Effect of Broken Homes on Academic Performance of Secondary School Students in Nigeria
Chapter One
Objective of the Study
The main objective of this research work includes the following.To assess the impact or effect of broken homes influence on secondary schools students in Nigeria.
To find out the causes of broken homes and the solution in Nigeria.
To seek for solution for widespread divorce among couples.
To find out how absence of one or both parent influence secondary schools students academic performances in school.
To suggest ways of women and men unnecessary divorce
CHAPTER TWO
Literature Review
INTRODUCTION
Children are totally dependent, they move from dependence towards independence throughout childhood, in order to survive and develop during this period of dependence, they need care, security, protection, stimulation and social contact. In most societies at most time in history children have most commonly nurtured and cared for within families. Stability of the home is therefore of greatest significance to child’s development. However, broken homes on the other hand are experienced to be stressful by children they feel sense of loss, even blame themselves, when home is not stable or broken down, their children are reported to be suspicious, timid, anxious, introverted and they may not be able to cope with live in the school.
THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND NATURE OF BROKEN HOME
The scope and nature of broken home became of central part of many human personality theories and basis of numerous programme in education. Attempts therefore have been made to know what is broken home and lately its nature and scope.
According to Homeby (2005), broken home is a home in which the parent are separated or divorce or are no more together as a result of death. Children from such homes lack proper care and security.
In Lovell (2003), opined that families’ split by death, desertion, and divorce or prolong absence. In assessing the above definition such as a situation (broken home can result to poor academic performance in secondary school as once child misses such opportunities of guide, securities affection and assistant where necessary.)
BROKEN HOMES AND IT’S RELATION TO ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE.
The latest, most methodologically sound studies on the effect of divorce or children demonstrate that many children emerge from the period of transition following divorce. Psychologically health and perhaps even stronger, more independent and excellent having successfully mastered the challenges associated with divorces. The new findings are welcome respite to the former dooms day forecasts, that significantly affect the way we perceived children of divorced homes.
A more have been investigated into the relationship between broken homes and academic achievement. Duncan (2001) started that the relationship between home variable and academic performance are positive but the broken home has made it negative. However the existence of the negative relationship between broken home achievement cannot generally tell us very much of the nature of the casual relationships, that exist between the variables.
Further investigation and understanding of parent show that parent have no time for their children, the indulse in them bad behavior like, stealing and alcoholism e.t.c. Nell& Nell (2007). For instance, students that find themselves being brought up in a single parental family is likely to be increase in financial hardship. All these will mean in the school, the student may have to withdraw due to non payment of school fees or in case when he is not withdraw, he may not be able to catch up with his mates
Fosukun (2000), argued that serious conflict will arises between the home and school with this category of children lack motivation, the parent are unable or refused to provide the basis needs of the children, subsequently their academic performance will be adversely affected. Boy (2004), on the outcome of the divorces for children series to indicate that conflict between parents has a greater impacts on school behaviors, grade and self-concept, irrespective fighting violet behavior or physical or vertical abuse between many spouses.
When a home becomes broken it implies that either one parent is absent leaving the child in the care of a guardian, absence of such parent could be caused by divorce or death.
According to Rohner et al (2008), body contact is the most important requirement for the infant attachment to wrath and has adverse effect on the intelligence and creativity of the student to them, a student from such home will face a problem of learning, disability, aggressive and unable to obey school rules. Similarly, Harlaw and Harlow (1963), found that the children separated from their mother can lead to psychological problem anxiety state, depressure, illness which in turn affect the learning and interaction ability of the student in the school. Many children from broken homes often feel inferior to others sometime people around.
IMICATION OF BROKEN HOME ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
Fantanhy et al (2006), stress both parent express concern about their relation with their children and their competence as parent. However, in general none custodian parent whether, they are mother or fathers experience lesser stress to today student rearing but feel more dissatisfied, deficiently, powerless and shut in their relation with their children. On the side of student from divorce family it should be noted that in every home the parent/student relationship is based on acceptance. It based on hostility the student would welcome the separation and prefer to live with the parent whom he or she like most, the student will only develop emotional feeling, if a separation through the concept of law and the decision is such that the student handed to be appropriate manner of one of the parent least preferred. The choice or custody can adversely affect his school performance; certainly parents are not very responsible and in most cases fail in their parental obligations. For example some father are always afraid to carryout their fatherly functions. The same applied to certain mothers who fail to provide warmth affection that are necessary for the student proper development.
