THE ROLE OF PARENTING ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPIL

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine role of parenting on the academic performance of primary school pupil. A sample of 120 purposively randomly selected respondents including primary school teachers, head teachers, parents and pupils. This study was intended to address three specific research objectives namely to; explore the school modalities through which parents are involved in supporting primary school children academic development; investigate the contribution of parents involvement in children academic  performance in primary schools; and finally, to examine the difference in academic performance between primary school pupils who receive parental support from pupils who completely do not receive it. A Case study design was used to collect  data from the respondents using questionnaires, interviews and documentary reviews that were administered to school committees’ chairpersons, parents and teachers and pupils. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to tape respondents’ subjective views and simple percentages from the frequent responses for descriptive purposes. The SPSS 22.0 version was used for data analysis of simple  for  descriptive statistics and content analysis for qualitative data. The study indicated that there were several methods used in public schools to involve parents and guardians into education processes of their school children in supporting primary school pupils’ academic achievement. The study recommended conducting a quantitative study in order to test hypotheses by comparing results from public and private schools for comparative and generalisation purposes.

CHAPTER ONE/INTRODUCTION

This study examined role of parenting on the academic performance of primary school pupil. This sub-section presents the background information to the problem, statement of the problem, main objective and specific objectives of the study, and significance of the study. The study also involves limitation, scope of the study and organization of the study. Pupils’ academic performance in schools has been in crisis for a long time because school processes have been wrongly considered to be teachers’ responsibility. The question might be what could be the role of the parents’ involvement in school processes that can facilitate school children academic performance in public primary schools.

Background to the Problem

Education is both a human right in itself and indispensable means of realizing other human rights.This is why the government of Nigeria has been struggling to improve educational access, equity and equality in her various educational reforms. It is globally comprehended that parental involvement contributes significantly to academic activities in schools. Such parental involvement takes many forms including good parenting in the home, including the provision of a secure and stable environment, intellectual stimulation, parent-child discussion, good models of constructive social and educational values and high aspirations relating to personal fulfilment and good citizenship; contact with schools to share information; participation in school events; participation in the work of the school; and participation in school governance (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003). Such studies describe how parental involvement as a model of parenting works and influence indirectly through shaping the child’s self concept as a learner and through setting their aspirations. Such studies require local made investigation to describe their applicability and differences.

In Nigeria, the importance of parental involvement in school activities cannot be overemphasized. Twaweza (2013) reports that parental involvement entails many things including creating a home environment that encourage learning and to express high expectations for their children’s achievement and future careers. It is important for this reason through the current study to investigate the role of parents’ involvement towards students’ academic performance in Nigerian public primary schools.

Schools have shifted from restricted professionalism to open a debate on actual parental involvement in school life, which has enabled closer ties to be developed between the home and the school, translating into enhanced attendance and higher academic achievement (Bridgemohan, 2002). The involvement of parents on children school achievement is well documented in numerous studies. It has also been showed that greater parental involvement at early stage in children’s learning, positively affects the child’s school performance including higher academic achievement (Gadsden, 2003). Thus, the families whose children are doing well in school exhibit the following characters (Harderves, 1998): to establish a daily family routine by providing time and a quite place to study with the children and assigning responsibility for house hold chores: to monitor out-of-school activities, for example setting limits on television watching, reduce time of playing, monitor the groups of friends the pupils walk with; and therefore encourage children’s development and progress in school; that is maintaining a warm and supportive home, showing interest in children’s progress at school, helping him or her with home work, discussing the value of a good education and future career with children.

Parental involvement appears to be a democratic concern in terms of individual  rights and as a way of making the educational system more self-governing and developing more power at the local level, allowing for greater accountability by schools to the society (Hung, 2007). This suggests that in general, society needs to increase its level of educational involvement, and that this starts with the support by the parents.

The endeavor of schools to realize higher standards and greater accountability requires the commitment from the school staff, families and communities (Machen, Wilson & Notar, 2005). In this regard, parent-teacher relationship can be enhanced through the teacher-parent relationship. Since teachers work closely with parents on the school matters, the teacher-parent relationship is critical to pupils’ success and school development in general.

Thus, there is a needed to support teachers and convince both parents and schools of the value of mutual cooperation. If there is positive contact between parents and teachers initially, future negative incidents are not likely to change the initial positive notion (Mirons, 2004). Moreover, research findings suggest that parents’ attitudes, along with their behaviour and activities with regard to their children’s education, do affect academic achievement in a positive way (Hui-Chen Huang & Mason, 2008).  It is evident that parents have vital roles to play in the life of a child and thus the involvement of a parent on a child determines the future of such child because parents in the home are children’s first teachers source (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003). Therefore, there is a need to conduct a study in Nigeria to explore the role of parents’ involvement on improving students’ academic performance in primary schools.

Statement of the Problem 

It is widely recognized that if pupils are to maximize their academic performance from schooling they would need the full support of their parents. Thus, the degree of parental participation is a significant indicator of the quality of schooling (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003). When parents support teachers on pupils’ academic studies, children tend to do better in their academic activities. However little is known about the parental involvement and extent to which it has influenced the academic achievement of the pre-primary children in Nigeria. As a result, especially in urban areas, parents’ involvement in school processes has been given little considerations. Unfortunately, what specific role should parents involvements play in facilitating school processes particularly in promoting academic achievement in primary schools in Nigeria?

