Influence of Family Background on Academic Performance of Senior Secondary School Students as expressed by Teachers in Ilorin Metropolis

Abstract

Academic performance is a criterion to determine the level of progress achieve by students in their study. Different factors tend to influence students’ academic performance, hence, this study investigated the influence of family background on academic performance of senior secondary school students as expressed by teachers in Ilorin metropolis. The study also examined the variables of gender and educational attainment. Descriptive survey was adopted. Purposive and stratified sampling techniques were employed to select 200 respondents. A researcher-designed instrument entitled “Influence of Family Background on Academic Performance Questionnaire (IFBAPQ)â€was used for data collection. A reliability co-efficient of 0.63 was obtained. Four null hypotheses were tested using t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that adequate monitoring of children home work by parents, parental motivation of children and the nurture and care parents give to the children influence students’ academic performance. The hypotheses tested revealed that there was no significant difference in the influence of family background on the academic performance of senior secondary school students as expressed by teachers in Ilorin metropolis on the basis of gender and teachers’ qualification. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that parents should provide for the basic needs of their children in order to help them show positive interest in study, school authorities should create an enabling environment for the students by providing required educational needs in order to make academic stimulating to them, teachers should interact with parents of the students to discuss the importance of providing adequate care they need for their total growth and development, and school counsellors should encourage the parents to relate and create interest in their children studies so that they can improve on their academic performance.

Keywords: Family Background, Academic Performance, Teachers