Academic Achievement of Children of Divorced Parents

Abstract

This study investigated the academic achievement of 242 pupils whose parents were divorced and 713 pupils whose parents were neither divorced nor separated. The subjects were in the age range of 13 to 17 yr., with a mean age of 15.6 yr. and they were chosen at random from the total Standard 7 population of Transkei, South Africa. A questionnaire was administered to 1,021 pupils to identify the children of parents divorced or separated and neither divorced nor separated. Analysis of variance indicated that the academic achievement of children whose parents were divorced or separated was significantly lower than that of the children whose parents were neither divorced nor separated.