Objectives of the Study

Main Objective of the Study 

The main objective of this study was to investigate role of parenting on the academic performance of primary school pupil  in Ebonyi,

Specific Objectives of the Study 

1. To explore the school methods through which parents are involved in supporting primary school children academic
2. To investigate the contribution of parents involvement in children academic performance in primary schools
3. To examine the difference in academic performance between primary school pupils who receive parental support from pupils who completely do not receive it

Research Questions 

1. What are the school’s methods through which parents’ are involved in supporting primary school children in academic development?
2. What is the contribution of parental involvement in school children academic performance in primary schools
3. Is there any difference in academic performance between primary school pupils who receive parental support from pupils who completely do not receive it?

Significance of the Study

The study is expected to contribute significantly to the knowledge base on the specific the role of the parents’ involvement in educational processes for the improvement of pupils’ academic achievement. It may help the schools and communities to analyze the need to improve parents’ involvement and the need to improve home environment and determine best strategy for the school and the parents to improve parents’ involvement in educational processes and their academic performance. Briefly, the study is expected to Firstly, the study is expected to reveal appropriate school methods or ways through which parents could be involved in supporting primary school children academic development. Secondly, the study is also expected to contribute to the growing literature on the contribution of parents’ involvement in children academic performance in primary schools, the successes and challenges associated. Thirdly, the study is expected to indicate the difference in academic performance between primary school pupils who receive parental support from pupils who completely do not receive it. This would finally raise public awareness on the importance of parents’ involvements in educational processes. Fourthly, it may inspire other researchers in similar topic to carry out further studies related to the effectiveness of primary school committees in Nigeria.

This in turn may contribute to the raising of community awareness concerning the role the parents can play in enhancing school academic through parents’ involvement.

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Awareness and Usage of E-database by Lecturers in Two Selected Colleges in Kwara State University, Malete. {College of Education and College of I.C.T}”

CHAPTER  ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the study

The university libraries are libraries established to cater for the academic and research needs of the university. They serve the reading and research interests of undergraduates, lecturers, researchers, and other users. University libraries are big repositories of information and knowledge from all fields of learning to the academic community of students and staff that they serve. University libraries, which are academic libraries, provide support to members of an academic community, including students, researchers and lecturers

University libraries collections are tailored towards achievement of the institution goals of teaching, learning and research. They serve the students, lecturers, administrative members of the academic community as well as others. They are central to learning, research, and have always depended on relevant new technologies, which on the other hand are driven by emerging trends in education and research. The major function of University libraries is to provide resources to meet the needs of users. Their materials are diversified to support teaching and programmers that take place within them. Therefore, the University library has to build a strong collection of information resources in physical and digital formats to cater for the knowledge requirements of students, faculty members and research scholars of the institution.

Akintunde (2006) submitted that, librarianship continues to hold a central place in higher education worldwide. It has remained the strength of the best traditions in academics worldwide. Nonetheless, significant progress will have to be made for Nigerian higher education libraries to be in the main stream of the digital revolution. This is because library services today require more global networking in delivering services.

 

However, the twentieth century was shaped by sweeping changes in communication technologies. The emergence and use of information technology is the century’s most significant development affecting scholarly communication. The application of computers to information processing has brought several products and services to the scenes. Consequently, the academic community has undergone tremendous changes during these years, assuming new dimensions influenced by technology-driven applications. Thus, libraries are using technology to improve the management of scholarly information to strengthen and speedy access to scholarly information.

Electronic-Databases (e-databases) have become an established component of many academic libraries’ collection. These databases often contain journal articles, or references to such articles, e-books, reference sources, conference papers and reports among others. There are various types of these databases such as bibliographic, full-text, directory, numeric and multimedia.

E-databases are widely available and can be accessed from anywhere and by many users at the same time. It is therefore convenient to use. University libraries, therefore, spend large amounts of money on these resources to satisfy the teaching, learning and research needs of its faculty and students. As universities spend substantial amount of money on subscription of these databases, it is only appropriate and economical that these databases are optimally utilized to contribute to the academic achievement of students and faculty and also to get value for money.

In spite of the value of e-databases and ensuring that it is available for use by library clients, studies have shown that usage is not up to level expected or is simply underutilized. Reasons most often advanced for not using the databases include lack of awareness, preference for other sources like general search engines such as Google, lack of search skill, lack of adequate ICT infrastructure, bad downloading time, and at times sheer attitude of users. The manifestation of these reasons may differ from place to place or from situation to situation. Dukic (2013) and Ahmed, 2013b), for example, indicated that usage of e-databases in developed countries is more than in developing countries basically because of poor ICT infrastructure and huge cost of such resources. Anaraki and Babalhavaeji (2013) also pointed out that where students are not aware of existence of e-databases they tend to use general search engines to meet their information needs.

