Project Material on; Effects of Parental social economic status on Students Improvised Instructional Materials on academic performance of Senior Secondary School Students in Kaduna State

Project Material on; Effects of Parental social economic status on Students Improvised Instructional Materials on academic performance of Senior Secondary School Students in Kaduna State

1.1 Introduction of the Study

Education is the best legacy parents can give to their children. The development of the nation starts from the family. When the family succeeds in teaching and impacting good values in their children, the country becomes a better place to live. It is generally believed that the basis for any true development must commence with the development of human resource. Formal education is the demonstration of such desires to effectively and efficiently build a sound and strong economy.Numerous factors have been identified in various research studies to be responsible for the continuous declining of our educational system. Various factors such as classroom size, poor teacher-student ratio, in-adequate instructional materials, attitude of teachers towards work and lack of seriousness in part of students.With the availability of more qualified teachers, improved technology and facilities for teaching and learning, educational system in Nigeria is still losing it values.

Motivation for this study is based on the fact that some students are exceptionally good in their work, while some extremely bad. When such variations in scores are traced it is more often discovered that family background is a major contributory factor. It is therefore important that the levels of such contributions and the influence they have on children be examined so that useful suggestions to parents, teachers, educational planners and government could be made.

Orhungur (2010) asserts that the cultural background of the family is determined to a large extent by its socio-economic background. As the child grows up moves out to the interest wider society his/her interaction with it and perception of it are largely determined from her earlier, experiences at home. The family setting and its socializing influence mould the personality of the child. Nigeria, for instance is a society with diverse ethnic groups with various cultural background in areas like family size, occupation and in extreme cases, religion. These factors pose their own restrictions on educational upbringing of children. The social sitting or mode of settlement of the family and extended family system may equally influence the academic performance of a child and by extension, their educational upbringing.

Motivation is most need in order to perform more efficiently in their area of endeavor. When certain factors are eminent in a child’s family background, it is clear that the child will be motivated and driven towards high academic goal.Denga (2016) in Eyake (2017) advised that praises, incentives, recommendations and other forms of reward system should be employed as motivational factors to stimulate students to higher achievements. It is likely that the much a child achieves during his school days is largely dependent on the kind of family to which he/ she belongs. For instance, a child whose parents take a great deal of interest in what he/ she does at school and give him / her necessary support by providing all the required books and finances needed has a great advantage over a child whose parents do not give him this kind of incentives and encouragements.More so, students’ attitudes to learning and educational performances are shaped by the kind of stimuli offered to them by their various environments. This can be considered in terms of the type of family, the home, parental social orientation, educational level, occupation to mention but a few. It is therefore, evident that students’ performance is contingent on the stimulus the home offers.

Educational upbringing is not unconnected with the family influence of a child. Individual members of the family serve as a model to the child as he/ she copies from each of them. Eyake (2017) quoted. Adeyeme (2017) if the house fails to provide the child with the necessary equipments to fit him/ her into his proper place in the society and guided properly for his/ her future career, then the child is damaged. An analysis of the percentage of secondary school dropout today entails that such students are usually from broken homes, wiring polygamous family or with other socially related problems.

The agrarian and large families have accounted for the polygamous life of people. The large the size of the family, the more economic and other social responsibilities the parents bring upon themselves. And more often than not, the educational performance of students from such family suffer serious setback. This is because such parents might not be able to afford the cost funding education for the children.Other factors may affect the education performance of students like separation on grounds of different working station, divorce or even natural death can bring adverse effect on the growth and development of a child.

Furthermore, economic position of parents is one of major factors that can influence greatly the educational upbringing of a child. In most families, either or none of parents may be earning income sufficient enough to sustain the family, faced with malnutrition and other emotional and psychological effects, the mental development of the child  would be greatly retarded. Orhunger (2010) adds that a low income family with plenty of feeding problems may produce children who physical and mental development poses real challenges to the schools effort at optimum development of the child.

1.2       Background to the Study

It is an undebatable fact that the home is the fulcrum around which the early years of a child revolves. The central figures are the parents. While child- bearing and child-rearing cannot be divorced one from the other, the type of child- rearing practiced in a family has a tremendous impact on the entire life of the child including his or her academic life. Generally, the social climate or environment in which an individual finds him or herself to a large extent determines his or herbehaviour and personality development. Consequently, parental guidance anddiscipline usually influence the behviour of the children and at the apex of this parental influence is the mother.

According to Olayinka and Omoegun (2011), the word "family" has its origin in the Latin word which could be translated to mean "domestic group". A domestic group is a group of people who habitually share a common dwelling and common food supply. According to Murdoch (2015) family is a social group characterized by common residence, economic, cooperation and reproduction; it includes adults of both sexes, at least two of who maintains a socially approvedsexual relationship and one more children, own or adopted by the sexually cohabiting adult.

