Impact of parents' social-economic status on students' performance in secondary schools in Wajir District, Kenya

Abstract

Academic performance in secondary schools has been poor for many years in some areas; ASAL regions being most affected. Performance in Wajir District, North Eastern province has also been dismal. This study was intended to find out the impact of social economic status of parents on performance in secondary schools of Wajir district. The social economic status of parents was determined by their level of education, occupations and their wealthy. The descriptive survey design was used in this study. This is because principals from sampled schools were interviewed; questionnaires were administered to students and class teachers. The researcher reported fact findings and solutions to the significant problems. The study was done in old Wajir district in the vast North -Eastern province. The target population was nine public secondary schools in the district. This was a total of 2581 students, 134 teachers and nine principals. Through systematic sampling five secondary schools were selected for data collection. These five schools constitute 55% of the total population. The systematic sampling was done by arranging schools using the examination codes. The first school in the list was selected and then every third school was used for this study. From each of the five schools that constituted the sample all the principals, form four class teachers and 10% of form four students were used for data collection. The researcher used interview schedules for head teachers and two separate questionnaires for class teachers and students. The data was collected from all the respondents who answered the questions on the social economic status of parents with children in secondary schools and the performance of these children. The researcher carried out a pilot study in two schools which were not in the sample.. The researcher checked whether the instruments tested what they were designed for by pilot study. He designed instruments that gave content valid data. The concept of social economic status of parents involved factors such as education level, occupations and attitude to education of both parents and children. The test-retest method was applied to test the reliability of the instruments i.e. same instruments were administered twice to the same group of respondents after three weeks. The two data were correlated by use of spearman correlation formula. The correlation coefficient was high hence the instruments had high test-retest reliability; therefore they were used for data collection. The information obtained from questionnaires and interview schedules were assembled using research objectives and question guide lines in students questionnaires class teachers' questionnaires and head teachers interviews were coded for analysis. . Since it was a descriptive survey study the researcher used descriptive tools of data analysis i.e. frequency distribution tables, percentages, bar charts and pie charts. Each statistics has answered specific questions for instance the education level of parents was shown by pie charts and frequency distribution table. The occupations were also shown by frequency distribution table and a pie chart. The analyzed data helped the researcher to draw logical conclusions and also gave recommendations in a report.