A Study on the Influence of Socio-economic Status of Parents on the Academic Performance of Secondary School Students: a Case Study of Selected Secondary Schools in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of carrying out this study is to examine the influence of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of secondary school students and also to know the extent to which educational status of parents affect students’ academic performance. this is why the study is being carried out to suggest possible solutions that would help to solve the problems in the society.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The researcher will devote this chapter towards receiving the finding of the other writers and research work by other people related to influence of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of secondary schools and influences will be drawn from them. The researcher based his view mainly on the following sub sections.
Influence of parent’s occupation
Academic background of parents on their children’s performance in school
Family size and the influence of students’ academic performance
Socio-economic status of parents and its influence on the academic performance of their children
Family structure to academic performance of students.
The researcher elaborates these sub-sections one after the other as follows:
INFLUENCE OF PARENTS OCCUPATIONS
Many researchers have come out with the view that parent’s occupation influence students’ attitude toward academic exercise.
Juiian J. (1992) says that when writing on social problems, that the nature of the occupation of the parents (father) tends to affect students’ educational performance or attitude when she pointed out that in every aspect, the poor gets less education than the rich. The children of the rich are likely to spend few years in school, have less chance of graduating from higher institutions and are much less likely than the middle class children who go to higher institutions under their circumstance children of the poor are likely to be taught in overcrowded classroom and with little or no individual attention.
According to Swift “the occupation is responsible for its style. This in turn influences the potential adaptiveness of child to schooling”. Robbins revealed that the proportion of young people who enter full-time higher institution is 45% of those whose parents are in the higher professional class compared with only 40% for those whose parents have unskilled manual occupations.
Ehigie J.O. (2001) viewed occupation as the increase in upward mobility, which has been very largely to changes in the occupational structure that is, the expansion of white collar and professional occupation and the contested of manual, unskilled occupations. He also says that occupation that requires high level of education before entering the profession still on occupation. John O. Ehigie went further to say that due to technological development, the lower class of unskilled workers have less chance for upward mobility these days than 30 to 40 years ago in Nigeria. In this view to also discover that considerable portion of the working class have experienced downward social mobility as the need for their manual work has decreased in proportion to the sophistication of industrial complex.
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND OF PARENTS ON THEIR CHILDREN’S PERFORMANCE IN SCHOOL
The educational parent understands the intricacy in child development and is better placed to help the child positively.
Burt (1994) stated that in a well to do household where the father is educated, the mother is educated, the child will be given the right foundation. It is clear, that the educated parents often leave their children grounded in the home before starting the formal education.
Nor M. (2000) maintained that a similar position when he said that parents who showed disregard for education is bound to have some adverse effect upon his child’s educational progress. James U. (2002) in his own view examined that “educational level of the parents has an effect on the academic performance of students in class two but not in class five” he said that it indicate in the lower class that home influence on the students are important. He suggested that where there is close proximity between parents and their children, the level of parents’ education can directly affect students’ academic performance. This supports that family education has a positive contribution to academic performance of their children since it embraces the amount and nature of the formal education received by parents and the medium of communication at home a child performance in school.
Here we see that family with high educational level continue to assist their children in retaining or advancing beyond their present status by having them educated. Moreover, educated parents tend to have greater encouragement to their children to work well in school than less educated ones.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN
In this chapter, investigator will describe the procedures and strategies used in this study. These encompass the following
Design of the study
The study sample
Research instrument
Data analysis
DESIGN OF THE STUDY
This chapter is used to determine whether or not and to what degree a relationship exists between the socio-economic statuses of parents and the academic performance of students. Questionnaires were designed to obtain information with respect to socio-economic status of parents and academic performance of the respondents. The respondents for this study consists of sixty students drawn from five secondary schools in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo state, and equal number of students were chosen from each school of which twelve students were randomly selected.
THE STUDY SAMPLE
Five secondary schools were randomly selected from all the secondary schools in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo state. The schools chosen for the purpose of this study are:
Emotan College
Ihogbe College
Akenzua College
Idia College
Emokpae College
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
The instrument that will be used is the questionnaire. The questionnaires which were carefully designed to investigate the influence of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of students in Oredo Local Government Area of Edo state. The questionnaires were designed in such a way as to reflect The socio-economic status of parents, The nature of parents’ occupation, The educational status of parents and their attitudes towards the education of their children, The students’ living condition and size of the family, The general performance of students based on above average performance
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA
This chapter is concerned with the analysis and data which were collected from the respondents during the investigation. The data were use3d to find answers to the research questions used for this study. The responses of the students to the questions were tallied and the number and percentage calculated to test the hypothesis. These are shown below. This was done in order to provide answers to the research questions with the information obtained from the students’ various tables were designed or summarize to analyze the finding surrounding the proposed research questions.
The first hypothesis states that “is there a relationship between the facilities provided at the student’s home and parental encouragement” and those who do not have facilities in their homes or receive encouragement. Facilities in the home helps to educate students just as parents’ attitude towards education help encourage students.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY
The investigation was undertaken to find the influence of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of students In Oredo Local Government Area of Edo state. The investigation was limited to three selected secondary schools in the area.
In the literature review, it was observed that occupation and parental interest affect a child’s academic performance either positively or negatively and the educational background of parents also influence on the performance of students. The facilities and parental encouragement influence the academic performance of students too. The size of the students’ family equally has a significant effect on the students’ performance at school. These factors have both positive and negative effects on the students’ performance.
Questionnaires were designed to elicit information which will serve as the basis for an empirical assessment of the various research of the exercise. The students whose results were obtained were assigned to three academic performance groups depending on the grades. These grades were obtained by finding out the percentage of the average total scores got in their first, second and third term in their previous classes. Those who scored 60% were assigned (above average), those who scored 40-50% were assigned (average) and those who scored 40% and below were assigned (below average).
A sample percentage was used for the analysis of the data supplied in the questionnaire. The responses to the students to the term in the questionnaire were coded and analyzed in the tables.
CONCLUSION
This research was set out to examine the influence of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of students in secondary schools. The questions designed test the hypothesis were based on parents educational background, socio-economic status of parents, family size and structure, and parental occupation. The result shows that all the factors investigated have impact on the academic performance of secondary school students in the school and they were made to improve the academic performance on the affected students.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Having identified the socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of secondary school students, the researcher made the following recommendations.
- The government should try to incorporate parents into educational planning curriculum construction committees to take into consideration the input needed to improve the students’ academic performance in schools. The head of schools should make sure Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings are regular and the problems affecting the students should be discussed so as to improve the academic performance of the child in school.
- The government should also try to encourage adult education in rural area, because of the bulk of illiterate parents who lived in the villages.
- Guidance and counselling programmes should be introduced and enforced in all schools to give necessary advice to the students on how to strive hard for academic excellence.
- The society should promote small size type family. This will regulate the number of children produced in the family. It will also enable the parents to concentrate on the few children they have and cater well for them academically.
- Finally, teachers should be encouraged to go to service training to improve on their method of teaching and update their knowledge because teachers play important roles in the educational ambition of the child.
REFERENCES
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- Burt C.C. (1994): The backward child London, published by university press Ltd.
- Douglas J.B. (2000): the home and the school. Bosten, published by George Allen and Unwin press.
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