The family provides for the physical maintenance of the child, offers him his first and most continuing social contracts, and gives him affection and other emotional satisfaction including quality education that will last for a life time, teaches him most of social requirement of his behaviour and often put him in contract with other specializing institutions. Omoegun (2015), while writing on adolescent behaviour claimed that aggressive teenagers invariably came from unstable and conflict ridden home in which fights and argument were very common occurrences. In the history of the growth of the family, prior to the mid 2010s, family guidelines took the form of philosophical speculations.

According to Oloko (2017), the onset of family fountain is either through marriage or parenthood. Coleman (2012) as well maintained that the family provides most of the only frustrations in life, some of which may cause unhappiness and even mental imbalance in life since they sometime fail to provide the child with sufficient sense of security and emotional maturity coupled with inadequate socialization. Hence the common saying "charity begins at home”.In our modern complex society in which adolescents and adults leave the security of their traditional homes and seek employment opportunities in our bigtowns, cities, and industrial centres, married couples are often confronted with many problems that may affect the stability of their marriages. The current instability of some marriages tend to be the result of educational, social, economic and cultural changes which have affected societal values and outlook to life. These changes have occurred and continue to occur so rapidly that they are not yet fully absorbed into our way of life. Thus, the growth of the factory and industry in our towns and cities, the continuing migration of people from the rural to urban centres, the mobility and frequent changes of residence of workers, the entry of some women into industry, employment and business, and the changing economic roles of husbands and wives, tend to constitute a threat to marriage stability. Youths are often far away from their parents and relations who can guide them through the initial problems of life. Consequently, with individual revolution, family lives have been shattered. The end result is that the children become social liabilities with little or no cause for moral training or basic education. The effect on the children’s academic performance in schools is therefore better imagined. This is because the much needed parental care, love, affection and guidance are lacking in required proportion.It is very important that children come closely in contact with their parents during the period of infancy to adulthood. The warmth which can only be providedby the parents gives the child a sense of belonging and affections which enhances their mental, physical, moral and educational growth. If children are denied this much needed parental affections and warmth during the vital period of their lives, they become negatively affected in all aspects of life.

Education has to do with the development of individual potentials or the development of intellect and character, it is to develop or reform an individual's sense of responsibility thereby making him a better man. Education is described as the best investment that one can ever make as educated children will be able tohave good jobs, meaningful life for them as well as increase the NationalProductivity. The National Policy on Education (2018) refers to education as an instrument par excellence for effecting National development. It is also a dynamic instrument of change. Ukeje (2018), referred to education as "one of the most powerful instruments ever invented by modern civilization". Education prepares one for life and it is a process of accumulating knowledge for future use.

On the other hand, academic performance describes the maximum level of performance which a child or an individual can reach or attain in school academic activities if given every necessary support and opportunities by parents as well as the school authorities and teachers.Nevertheless, the environment under which a child is nurtured plays major part in his or her development even at the pre-natal stages of life. Besides, inadequate cares, hostile interrelationship in the place of a child’s immediate environment most times create a state of anxiety and emotional distress in the child; which also impact greatly on the rest of the child’s future life. The physical environment under which a child studies, can as well influences his or her learning. In this regard, parents have a lot to do to ensure that the mental, emotional and psychological balance, value orientation, aspiration and personality, as well as the academic status of their children are properly developed in life.

However, the attainment of the above qualities varies from one child to another depending also on the home and conditions he finds himself. Problematichome conditions drastically affect educational success and performances inchildren. One-parent child, that is, a child being raised up by a single parent, example a male parent rearing a female child, and vice-versa, children raised in the absence of mother, those others lacking maternal or paternal attention most often have levels of difficulties in adjustment on studies and in life. A child psychologically and emotionally deprived, can hardly be sufficiently motivated to achieve high academic success. Linking parents’ socio-economic status with the children’s performance in school work, Holcomb (2012) argues that infants whoreceive enough attention and affection from a loving and caring parents right from start are most likely to succeed socially and emotionally; whereas Peters (2012) asserts that children from with working mothers tend to have a higher reading score as well as better language and cognitive ability. Given the background, this study attempts to substantiate the above divergent claims by determining the truth underlying the influence or non-influence of parents’ socio-economic status on secondary school students’ academic performance in some selected schools of ChikunLocal Government Area of Kaduna State.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

The gap in performance between students and academic excellence constitute a great source of worry and serious concern as well as discomfiture to both parents, schools mangement, policy makers and various governments responsible for the education of students’ in secondary school schools.