Asaju (2002) suggested that to avoid the non-win pain of custody flight more and more parent are tuning to join custody, equal responsibility in caring for their children. The process seems to work well except for one confusion that the student did not sure where he live. Experience has showed too that, some parents are not tolerant of others the custodian parent goes as far as barring the other parent from seeing the children. The carried parent will then resort to seeing the children secretly. Each of the parent will not speak well of the other and they may resort for using the children as tool for blackmail of the other. A student under such atmosphere is clouded with fears, lack love and sense of direction. In the classroom the academic performance of such student bound to be drastically affected as he lives in the world of confusion and receive no moral backing from home. The strong arguments against divorce are frequently made of no behalf of the children of the divorce parents. It has been believed that children are damage by the divorce of their parents and that predisposes them to delinquently and emotional maladjustment. A number of studies like Udry (2002), and Frude (2003), show that when children from broken homes are compared with children from unbroken homes the latter are better adjusted and have better relationship with their parents. However, in marriage where the father has been distant, uninvolved and non supportive, there may be little lose and much to gain from opportunities from new relationship self sufficiency and relief conflict. From the evidence available it can no longer be maintained that divorce is entirely detrimental children. It may be said that marital conflict and disruptions are disturbing to children and disorganized their lives. If divorce recovered the source of the conflict the divorce is better for the children than living in conflict. In the case of death being casual factors of broken homes the situation appears to be different from that of the father fact in fostering the student development is to provide the student with a second adult model so that the body can identified with a number of his own sex and about the behavior and attitude of the opposite sex.
The impact of parental conflict on children’s post-divorce adjustment has received considerable attention in literature. Most theorists agree that parental conflict, at the very least, provides some negative influences for children’s adjustment to the divorce (Grych & Fincham, 2002).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction.
This research work is to study the effect of broken home on secondary school student in Nigeria. Though the research topic was found in existence in Nigeria. It is not possible for this research to cover all such area. This is because the researchers cannot obtain data from all places concerned due to the lack of time and resources (both human and material resources).
The research will be limited to only Esan West Local government area of Edo State for sample.
The research primarily aimed at investigating the possible causes of high rate of divorce among couples as it affects achievement of secondary school students and to assess the various ways broken homes influence student’s academic performances in schools. This in view to recommend measures of controlling couples from unnecessary divorce for students’ better performance in schools.
This chapter consists the following sub-headings which includes
- Research design
- Population of the study
- Sample and sampling techniques
- Instrumentation for data collection
- Validity of instrument
- Reliability of instrument
- Method of data collection
- Method of data analysi
- RESEARCH DESIGN
This research study is a descriptive type; it is design to find the effect of broken homes on academic performance of secondary school students in Nigeria. The researcher(s) will sort the opinion of respondents with the aid of questionnaires which are based on certain variables such as ages, marital status, and class. Due to limitation in resources (time and money) the researcher(s) cannot visit all the schools in Esan West local government and therefore will concentrate on some sample parts.
POPULATION OF THE STUDY
The population of this study includes all of the married people, parents, teachers and school students of Esan West local government area of Edo state.The researcher(s) hope to visit if not all but most of the secondary schools in Esan West local government and out of the school visited only ten will be selected. The selection of the school will be based on spatial location, size of the classes, type and nature of the school system i.e. either day or boarding, mixed sexes or single etc.The schools to be selected will represent the whole secondary schools in Esan West local government area of Edo state.
CHAPTER FOUR
Data presentation and Analysis
This chapter is presentation of data, information collected from the questionnaire issued to the respondent; it will be presented and analyzed through frequency table.
The instrument for data collection was a 20- items questionnaire made up of two sections, section ‘A’ was based on the personal data of the respondents while section ‘B’ addressed the research questions on the questionnaire title ”the effect of broken homes on the academic performance of secondary school student in Nigeria”(EBHAPSSSN). Four scale will be used and the weighting will be Strongly Agree(SA)= 4, Agree(A) = 3, Strongly Disagree(SD) = 2, Disagree(D)=1. The average of the point will be (4+3+2+1) = 10/4= 2.5
However, a total of two hundred questionnaires were distributed to students, teachers of ten selected secondary schools in Esan west local government area of Edo State as well as teachers. The researchers distributed the questionnaires at twenty (20) per schools. The researchers reached the schools and areas and collected the filled questionnaires from the respondents. Moreover, for the purpose of this research the analysis aimed at by the researchers, that is analysis base on the statistical table and analysis of the promotional will no longer be adopted. This was a result of inability of the researchers to the promotion result examination for the fact that the number of student living with their parent supersedes the one from single home.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
This chapter is the conclusion part of the research work titled “ The Effect of Broken Homes on Academic Performance of secondary school Students in Nigeria ”. The research which have looked into the rate at which students from broken homes and those from stable homes differ in their academic achievement.The issue of broken home has sparked a lot of debate as to what causes broken home, how it can be minimized and also who those are at disadvantage the parents (Fathers or Mothers) or the children. Despite the facts that broken homes is everywhere, but it is more common in the northern part of the country where a lot of mothers have left their matrimonial homes as a result of one problem or the other and in the course of doing that their children is being taken care of by a new mother or none at the end of the day. It is in view of these that this research looked in to the causes of broken homes, the effect of broken homes on the academic performances of secondary school students and the possible solutions to broken homes in Nigeria
Summary of Findings
The present empirical survey has thrown some light on the issue of broken homes versus academic performance of secondary school student in Nigeria, the relationship between school and the home in term of students’ progress in learning. How much the home affects the students with regard to whether broken or stable homes. The research work was also able to find out there are less number of broken marriages in the area of study as the research include 36% married people, 13% of respondent were not living together and 50% are still single.
