ABSTRACT
The study looked at the impact of family background on senior secondary school students’ academic progress at Babcock University High School in Ogun State.
The study’s goal was to compare academic performance in Senior Secondary Schools between students with a good family background and those with a bad family background.
All senior secondary school students in Babcock high school (SSS1-3) were included in the study, and 122 senior secondary school students were chosen using a simple random sample procedure.
The survey was completed by 100% of those who responded.
To extract information from the respondents, a well-designed questionnaire was used.
The data was examined using descriptive statistics, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to evaluate the stated hypotheses at the 0.05 percent level of significance.
According to the findings, parents’ educational level, occupation, family size, and level of motivation are critical family background characteristics that have a significant impact on adolescents’ academic achievement.
Furthermore, students from a stable family background perform better than their counterparts from less stable families.
Based on this, the study recommends that parents and teachers encourage, monitor, motivate, and support their children.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Education is the greatest gift a country can bestow on its population, particularly its children. This is because education is critical to every nation’s or community’s progress. Education is the process of passing on valuable information to society’s members. Okafor claims that (1981). Education encompasses all of an individual’s experiences that lead to the acquisition of information and the enlightenment of the intellect. According to Nwabachili and Egbue (1993), education is the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next. In this context, education refers to the process of socializing a kid so that he or she can grow up to be a contributing member of society through informal, formal, and non-formal means. Informal education is the process of learning about the surroundings and beyond through living with others. The child’s first social environment is his or her family. According to Clifford (1981), the child’s primary environment is his or her family. The author underlined that a child’s household environment has a greater impact on his or her intellectual development. Family, according to Akubue and Okolo (2008), is a tiny familial structure group with the primary role of natural socialization of newborns. Similarly, Okunniyi (2004) defines family as a primary social group consisting of parents, children, and possibly other household members. The term “family background” refers to all of the conditions and circumstances in a family that have an impact on a child’s physical, intellectual, and emotional development. Muola Muola Muola Muola Mu (2010). Children from various family origins are influenced differently by such familial problems, which is why some children are more affected than others.
As a result, formal education remains the vehicle for human growth, which must begin at home. Families are divided into several groups. Traditional families—where the father is the primary breadwinner and the mother stays at home to raise the children; divorced families—families that have been reconstituted following the dissolution of marriage; single parent families—mostly headed by women; step families—with new siblings and new parents resulting from remarriage.
A family can be classified as either extended or nuclear. Extended families are those in which a significant number of related relatives, as well as parents and children, reside in the same home. This is the type of family that is common in Africa. Families with a married pair are known as nuclear families.
Private individuals, the government, corporations, and religious organizations all have schools in various locations across Nigeria. As a result, the teaching and learning processes occur in a variety of settings.
Every school has a variety of facilities and classroom structures, each with a different level of efficiency. At the end of either their junior or senior secondary school education, all students are expected to take the same examination (Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination at junior level and Senior School Certificate Examination at senior level). Because the students were taught with a similar syllabus and curriculum, they should achieve uniform academic performance.
Families begin the educational process by meeting the child’s physical and psychological requirements. This backs up Maduewisi’s (1982) claim that a child’s intellectual ability is heavily influenced by his or her family’s, peer group’s, and school location experiences. She claimed that clever children from disadvantaged families may become boring as a result of their circumstances. She went on to say that mental and intellectual development are both influenced by mental development. This is in line with Hebb (1987), who stated that children’s natural potentials cannot be realized without a stimulating family environment since the child will not be able to achieve his or her full potential cognitively. The inference is that a child’s maximal performance will be enhanced by a stimulating family environment with intellectual potential and appropriate educational methods.
Durosaro Durosaro Durosaro Durosaro Durosaro Durosaro Du (1990) According to their findings, children from tiny households performed better in school than children from both average and large families. Yoloye (1989) also performed research to examine if family background characteristics could be helpful in explaining academic achievement. Family size and parents’ educational status are two components of family background characteristics considered in the study. According to his findings, polygamous family sizes, which are inherently high, lower the likelihood of children attending school in the first place. Furthermore, school-aged children from such environments have a lower chance of achieving their goals. Third, in comparison to other families, the parents of such households are typically illiterate and unable of providing enough encouragement for their children in school.
