INFLUENCE OF FAMILY BACKGROUND ON SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENT’S ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN EBONYI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of family background on students’ academic achievement in senior secondary school in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Descriptive survey design was employed for this study. Two research questions and two corresponding null hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consists of all senior secondary students from 103 public secondary schools in Ebonyi State. Three public secondary schools were purposively selected and used for the study. In the three schools, all SSII students numbering three hundred seventy (370) were used as the subject of the study. A-18 item questionnaire titled (Family Background Influence Questionnair (FBIQ), designed by the researchers was used as instrument for data collection. Three experts validated the instrument. The reliability of the instrument was established using Crunbach alpha method which yielded a reliability coefficient was 0.83. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of the study revealed that students from educated parents achieve more than thier counterparts from uneducated parents. The finding also, revealed that students from small size families enjoy more parental attention and as a result achieve better academically than those from large size families. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended among others that parents should diversify their sources of income to be able to provide fund for their children’s schooling irrespective of the family background.