Abstract
The socioeconomic status of a child parent impacts on the educational development and achievement of the child. This study evaluated the effect of socioeconomic status, specifically parents income and parents-child relationship on student's academic performance in Senior High School in Japan. Three hundred students of Senior High Schools in Osaka and Hyogo prefectures of Japan were randomly selected and used as the sample population. A well-structured questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection to ascertain the effect of parent's income status and attitude on student's academic performance at school using a four point Likert scale methodology. Academics grade point of students in an examination was also used as the determinant of students' academic achievement. Results showed that greater academic achievement for a student is attained by those students from financially buoyant families (Mean ± SD = 2.97 ± 0.88, X2 = 11.991, P = 0.007), however, 29.7% of students strongly disagree. More than half of respondents (>50%) disagree that financial constraint determines the number of children that goes to school in low income families. Average exam grade (Mean ± SD) points for students from parents with high, medium and low-income status was 77.29 ± 13.1, 77.9 ± 23.3 and 80.79 ± 10.13, respectively (P > 0.05). In conclusion, our finding show parents involvement in children school activities matter most than the parent's financial status in uplifting the children academic performance in school. Our recommendation is that parents should always encourage their children and provide moral support as well for the child to be emotionally stable and have confidence in their academic pursuit to achieve excellence.
Highlights
Parents play a pivotal role in the educational development of their children
The students opinion concerning parents income and their involvement in the student’s academic activities vis-à-vis students’ academic performance were ascertained by their responses to the questions; (i) parents who are professionals encourage their children academic activities; (ii) students from well rich families have all the learning materials needed for studies (iii) mothers who work all day don’t have enough time to assist their children in out-of-school reading; (iv) financial constraint often determine how many children will go to school in low income earned families; and (v) greater academic achievements is attained by those from financially buoyant families
The present findings have demonstrated that the income level of parents impacts on the academic achievements of the students
Summary
Parents play a pivotal role in the educational development of their children. Their involvement in the education of the children is of immense benefit to the child, the school and the parents as well [1]. It has been argued that the most accurate predictor of students’ achievement is the Universal Journal of Educational Research 5(9): 1614-1620, 2017 extent to which the family is involved in the child’s education, and not the family‘s level of income [8]. It is not clear if the situation is the same across developed and developing economies in the world. It is documented that prior to the 21st century, Japanese students established great academic achievements that were admired worldwide [9] These were evidenced in the student’s excellent achievements in mathematics and sciences. The aim of the present study was to evaluated the effect of socioeconomic status, parents income and parents-child relationship on student’s academic performance in Senior High School in Japan
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