Influence of Parental Socio-Economic Status on Students’ Academic Performance in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Nasarawa State

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of parental socio-economic status on students’ academic performance in Public Senior Secondary Schools in Nasarawa State. The study used a descriptive survey design. The population of the study comprised of 39,450 students. Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 376 students from 19 public Senior Secondary Schools in Nasarawa State. A structured questionnaire titled “Influence of Parental Socio-economic Status on Academic Performance of Students’’ (TPSSAPS) was developed by the researchers. Three research questions and hypotheses guided the study. The instrument was structured on a modified 4-point Likert-type scale. The instrument was validated by three lecturers in Nasarawa State University Keffi. A reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained using Crombach Alpha statistics which indicated that the instrument is highly reliable. The data were analyzed using frequency count and mean responses of students to answer research questions and t-test for testing hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that low level of parental income influence academic performance of students negatively in public senior secondary schools in Nasarawa State. It was recommended that parents especially with low level of income should diversify their source of income in order to have more money to spend on their children education.