Experience has shown that among the secondary school students’ there exist some differences which influence students academic performance, such as some students’ being able to pay their school fees promptly, while  others  were often sent away for nonpayment of school fees, some students have  problem with the provision of school uniform but others do not. Likewise, some students were motivated by their parents through the provision of educational materials like text books and exercise books, others were not, where as some students’ come to school properly feed, others not. One then wonders whether influence of family background had played a in these issues.                                     

In the light of this, the main problem of this search is to find out if there exist in Kaduna metropolis a relationship between socio-economic status of parents and students’ academic performance.      

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine theeffects of parental social economic status on student’s improvised instructional materials on academic performance of senior secondary school students in Kaduna State. Specific objectives of the study include:

1)      To investigate into the effect of socio-economic status of parents on the educational performance of students’.

2)      To find out if social-economic status of parents influence their students’ academic performance in Kaduna State

3)      To find out whether educational attainment of parent affect their students’ academic performance in Senior Secondary School

4)      To find out the influence of family size on educational upbringing of students in Senior Secondary Schoolin Kaduna State

1.5 Research Questions                                                                         

For the purpose of this research work the following research questions have been formulated;                                              

       I.            Is there relationship between socio-economic status of parents and educational performance of students in senior secondary schoolin Kaduna State?

    II.            Does social-economic status of parents influence students’ academic performance?

 III.            To what extent does educational attainment of parent affect their students’ academic performance in Senior Secondary School?

 IV.            Does family size influences educational upbringing of students in Senior Secondary School in Kaduna State?

1.6 Hypotheses                                                    

The following hypotheses will be tested to guide this study; 

Hypotheses One

Ho: There’s no significance effect of socio-economic status of parents on the educational performance of students’in senior secondary schoolin Kaduna State

Hi: There’s significance effect of socio-economic status of parents on the educational performance of students’in senior secondary schoolin Kaduna State

HypothesesTwo

Ho: socio-economic status of parents doesn’t influence their students’ academic performance

Hii: socio-economic status of parents influence their students’ academic performance

HypothesesThree

Ho: Family size has no impact of the academic performance of students

Hiii: Family size has impact of the academic performance of students

1.7 Significance of the Study                                                           

The work of this nature when completed may help the parents to be aware of the effect the family has on children and how such affect the child positively or negatively in relation to their academic performance. From the available recommendations, they will be able to adopt measures of bringing up there in such a way that they will perform well academically.                                                                          

Similarly, it is likely to encourage parents to make their children relatively comfortable in schools. This study also could aid children of various families to be aware and bear in mind with their parents in ability to provide them with all the necessary requirements in schools, and also sympathize with them in family problems and situations.                   

More so, educational and curriculum planners could be guided in planning the curriculum without rigidity to suit diverse cultural environments. In addition, the teachers would be aware that a cordial teacher parent relationship may in a way improve the influence of family background on the academic performance of a child in school.                

The research of this nature is likely to help the state, nation and the world in general benefit from as adherence to the recommendations and implementation will help produce youths who would be better leaders of tomorrow.       

Finally, the research when completed may add to available literature and may encourage further research on the topic.

1.8 Scope of the Study                                                                 

It would be much demanding to undertake a complete study of the effects of socio-economic status of parents on the academic performance of students in Kaduna metropolis and due to logistics constraint on the researcher, only five schools will be sampled, sampled schools are selected based on their metropolitan population characteristics.

1.9 Definition of Terms

As words may mean differently in different contexts, the following definitions are given as the words used as intended to be understood for the purpose of this study.

Family:Is a unit comprising of husband, wife and children.

Family Size:The number of people in the family.

Family System:This includes monogamy and may be nuclear or extended family.

Home Environment: This refers to parental experience and aspirations for children, objects and material conditions in the home for comfort and also specific behavioral processes conducive to learning.

Educational Upbringing:This refers to education of children and how they perform in academics when subjected to test or examination.

Educational Status:This term is used for social processes in which one achieve social competence and individual growth, carried on in a selected, controlled sitting which can be institutionalized as a school or college.

Occupational Status:Person’s trade, vocation or principal means of earning living.

Socio-Economic Status:This refers to position of recognition which one finds him in the society. Such a position may not be hereditary but acquired through personal efforts like education, wealth, occupation and social class.

Academic Performance:This refers to the students’ achievement, scores within the class and his position relative to all those subjected the same test.

Effects: the result or outcome of anything be it positive or negative.

Home Situation:This refers to prevailing atmosphere in the home whether violent, resentful or in disarray.

Parental Attitude:Parents disposition to respond in a characteristics way to some stimulus in their social environment. Some responses determine the way and manner their children are brought up by them.