed that children born to teenage mothers seem to do their best academically if their mother finish high school, received adequate social and emotional support from others and reach high level of cognitive development.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter presented the methodology used in carrying out the research study. It specifically focused on the research design, population, sample and sampling techniques, description of instrument, validity of the instrument, pilot study, reliability of the instrument, procedure for data collection, methods of scoring and procedure for data analysis.
Research Design
The design used in this study is partly survey and quasi experimental research. This was so because the survey research allowed structured questionnaire to be used for data collection from the teachers while quasi experimental research design assisted the research study to investigate the result of students’ academic performance of both poor and wealthy single/ two- parents.
Both groups of students’ involved in this study comprised of those from the poor and wealthy single parents best classified as experimental and controlled groups and vice versa. The experimental groups has students from poor single parents are given treatment in the form of educational assistance in their studies because of their background while the controlled groups are not, since they are from wealthy single parents and vice versa.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
Introduction
This research work titled impact of single parental upbringing on the academic performance of senior secondary school students in Government as a subject in Zaria Local Government Area, sampled twelve (12) teachers’ and assessed the performance of Three Hundred and Twenty-Three (323) students in Government as a teaching subject. The analysis was presented in sections. Section one presented the bio-data variable distribution of the respondents’ opinion, section two answers three research questions as opinions to the items in the instruments, while section three tested the four (4) formulated null hypotheses. The fourth section presented the summary of the major findings. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. For clearer understanding, then information depicted on the bio-data tables represent teacher’s opinion, as it was well represented in the frequency count of twelve (12). See tables’ 4.2.1- 4.2.9 for details, that of achievement test as it was administered on the students can be traced to appendix F.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
This chapter presented the summary of the research work, conclusions and recommendations respectively. It also provides a general appraisal of what has been undertaken in the present research work from the other previous chapters.
Summary
This study examined the impact of single parental upbringing on the academic performance of senior secondary school students in Government as a teaching subject in Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The central focus of this study was to appraise how academic performances of students are influenced by parental upbringing. A number of literature work were reviewed in this research work, which sought to identify, understand and define the key items ranging from concept of single parenting ,causes of single parenting, factors that influences students academic performance, effect and challenges of single parenting on the society. Four (4) research questions and hypotheses each were formulated in this study.
The research method adopted for gathering information in this study was partly survey and partly quasi experimental research type. The population of this study covered all school teachers and students in the selected public and private secondary schools in Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The instruments used in this study were questionnaire and achievement tests for gathering information from the respondents which are teachers and students respectively.
The adopted researcher-designed questionnaire was tagged “Teachers” Questionnaire (TRSQ) while the achievement test meant for the second-tier level students of senior secondary schools was termed “Government Achievement Test” (GAT) respectively. The data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts and simple percentages for the bio-data sections of the teachers’ questionnaire, mean deviation for the research questions and inferential statistics like Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) statistical procedure for the four (4) null-hypotheses. The findings reported in this study are that there exist significant relationship between parental income and academic performance of students both from poor and wealthy single parental homes, Educational attainment of parents has significant impact on students academic performance, It also reported from the findings of the respondents that academic performance of students both from poor and wealthy single parental homes are influenced by the identified nature of parental homes.
Conclusions
Based on the findings of this study, it was deducted that the nature of single parental homes determine their wards academic performance in school. Academically, there are various variables that predict one’s performance in school subject. These could be those from the family and others from the teachers. However, since this study is concerned with the home factors. Such variables identified to have one impact or the other on the student’s academic performance is parental education, number of children in the home, parental occupation and income among others.
The fact established in this study has brought about the conclusion that more negative impact could super cede the positive ones on single parental upbringing on the student’s academic performance in government within the study area. The above mentioned variables would therefore determine to what extent the academic performance of students would be progressive or otherwise.
Recommendations
The following are the recommendations put forward as a result of the outcome of this study:
- The government should institute a special scholarship to assist students of poor single parents who are presently enrolled in school to caution the effect of their financial strength. To this end, modalities for accessing the fund should be establish by setting up a
- Stigmatization of single parents and their children should be discouraged forthwith by enacting all relevant laws.
- Parents should be way mindful of their children especially their education before contemplating divorce
- That society should promote her cultural values and assist the social institutions within its locality to orientate families on the benefits and odds of divorce especially as it affect students’ educational
- The Government should provide the necessary framework for curriculum experts to address the needs of students from divorce homes during the curriculum planning and development.
Suggestions for Further Studies
The following suggestions were put forward as a proposal for further research work. These include:
- Worried by the rampant cases of family separation round the world and Nigerian society in particular, the study is however, recommending an investigation into the remote causes of separation of homes from the view point of tradition and region
- Design of a work plan to address the prevalent cases of single parenting of homes for use as policy formulation in the country
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