The Relationship Between Academic Performance of Pupils Coming from Electrified and Non-Electrified Homes of Grade Seven Pupils from Mubanga Ndhlovu Primary School in Chibombo District

Abstract

Primary schools in rural areas do not offer appropriate facilities that enable pupils’ to study at night. Therefore, an electrified home provides an environment for pupils to have an extended study time and access to facilities such as radio and television that may be a crucial academic resource for pupils. However, it has been observed that, so far there is no evidence that necessarily highlights that academic performance for pupils coming from electrified homes is better than those from non-electrified homes in the rural part of Chibombo district. In view of the above, a study was conducted to examine the relationship between academic performance of the two groups from Mubanga Ndhlovu Primary School in Chibombo District, Zambia. In establishing the aforementioned relationship, the study adopted a positivist paradigm such that the school was selected using simple random sampling from a population of five rural schools that were electrified in the rural part of Chibombo District from 2006 to 2012. Collected data was analyzed using a statistical analysis software tool called Stata (version 14), using Bivariate analysis, Pearson’s Chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression. The results revealed that there was no difference in terms of academic performance between pupils coming from electrified and non-electrified homes. Not only did the study show the above relationship, but also revealed that there was no difference in the academic performance between male and female pupils, and this was supported by a statistically significant level of association between the number of family members living with the pupil at home and their academic performance. Further, the results also reflected that three factors are associated with the academic success of learners and these are listed as: the number of people living with the respondents, having a radio in both types of homes from which the pupils come, and thirdly, the factor concerned with guardians’ level of education which only affects pupils coming from electrified homes, though this factor can only be analyzed up to a certain degree. According to the results, it is observed that academic performance is affected by a number of variables which is in line with the theory of Educational Productivity that guided the study. The theory merely highlights that academic performance is influenced by various factors.It is, therefore, concluded that there is no statistically significant difference between pupils coming from electrified and non-electrified homes and there is also no difference in the academic performance between boys and girls. A conclusion may be made that that three factors are associated with academic success of learners, which have been mentioned in the paragraph. In this vain, it is recommended that more houses should be electrified so that pupils are encouraged to listen to educational programs on the radio. It is also recommended that parents or guardians from electrified homes should aspire to acquire higher qualifications such as University degree as this will persuade pupils to follow suit and excel academically. Keywords: electrified, academic performance, relationship, environment, educational productivity DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-4-06 Publication date: February 29 th 2020