Impact of Family Factors and Academic Performance of Students in Economics

Impact of Family Factors and Academic Performance of Students in Economics

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

The family is the child’s first place of contact with the world. The child as a result acquires initial education and socialization from the present and other significant persons in the family (Maingi-lore, 2016). The family is where every child is born and makes their first interactions. These interactions can contribute to the child permanently. The destiny of mankind depends on the child and the welfare of the child is closely linked to the family in terms of the innate tendencies drawn from the genetic transcription and the family environment.

Family factors in this context such as parents’ educational attainment, parent income level, and level of social class placement are those factors that vary from one family to another. Other include; the occupation of parents and family type such as broken family, single parenting, etc. the psychological family conditional arises mainly from illegitimacy of students, the label of an adopted child, broken family, divorce, and parental deviation and such abnormal effects may affect the academic performance of the child.

According to Sam (2018), if students from families with unstable and low socio-economic status background are compared with those from rich and stable backgrounds, it would be observed that those from rich and stable backgrounds perform academically better than those from poor and unstable backgrounds who may be experiencing social, emotional and psychological problems. Parents are probably the actions with the dearest undimensioned interest in a high level of their student’s academic performance. To some extent, Nawaz, Mehnaz, Begum, and Imad (2019) posited that there is simple evidence to show that mental instability which is one of the effects of family factors brings about stress, tension, lack of motivation, and frustration among adolescents.

Obviously, these manifestation acts in negatively on a child’s academic performance in school. Students of unmarried parents, separated families, poor socio-economic status, low educational attainment amongst others, often fail and are at risk emotionally and academically. However, this may not be completely applicable in all instances of poor family background or structure as students from this background may work hard through the influence of the school environment and become successful academically.

Parental educational status refers to the level at which the father and mother attain education and it is the qualification of the parents (father and mother). Some parents are formally educated which means they have formal education while some parents are not formally educated. Formal education involves education carried out in schools while non-formal education is any organized educational activity that takes place outside the conventional school system with no specific target group such as carpentry, mechanics, tailoring, shoe mending, computer operating and blacksmithing (Inyang, 2016).

According to Percus (2011), the relationship between parental educational status and students’ academic performance in science has been widely reported that students from educated parents with good occupations perform better in schools. Formally educated parents do, however, share some unique demographic characteristics that differentiate them from non-formally educated parents. Formally educated parents assist the children in doing their assignments at family, pay for family teachers to teach the children at family after school, buy books that the children will read at family, and monitor the level of their children’s academic performance in school in comparison to non-formally educated parents.

Impact of Family Factors and Academic Performance of Students in Economics

Sign (2014) posited that Learning takes place in a conducive environment within a web of social relationships as parents and children interact. All aspects of the family environment provide survival, protection, development, and participation in the learning process to the students.

This means that the focus is on learning which strengthens the capacities of students to act progressively on their own behalf through the acquisition of relevant knowledge, useful skills, and appropriate attitudes which help them to create for themselves and others a safe place, security, and healthy intervention in promoting students’ academic performance in Economics. It is against this background that this work is being undertaken to empirically investigate the possible effect of family factors on academic performance in Economics among secondary school students in Ukanafun Local Government Area.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

Most students in Nigerian secondary schools are at greater risk of poor academic achievement in both internal and external examinations (WAEC and NECO) in Economics. For instance, the available records of WAEC result analysis from 2005- 2011 by Omeh (2019) show a continuous decline in students’ overall performance in school certificate examinations.

Government, parents, teachers, and students blame one another for students’ poor performance in schools. Parents blame teachers for lack of dedication to duties. The teachers blame the government for poor salaries hence they are poorly motivated, parents also accuse the government of not equipping the schools with learning materials, the government blames parents for not doing good family work and the students are blamed for lack of discipline and dedication to their studies. In light of the above issues, the outstanding and relevant question is: what is the influence of family factors on academic performance in Economics among secondary school students in Ukanafun Local Government Area?

1.3  Purpose of the Study 

The main purpose of this study was to investigate family factors on academic performance in Economics among secondary school students in Ukanafun Local Government Area. Specifically, the study intends to;

1. examine parental educational attainment on students’ academic performance in Economics in secondary schools in Ukanafun Local Government Area.
2. Investigate the influence of parent income level on the student’s academic performance in Economics in secondary schools in Ukanafun Local Government Area.

1.4  Research Questions

The following research questions were formulated to guide the study;

1. To what extent does parental educational attainment influence academic performance in Economics among secondary schools?
2. To what extent does the influence of parent income level attainment influence academic performance in Economics among secondary schools?

1.5     Research Hypotheses

The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:

1. There is no significant difference in academic performance in Economics students whose parents are formally educated and those whose parents are not formally educated.
2. There is no significant difference in academic performance in Economics students whose parental income is high and those whose parent income is not high.

1.6     Significance of the study

The finding of this study may be significant in the following ways:

1. It will be a significant benefit to secondary school teachers in the sense that they will modify their teaching strategies to suit all categories of students irrespective of their family factors.
2. The finding of the study will help a parent in understanding their background as it affects their students’ academic performance in school.
3. It will also help educational planners and curriculum planners to design a curriculum that will make the learning of Economics and other school subject interesting to students irrespective of their family factors.
4. The study will provide useful information for guidance counselors for effective counseling of both parents and students as it highlights the effect of family factors on students’ academic performance in Economics.
5. The finding of this study will also provide bases for further studies on family factors and the academic performance of students in secondary schools.

1.7 Delimitation of the study

This study was delimited to family factors such as parents’ educational attainment and parents’ income and students’ academic performance in Economics in secondary schools in Ukanafun Local Government Area. Also, only senior secondary two students were involved in the study.