Role of Parental Influence on Academic Performance: A Case of Students in Secondary Schools in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State

Abstract

The role of parental influence on academic performance: a case of students in secondary schools in Agatu Local Government Area of Benue state was examined. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. It has three research questions and three hypotheses. From the population of 9720 students, 405 respondents were sampled from 9 secondary schools using the simple random sampling technique. The instrument for data collection was a self structured questionnaire titled “role of parental influence on academic performance”. A total of 405 copies of the questionnaire were administered to the students and 380 representing 93.83% were returned. Data were analyzed using mean and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions, while Chi Square was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results reveal that family size with Mean cluster of 2.97 and Standard Deviation of 1.90 has
influence on the academic performance of the students. It was also found that there was a significant difference between those students whose parents have interest on the education of their children and those parents that do not. Additionally, it was also revealed that there was significant difference between students whose parents encourage to learn at home and those whose parents do not encourage to learn at home in secondary schools in the study area. Based on these findings, the study recommends that parents’ whose occupational position is low should not be discouraged from taking care of their wards or children but continue to give the necessary assistance to their children to excel in their academics and children from
such families should not look at themselves as inferior but continue to put in more efforts in their academics.