The Effect of Parental Background on the Academic Achievement of Geography Students in Secondary School in the Buea Municipality
Department: Curriculum Studies and Teaching
No of Pages: 70
Project Code: CST4
References: Yes
Cost: 5,000XAF Cameroonian
: $15 for International students
ABSTRACT
This
study was designed to investigate “The Effect of Parental Background on the on
Academic Achievement of Geography Students in Secondary School in The Buea
Municipality”.
The
objectives that were used for the study were; to ascertain the degree in which
socio-economic status of parents influence the academic achievement of
geography students in secondary school in the Buea municipality, to examine the
relationship between the level of education of parents and the academic
achievement of geography students in secondary schools in the Buea municipality
and to determine if the size of a family have any influence on academic
achievement of geography student’s secondary school students in the Buea
municipality.
The
sample size was 100 students selected from three secondary schools in Buea
municipality. The questionnaire was used to obtain information from
correspondents and data were analyzed using percentages and frequencies. The
following results were obtained; family
size, parent socio economic background and parent level of education influence
student academic achievement both positively
and negatively.
Based
on the above result, the following recommendations were obtained; Parents
should be made to realize the importance of motivation in determining their
children academic achievement in schools, especially the realization that most
of the male students are abandoning school for business.
Parents
should be actively involved in encouraging students to learn and also in
supervising their academic work at home. Students should give serious attention
to studies at home, in addition to other various work done, since the amount of
effort they put in their studies influence their academic performance.
Teachers
should understand that teaching is a job of conscience. Teachers should handle
the students as their own children and teach them effectively, try to meet the
students’ academic social and psychological needs.
They
should motivational in their teaching and use different teaching methods to go
along with all categories of learners. This will help bridge deficiencies from
negative family backgrounds. The key words in this study include parent’s
background, socio-economic status, level of education of parents, size of a family
academic achievement and geography
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Parental
background has a great function as far as performance of Students is concern.
This is so because in our contemporary society there has been more of
modernization in learning using both basic and advance instructional materials.
Parental background encompasses a variety of aspect such as parent educational
level, parent’s income level and family size.
All
plays a vital role as far as teaching and learning process is concern and
influence academic performance of student. This chapter presents the
introduction, background of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the
study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study,
research hypothesis, definition of terms, and chapter summary.
Background to the Study
Historically,
the parents of a child constitute the family of that child. In addition, family
is a place in which children learn to interpret realities, Wary and Passman
(1996), parents serve as significant interpreters to children for information
about the world and children ability (Hall, Kelly, Hansen and Vulwein, 1996)
family influence is an important force in preparing students for their role as
workers.
Young
people form their attitude about work and career because of interaction with
the family. Family background provides the basis on which a student’s career
planning and decision making evolves. However, within each family, the level of
involvement can very positively or negatively. In ancient Greece and Rome,
childhood ended by approximately the age of six. After that, children were
viewed as adults (Cunningham, 2005).
During
the Renaissance period, children were often seen wearing adult-like clothing
and were treated as mini-adults. Life was centered around the “Renaissance man”
an individual who was cultured and an expert in many different subject areas,
like the arts and sciences (Bigner & Gerhardt, 2014). Thus, parenting (and
life) was adult-cantered.
The
historical context of parent background provides a starting point for how
parenting styles and practices have shifted in the United States of America.
During Colonial times, the Puritan beliefs shaped the way Americans viewed the
needs of their children. The term Puritan means “against pleasure” and thus,
“play” was considered sinful (Mintz, 2006).
During
this time, they wanted to raise obedient children and thus, parents provided
religious training to children by teaching them to memorize scriptures. This
approach was also adult-centered. It was also a uni-directional approach, with
parents having significant power over their children. Today, this parenting
style would be called authoritarian.
In
the Nineteenth century, there was a shift towards thinking about what children
may need to grow and develop. During the industrial revolution, many fathers
who were the primary disciplinarians in the household went away to work in
manufacturing jobs. With this, there was a shift towards environmentalism.
Mother’s
played a more central role in becoming role models for their children and
providing them with a range of experiences to develop their children to the
fullest potential. Early Develop mentalism also emerged; this was a movement
that stemmed from Europe and advocated early education for children based on
their unique, individual developmental needs.
With
more knowledge about how children learn and develop, there was conflicting
research on what works best for children. While some researchers advocated for
more permissive styles (e.g., Freud, Spock, 1967) where the child must be
understood and needs must be met, others (e.g., Watson, 1988) advocated for a
behaviorist approach which advocated for a child’s impulses to be controlled in
order to raise obedient children. Hence, the pendulum was swinging between
adult-centred and child-centred approaches.
Conceptually,
the family is the first social environment a child finds him/herself in.
According to Clifford (1981) the family remains the primary environment of the
child. The author emphasized that the family environment has more chances of
increasing or decreasing the intellectual achievement of the child.
