INFLUENCE OF HOME ENVIRONMENT ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION        

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY     

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

1.7     LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

1.8     DEFINITION OF TERMS     

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

3.0     RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0     DATA ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE

5.0     SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

REFRENCE

APPENDIX

         CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                  INTRODUCTION

1.1                       BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Over a period to time, it has been observed the students who are exposed to the same lesson by the same teachers are likely to perform differently when they are evaluated.

          According to Fagbamiye (1977). The Board of Education or Ministry of Education would wide suspected teaching methodology and classroom teachers as being the cause at the problem yet it seems to persist. This shows that outside the school environment, students are faced with other factors that influence their academic performances. There is also clear distinction between the gifted children and offers, but even at that there are factors that influence the academic of both gifted and non-gifted children which can not be traced to the school environment.

          According to Nwosu (2001) most development countries of the world are faced with problem of limited data on the influence of the home environment on secondary school student academic performance. This is due to low level of development on technology. He further stated that no nation can raise above the level of Education provided for it citizens.

          According to daily sun of April Monday 16th 2007, there are social, political, economic, religions diplomatic and other development instabilities which tend to hamper educational practices. Hence many uncontrolled variables are responsible for academic performance of secondary school students.

          Education has one of its basic tasks as to train young people to become useful members of the society and this training begins at home in the informal way. The home of the child is the first place he enters as he is born into the world by his or her parents.

          The home environment means that family background of the child, which includes all the human and material resources present in the home that affects child’s living such as the parent’s level of education, occupation, social-economic status and the socializing facilities available in the house. Thus the home is the basic in situation for providing the child’s primary socialization and laying the educational foundation for the child upon which the other agents of socialization build. As a result of the great need for training of the young people, the government has come into guide and helps the home and schools this great task by providing the national policy on education which contains the national objectives for education.

The menace of academic failure among the young school graduates has stared both the government and stakeholders in the face. There is a consensus of opinion about the fallen standard of education as a big problem that is hindering the posterity of the Nigerian nation in terms of quality man power resources. Most students in secondary school experience academic problem that manifests itself in the form of academic poor performance. Many researchers have sought to find out the reasons for the downward trend in the academic performance of secondary school students. Adesehinwa (2013) reported effect of family type and poor funding on students’ academic achievement; Ogbemudia and Aiasa (2013) reported lack of good home foundation for pupils as cause of poor performance by students; Achieng (2012) found home factors, student factors and institutional capacity as the causes while Adesehinwa and Aremu (2010) posited that factors resident in child, family, society, government and the school may be composite causative effects for these downtrend; they, however concluded that there is a need for each of these variables to be considered extensively, hence the focus of this study to critically consider influence of home on academic performance of secondary school students. Other studies showed that the level of family cohesion (Caplan et al, 2002 cited in Diaz, 2004), and family relationships (Buote, 2001) proved themselves capable of predicting performance.

According to Abubakar (1990), the education which a child receives from his or her parents is most likely to have a highly significant and dominant effect on his behaviour in his later life invariably what the child learns at home and how his family motivates him toward education contributes to the child’s success or failure at school. The environment plays a very remarkable role in the life of every individual and the educational aspect is also affected. In a study conducted on the effects of family structure and parenthood on the academic performance of Nigerian University students, Uwaifo (2008) found significant difference between the academic performance of students from singleparent family and those from two-parent family structure. Indeed, parental involvement and individuals’ experiences at home play tremendous roles in building the personality of the child and making the child what he is. Furthermore, many 5 children have been hindered from reaching their optimum level in academic pursuit due to some negative factors arisen from home. These include lack of parental encouragement, lack of conductive environment, poor finance and housing, poor feeding, ill-health and lack of interest on the part of the students. Children whose school needs (physical and emotional) are not provided for at home may forever remain underachievers and this could affect the general development (physical and human resources) of the country. Effects of poor academic performance during the school years often carry over to the adulthood, with a higher proportion of school dropouts, behavioral problems and even delinquency among this population.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Statistics on academic performance of secondary school students has it that there has been a persistence poor performance of secondary school student. This implies that students who are exposed to some teaching and learning experience perform differently. It has also been proved by psychologists that difference in intelligence is not the only factors responsible for the difference in performance of students.

          Moreover, very scanty attention has been given to most aspects of home background of students like parental level of education, parental occupation, family size and type of family as it affects their academic performance.  The problem of this research work is to find out the influence of home environment on secondary schools students in Nigeria.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of home environment on student’s academic performance in secondary education in Nigeria, the specific objectives that guide the study are:

1.     To determine the influence of parents’ economic status on students’ academic performance in secondary school

2.     To establish the influence of Parent/Family Involvement on students’ academic performance

3.     To investigate the effect of parenting style on students’ academic performance

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTION

The following research questions will guide the researcher and help to achieve the specified objectives during the course of the study:

1.     What influence does the parents’ economic status has on students’ academic performance in secondary school?

2.     Does parents or family involvement has any influence on the academic performance of the students?

3.     Is there any relationship between parenting style and the academic performance of the students?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will expose the teachers and it will serve as a guide that would enable them understand their students and know the approach or method to adopt in teaching so as to bridge the gap of variation in academic performance and how to organize to use to see that every student is carried along no matter his or her family’s condition.

Furthermore, the findings and recommendations would be useful to the government, curriculum planners and examination bodies in policy making and in planning educational strategies for Nigeria students.

Finally, this work will be a guideline to the future researcher who will carry out their research work on this area. It will raise more question on the home environment and it effect on the academic performance of secondary school students and open up new areas of study.

1.6     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study will be done using government owned secondary schools in Awka south LGA in Anambra state. It will examine low variables such as parental occupation, parent level of education, the size of the family and type of the family affect the child’s academic performance at the secondary school level.

1.7 DELIMITAION OF THE STUDY

There are many factors affecting the academic performance of students in Nigeria, but this study only investigated the home environment. Besides, this study investigated only the secondary schools in Awka south local government area in Anambra state.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Influence: the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself

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