Economic State of Parents and Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students in Nigeria
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To find out the effect of parental financial status on students’ academic performance.
- To determine the effect of the educational status of the parent on academic performance
- To determine the impact of educational qualification on students’ academic performance
- To find out if there is any link between the statuses of students and academic performance.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Poor academic performance according to Aremu and Sokan (2003) is a performance that is adjudged by the examinee/testee and some other significant as falling below an expected standard. Poor academic performance has been observed in school subjects especially Mathematics and English language among secondary school students (Adesemowo, 2005). Aremu (2000) stresses that academic failure is not only frustrating to the students and the parents, its effect are equally grave on the society in terms of dearth of manpower in all spheres of the economy and politics. Education of secondary school level is supposed to be the bedrock and the foundation towards higher knowledge in tertiary institutions. It is an investment as well as an instrument that can be used to achieve a more rapid economic, social, political, technological, scientific and cultural development in the country. The National Policy on Education (2004) stipulated that secondary education is an instrument for national development that fosters the worth and development of the individual for further education and development, general development of the society and equality of educational opportunities to all Nigerian children, irrespective of any real or marginal disabilities. In most African countries and western world, economic status of a family is usually linked with the family’s income, parents’ educational level, parents’ occupation and social status among the kiths and kin and even at the global level. Ford and Harris (1997) followed this logic while examining parental influences on African American students’ school environment by focusing on specific sociodemographic factors, including parents’ level of education, marital status, and family income. It is generally believed that children from high and middle economic status parents are better exposed to a learning environment at home because of provision and availability of extra learning facilities. The use of data about family possessions may be thought to be connected to economic status, students who used a computer both at home and at school achieved a significantly higher science score than those who only used a computer at school (Thompson and Fleming, 2003). Children from low socio-economic status parent do not have access to extra learning facilities; hence, the opportunity to get to the top of their educational ladder may not be very easy. Drummond and Stipek (2004) while discussing the “low-income parents” beliefs about their role in children’s academic learning mentioned that a few of these parents indicated that a few of these parents indicated that their responsibilities were limited to meeting children’s basic and social/emotional needs, such as providing clothing, emotional support and socializing manners. So these parent’s shortsightedness towards their responsibilities in the educational processes of their children and scarcity of fund to intensity such processes could be a challenge to their children’s success. In and of themselves such socio-demographic variables do not fully account for the academic successes or failure of minority students (Smith, Schneider and Ruck, 2005). Low economic status children are often left home to fend for themselves and their younger siblings, while their caregiver work long hours; compared with their well-off peers, they spend less time playing outdoors and more time watching television and are less likely to participate in afterschool activities (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Unfortunately, children would not get the model for how to develop proper emotions or respond appropriately to others from watching cartoons; they need warm, person-to-person interactions.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to economic state of parents and academic achievement of secondary school students in Nigeria
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on economic state of parents and academic achievement of secondary school students in Nigeria. 200 staff of selected secondary schools in Oredo local government of Edo state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on economic state of parents and academic achievement of secondary school students in Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of economic state of parents and academic achievement of secondary school students in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on economic state of parents and academic achievement of secondary school students in Nigeria. Four objectives were raised which included: To find out the effect of parental financial status on students’ academic performance, to determine the effect of educational status of the parent on academic performance, to determine the impact of educational qualification on students’ academic performance, to find out if there is any link between statuses of students and the academic performance. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of selected secondary schools in Oredo local government in Edo state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made cyber principals, vice principals administration, senior staffs and junior staffs were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
CONCLUSION
It can be reasonably inferred that socio-economic and education background of parents in this research setting is not significant factors in students’ academic performance. However, educational qualification of parent and health status of students are significant factors that affect the academic performance of students
Recommendation
- Social and economic policies should be put in place to enable children from parents of low economic status to have equal opportunity of advancing the cause of education their children.
- Health care services for lower class children should be made to narrow the gap of inequality in Nigerians and hence the attendant effects on the coming generation.
- Parents who are not educated or has low educational qualification should Endeavour to allow their children to attend remedial summer coaching provided by non-governmental organization during holidays to supplement the regular school programmed.
- The need for the intake of balanced diet should be emphasized. The government can do a lot in this regard by providing mid-day fortified meal for the school – age children.
References
- Adewale, A. M. (200). Implication of parasitic infections on school performance among school-age children, Ilorin journal of science education. Vol. 2pp. 78-81.
- Craig, T.N. and Ronald, C.J. (2003). Socio-economic status does not moderate the faciliarity of cognitive abilities in Hawaii family study of cognition. Jul. 2007.
- Eze, O.M. (2002). The effects of parental economic status and pupil sex on school achievement in English language. Journal of vocational and Technical Education in Nigeria. A.B.U. Zaria. Vol. 3 No. 3 pp. 27.
- Guerin, N. Reinberg, A. Testu, F. Boulenguiez, S. Mechkouri, M. and Touitou, Y. (2001). Role of School schedule, age and parental socio-economic status on sleep duration and sleepiness of Parisian children, Chronobio, Int. 2001, 18(6): 1005-17. Hill, N.E. Castelino, O.R.
- Lansford, J.E. Nowlin, E., Dodge, P. Bates, K.A. and Pettit, G.S. (2004). Parents academic involvement as related to school behaviour, achievement and aspiration: Demographic variations across adolescence Child development (2004) Vol. 75 No. 5, pp. 1491- 1509.
- Laosa, L.M. (2005). Effects of preschool on educational achievement NEER working paper pp. 1-14.
- Machebe, C.H (2012). Influence of parental socio-economic status on students’ academic achievement in secondary schools in Ezeagu L.G.A. of Enugu State. (an unpublished thesis in the department of Educational Foundations University of Nigeria Nsukka)
- Muhamed, F.J. and Muhamed A.K. (2010). Impact of parental socio-economic status on students’ Educational achievements at secondary schools of District Malir, Karachi Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 6(6): 678-687, 2000.
- Omoegun, M. (2007). Effect of parental socio-economic status on parental care and social adjustment in the UBE programme in Lagos State. Implication for counseling international journal of Educational. Research vol. 3(2) 2007 pp. 81-87.
