Single-parenting influence on child’s academic performances at MutareJunior School, Zimbabwe

Abstract

The economic hardship that has plagued Zimbabwe has led to a shift from the traditionally intact family to a single-parenthood family. Many factors lead to single parenthood including divorce, separation of all kinds and deaths. Single parenthood negatively impacts on students’ academic development. The researcher explored influences of Single-Parenthood to Academic-Performances (AP) of Grade 6 and 7 students at Mutare Junior School in the Manical and Region of Zimbabwe. The researcher used ‘cross-sectional study design’ to collect data using criterion attainment tests, ‘the Wide Range Achievement Test Level 1 (WRAT-1)’ on 80 students under controlled situations having 40 Single-Parent-Homes (SPH)and 40Double-Parent-Homes (DPH)students. School-established examinations complemented data from theWRAT-1 outcome. Tables and ‘T-tests’ were used for analysis of data. Results revealed children from DPH performing statistically better on the criterion test than those from SPH (t = −4.928, significance value 0.05). The results also indicated males performing better than females both from SPH on the criterion test (t = −4.196, significance value 0.05). In future, research should focus on different single-parent homes to AP. Keywords: Academic performance, influence, pupils, school, single parenting.