Online electronic information resources usually consist of online books, online journals, online magazines,online newspapers, online theses, dissertations, online databases which are likely to be alternative through media EBSCO HOST, DOAJ, JSTOR, HINARI, are some of the  examples of online electronic databases, these are available on the internet either through open access or commercially (Kumar, and Kumar,2010). On the other hand, offline electronic information resources include e-journals, e-dataarchives, e- manuscripts, e-maps, e-books, e-magazines, e-theses, e-newspapers, e-mail,e-research reports, e-bibliographicdatabase and CD-ROM databases which are accessible through some electronic machines.

According to the International Federation of Library Association and Institution (IFLA) “electronic databases” refer to those materials that require computer access whether through personal computer, mainframe, or handheld mobile device. They may be either accessed remotely via the internet or locally. They include: e-journal, e -books, full text (aggregated) databases, Indexing abstracting databases, reference databases, numeric and statistical databases, e-images, e-audio visuals resources. (IFLA, 2012)

 

1.2       Statement of the problem

University Library is a repository of resources; it is an integral part of the educational system whose primary function is to serve users (students, researchers and staff). Computers and related electronic database have come to play a central role in education. Electronic resources are the prime ingredients and they become a common part of the suite of most academic library resources today. E-databases have brought about a shift in the provision of library services and information by providing wide access to resources from different parts of the world with ease. E- resources provide many advantages over the traditional print based resources. They contain current information because they are updated frequently. They offer advanced search capabilities, and offer flexibility in the storage of results. They enable access and use of information without restriction of time and location.(Kumar and Kumar 2010).  Academic libraries provide access to information resources in various formats including electronic information resources services. This is through open access international donors or annual subscription of online databases such as HINARI, JSTORE, DOAJ, AJOL, EBSCOHOST etc. and other offline information resources, to facilitate access to information resources to users. However, preliminary investigation revealed that most electronic information resources in the Nigeria university Libraries were underutilized (Olusanya, 2014) and there is no element of publicity regarding their availability and usage (Stephen,2012). This brought about the need to investigate the availability and usage of E-databases in Academic Libraries Kwara state.

 

 

1.3      Objectives of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to examine the awareness and uses of library electronic databases by lecturers in university libraries in two selected colleges in kwara state university.

The objectives of the study are as follows;

1. Identify the types of available library Electronic databases that lecturers are aware of in the selected colleges in kwara state university.
2. Investigate the types of library E-databases used by lecturers in selected colleges in kwara state university.
3. Ascertain the extent of use of library e-database by lecturers in selected colleges in kwara state university
4. To find out the purpose of use of electronic Resources available in the academic libraries in kwara state university.
5. Identify factors that affect the use of library e-database by lecturers and those problems militating against the use of E=databases in the selected colleges in kwara state university.

1.4       Research Questions

1. What types of Electronic Databases are available which the lecturers are aware of in the library ?
2. What types of E-databases are used by lecturers?
3. What is the extent of usage of the E-databases are available for the lecturers in two selected colleges?
4. Whatare the purpose of the usage of electronic resources available in academic library in kwara state?
5. What are those factors and problems that affect the usage of library E-databases by lecturers in the selected colleges of Kwara state university?

1.5       Significance of the Study

The study will reveal the level of awareness and usage of e-databases by lecturers of some selected colleges in Kwara state university and to provide e-services to the growing e-library users. Also, the findings of the study will be of great importance to the government and university management functionaries to plan better in order to meet the changing technological needs of their university libraries. Also, it will serve as a guide to Nigerian university library management in the area of planning and establishing e-libraries.

The study will also be beneficial to librarians and information scientist; with this study they will know the importance of utilization of e resources that is access to current information regardless of time and location. Which would make themaccelerate in their profession.

The study would serve as a source of feedback for the college libraries in the institutions on the provision of electronic information resources and services to the academics and community in general.

The finding of the study could be used as a source of reference for other research on library promotion and use of electronic information resources.

1.6       Scope of the study

This study shall examine the level of awareness and usage of E-databases by lecturers in kwara state university. Specifically, the study shall cover two selected colleges in kwara state university, malete.

The two selected colleges shall consist of the following colleges which are the College of Information and Communication Technology (I.C.T) and the College of Education State University, Malete.

1.7       Operational Definition of Terms

(a) Library Resources: These refer to items containing information anything that is consulted to obtain information.

 (b) University Library: A place where print and non-print information materials are kept for use in a university.

(c) Electronic Database:  database is an organized collection of information or data usually in computer readable form

College: A specialized, semi-autonomous division of a university, with its own faculty, department, library, etc

Lecturers; A person who gives lectures especially as a profession

Awareness; A state of level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer

Use; A purpose for which something may employed

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IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON STUDENTS ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Abstract

 

The aim of the study was to analyze the impact of social media on the student’s academic performance [A study of students of University of Abuja]. To achieve this, the survey research method was used. Subjects were drawn from the University of Abuja, using the simple random sampling technique and purposive sampling. Four research questions guided the study. Research findings showed that a great number of students in University of Abuja, had access to the internet. To this end, the researcher recommended that sites should be created for educational purposes as well. This is to create a balance between social networking and academic activities of students to avoid setbacks in the academic performance of the students.

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