Academic achievement of high school children from single parent families

Abstract

Academic performance is very important to achieve success and capability in future for a student. One way to know academic performance is through academic achievement. This study examines the academic achievement of high school children from single parent families which was conducted during 2019-2020, on a sample of 240 (120 urban and 120 rural) high school children through purposive sampling technique from 8 urban and 9 rural high schools of Dharwad taluk. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect the demographic characteristics and general information of the children. Academic achievement of children was measured by referring the children’s previous year grades in annual examination from school records. The socio-economic status scale was used to assess the socio-economic status of high school children. The study results revealed that, urban children showed better academic achievement than rural children. Boys in both the regions had low academic achievement than girls. First born children achieved high in academics than later borns in urban area. Negative correlation was observed between number of siblings and academic achievement in rural area. This indicates that, as number of sibling increases academic achievement of children decreases. In rural area, children residing with their mother had high academic achievement than children residing with their father. In urban area, children from nuclear familial had better academic achievement than children from joint families. Poor socio-economic status significantly influenced the academic achievement of children in both urban and rural area. On the whole it was noted that, more than 50 per cent of rural children need support and guidance to improve their academics.