They couldn’t afford to provide them with many of the things that would help them make the most of their school years, such as educational aids, quiet comfortable rooms in which to do homework without being distracted by television, outings to interesting places, leisure lime pursuits, and travel opportunities. The fact that parents of large families were found not to talk with their children to the same level as parents of small families is most likely the most relevant finding, according to him.
The structure of the family is another facet of the family’s surroundings. A family is either shattered or entire structurally. In this case, a fractured family is one that is not structurally sound. Children in single-parent families may have psychological and social issues that impair their academic achievement. In their study, Danesy and Okedian (2002) lamented that street hawking among secondary school students has psychologically imposed other problems, such as sex networking behavior and juvenile delinquent behavior, which take up much of the student’s school time and result in poor academic performance and dropout syndrome. They also expressed concern that the deprivation of young pupils’ basic necessities by their mothers and fathers had contributed to their poor performance in public examinations such as the JSCE, WASSCE, and NECO. Similarly, (Okunniyi 2004) claimed that a child who suffers from maternal and paternal deprivation may have academic issues, including absenteeism in school. This is due to the fact that the child may be deficient in certain areas.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The majority of secondary school students in Nigeria are at greater risk of low academic performance in both internal and external assessments (WAEC and NECO). For example, WAEC result analysis from 2005 to 2011 shows a steady fall in students’ overall performance in school certificate tests.
Students’ low performance in school is blamed on the government, parents, instructors, and students. Teachers are blamed by parents for their lack of commitment to their responsibilities. Teachers blame the government for low pay, which makes them unmotivated; parents blame the government for not providing learning materials in schools; the government blames parents for not performing good homework; and kids are blamed for a lack of discipline and attention to their studies.
In view of the aforementioned concerns, the following outstanding and pertinent
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The study’s overall goal was to determine the impact of students’ familial backgrounds on academic achievement among senior secondary school students in Nsukka.
Zone of education
The study’s goal is to discover the following:
1.The impact of parental education on senior secondary school students’ academic achievement.
2. The impact of a parent’s occupation on a student’s academic performance
3.The impact of parental income on a student’s academic success
4.The impact of family size on academic achievement in students.
5.The impact of parental motivation on academic achievement of students.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research questions will be addressed by the study:
1. What effect does a parent’s degree of education have on a student’s academic performance?
2. What impact does a parent’s occupation have on a student’s academic performance?
3. What effect does a parent’s money have on a student’s academic performance?
4. How does the size of a family affect a student’s academic performance?
5.How does parental motivation affect a student’s academic performance?
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The findings of this study are noteworthy in theory because they can aid in the identification and explanation of various family background characteristics, as well as the impact of these variables on student academic attainment. This will aid in a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. Furthermore, the findings are likely to aid in explaining the functionality of Maslow’s motivational theory’s theoretical postulates. According to Maslow, motivation is critical in learning, and a motivated learner engages in intentional behavior aimed at reaching the desired outcome. When students’ physiological needs, such as shelter, food, drink, and rest, are met, as well as their safety needs, such as love and belonging, they are driven to learn. The satisfying of these wants leads to the search for greater needs.
The study’s findings will be extremely beneficial to teachers. Teachers will recognize the importance of individualizing their instruction by tailoring their teaching techniques and instructional resources to account for the students’ diverse family backgrounds. This strategy could produce better results than the standard system, which assumes that all children come from the same family. The study’s findings will also aid teachers in exercising tolerance with slow learners as they adjust their teaching approaches to fit differing family backgrounds.
Students will benefit greatly from the findings. Students, particularly those from low-status households, will discover that their poor performance is not always their responsibility. – Such knowledge will go a long way toward lowering costs.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Babcock University High School students are the only ones who are part of the study. The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of parental education, occupation, money, family size, and motivation on students’ academic attainment.
RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
The following hypotheses will lead the research and will be tested at a significance level of 0.05.
H01: The educational level of parents has no bearing on Babcock University High School students’ academic progress.
H02: Babcock University High School students’ academic achievement is unaffected by their parents’ occupation.
H03: The parental income level has no bearing on Babcock University High School students’ academic achievement.
H04: Babcock University High School students’ academic achievement is unaffected by their family size.
H05: The amount of motivation of parents has little bearing on their children’s academic progress at Babcock University High School.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
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