Akubue
and Okolo (2008) define the family as a small kinship structural group with the
key function of natural socialization of the new born. Similarly, in (Okunniyi,
2004) the family is defined as a primary social group of parents, offspring and
possibly other members of the household.
Family
background refers to all the conditions and circumstances in the family which
influence the child physically, intellectually and emotionally (Muola, 2010).
Children coming from different family backgrounds are affected differently by
such family conditions; that is why some children have good backgrounds while
others have poor backgrounds.
Citing
fleegeand Eke (1999) noted that with some families, the background may vary
from time to time for the same individuals. Formal education, therefore,
remains the vehicle for human development, which must start from the family.
There
are different categories of families; the major categories according to
Anderson and Taylor (2002) being;
- In traditional families-where the father is the major breadwinner and mother at home raising the children.
- Divorced families: Families that have been reconstituted following the breakage of marriages.
- Single- parent families headed by either the mother or the father.
- Step families with new siblings and new parents stemming from re-marriage.
A
family could also be categorized as extended and nuclear family. Extended
families are those in which a large group of related kin, in addition to
parents and children, live together in the same household. This is the type of
family prevalent in the African society. Nuclear families are families where
married couples reside together with their children. These types of families
are common in the western countries (Andersen & Taylor, 2000).
Families
are of various sizes. Family size has to do with the total number of people in
a single family which may include the father, mother, children and even the
extended members, all living in one hamlet. According to Alio (1995) family
size has implications for education.
The
author emphasizes that the size of the family determines to a great extent the
relative amount of physical attention and time which each child gets from his
or her parents. Large families are more common among the lower class of the
society. Children in large families may
suffer poverty and lack parental encouragement and stimulus which motivates
their academic achievement (Amon ,2005).
Similarly,
smaller family size has been linked with high academic achievement (Majoribank,
1996). Majoribank further notes that students with fewer siblings are likely to
receive more parental attention and have support that leads to better school
performance. The family begins the process of education and offers the physical
and psychological needs of the child.
This
supports the view of Maduewisi (1982) that the environmental experience from
the family, peer group and school location have a great influence in
determining the child’s intellectual
ability. She maintained that bright students from the under- privileged family
environment may turn dull due to an impoverished family environment. She added
that mental development influences intellectual development.
This
is in line with Hebb (1987) who observed that the innate potentials of children
cannot be attained without an adequate stimulating family environment because
the child cannot do well intellectually. The implication is that a proper
stimulating family environment with intellectual potentials and appropriate teaching
methods will enhance maximum performance of the child.
Contextually, In Cameroon, especially in the south west
region, most children whose parents cannot afford to pay for high cost of
formal education are enrolled into apprenticeship programs such as carpentry,
bricklaying, petty trading and others.
In
the study area, there is a seemingly general mislead of career choice, as most
of the youth don’t longer value education, neither do they listen to their
parent advice among secondary school students. Evidences of the wrong career
choice is mostly noted in form four where students select their trade of study
as to choice a career there after.
It
is against this background that the researcher is interested investigating the
influence of parents background on career choice of geography students in
secondary schools in the Buea municipality. The researcher intends to
investigate the variables in the parents (family) background with the view of
assessing their relative influence on academic achievement of geography
students in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.
Statement of Problem
Arising
out of the need for student to achieve academically in school, parents continue
to have anxiety over the academic performance of their children especially in
geography. This concern arises out of the fact that children no longer perform
well academically as well as their counterparts of past years. Some of the
parent do not care or do not want to check if any extraneous factors are
responsible for the poor academic performance of their children.
Despite
Cameroon government investing in funding the secondary education by providing
the necessary teaching materials needed to teach geography, academic
achievement of students still keep falling as years past, a situation that
discourages the interested parties‟ support to education. Experience has shown
that among secondary school students there exist some differences that
influence students‟ academic achievement.
These
differences includes payment of school fees; some students are able to pay fees
promptly while others often sent away due to non-payment of school fees. In
addition, some students have problems with provision of uniforms and other
basic requirements while their parents through provision of basic and
educational materials motivate their counterparts from rich families.
The
gap in students‟ performance and academic excellence constitutes a great source
of worry and serious discomfiture to both parents, school managers, policy
makers and the various governments responsible for education of students in
secondary schools.
It
is against this background that the study sought to determine the effect of
parental background on the on academic achievement of geography students in
secondary school in the Buea municipality.
Objective of the Study
General Objective of the
Study
The
main objective of the study is to examine the impact of parent’s background on
academic achievement of geography students in the Buea municipality.
Specific Objectives of
the Study
Specific
objectives of the study are:
- To ascertain the degree in which socio-economic status of parents influence the academic achievement of geography students in secondary school in the Buea municipality.
- To examine the relationship between the level of education of parents and the academic achievement of geography students in secondary schools in the Buea municipality.
- To determine if the size of a family have any influence on academic achievement of geography student’s secondary school students in the Buea municipality.
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