However, the students from this area were not seriously affected especially in areas of their educations, love and affection as proved by the adopted instrument. It has also been reached that broken home is been caused by lack of understanding among couples as it was clearly indicated by the TABLE IV, were the mean at which broken home occur happen to be 3.05 which is above average mean used by researchers, though broken home can be caused by other factors too, but the research have shown that most of the broken homes in Nigeria are resulted from lack of understanding among couples. It has also been observed that the wide speed of divorce among the people of community have impact on the students in the area as presented in table XIV. Moreover, broken homes is said to have effect on secondary school students performance in Nigeria as this is inline with the analysis of TABLE III which presented majority of respondent response to Strong Agreed to “broken home have any effect on secondary school student achievement.
Finally, result shows that from the instrument adopted for this research that in fact there is significant effect on secondary school student in term of broken home
CONCLUSION
Base on the survey carried out, the result of the analysis and summary, it can be concluded that. On the whole there is no significant different in academic performances of secondary school students from broken homes and those from stable homes. If opportune to be placed under same condition, home background as well shown love and affection by their parents (Fathers and Mothers) they can perform well if not even better than those from a stable home. This study also shows clearly that parental separation can produce a stressful life transition for students. Parental separation poses specific adaptive difficulties for many student of secondary school who experienced it.
RECOMMENDATION
On the bases of the result obtained in the research and the literature reviewed in the work, the following are recommended.
- The home play vital role in child up bringing so parents should endeavor to stay in their matrimonial home to ensure good welfare of their children.
- Couples should do everything possible to understand one another and also show love and caring to their counterparts.
- Secondary school students regardless of their background can do better in school, so children should be encourage right from their homes as it goes along way in helping them achieve in school.
- Secondary school students from broken homes should be given educational career guidance.
- Parents should endeavor to develop good relationship with their children even after separation.
- Spouse should lower their expectations towards their marriage partners.
- Friends and relatives should not interfere in their kins /friends matrimonial affair, and also early and forceful marriage should be avoided as the need for couples to know and love one another cannot be over emphasized.
- Women should have good knowledge of house keeping either educated or not.
- Parents should try to always meet the needs of their children as it aids their learning abilities
- Government should introduce programme that will foster harmony in matrimonial home and in the society.
RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY
The following points may be put into consideration by anybody who wish to conduct research in this area that is “the effect of broken homes on academic performance of Secondary school students in Nigeria ” in future.
- The researcher(s) may consider using the marks obtained by Secondary school students in examination as this can be used for Statistical analysis, for a more fairly accurate result.
- The researcher(s) should have more time enough to enable them collect the relevant data recommended above.
- Questionnaires should be used to seek information on the student’s background, school facilities and variables that are known to affect the academic achievement of Secondary school students.
- The researcher(s) may consider using examination result of senior secondary certificate examination (S.S.C.E) as this will enable the Researcher to judge the students accordingly.
- The researcher(s) may also consider using population of students in higher institutions to see the number of Secondary school students from broken homes that further their studies and how they cope with the society as grown up children in the polytechnics, colleges of education and universities.
REFERENCEs
- AGBO J.A. (1997) in SALAMI, S.O. and ALAWODE, E.A. (1998). “Influence of Single-Parenting on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents in Secondary Schools: Implications for Counseling. Effect of delinquent on academic achievements of primary six pupils in army children’s school Aware. The Nigerian Teacher Today (TNTT)”, A Journal of Teacher Education 5(1&21;96-105).
- AGULANNA (1999) in UWAIFO, V.O. (2008). “The Effects of Family Structure and Parenthood on the Academic Performance of Nigerian University Students”, Stud Home Comm Sci, 2(2): 121-124 (2008).
- AJILA and OLUTOLA (2007) in UWAIFO, V.O. (2008). “The Effects of Family Structure and Parenthood on the Academic Performance of Nigerian University Students”, Stud Home Comm Sci, 2(2): 121-124 (2008).
- AMATO, P.R. (1991). “Parental Absence during Childhood and Depression in Later Life”, The Sociological Quarterly, 32(4), 543-556.
- AMATO, P.R. (1997). “Children’s Reactions to Parental Separation and Divorce: The views of Children and Custodial Mothers”, Australian Journal of Social, Issues 22(4), 610-623.
