IMPACT OF SINGLE-PARENTING ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to assess the effects of single parenting on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha city council. The purpose was achieved through four specific objectives: identifying the causes of single parenting, identifying the challenges faced by single parents on students’ academic performance,
proposing solutions to overcome the challenges faced by single parents on students’ academic performance, determining the effects of single parenting on students’ academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha city, and determining the relationship between single parenting fads and students’ academic performance. The study used a survey design with a quantitative technique.
The information was gathered using questionnaires and a random sample of 612 people. It was discovered that divorce, death, separation, and being unmarried are all causes of single parenting.
The study also revealed that the challenges faced by single parents in supporting students’ academic performance in secondary schools included an inability to purchase school supplies, a lack of time to check students’ exercise books, an inability to provide money for their children’s lunches, poor communication, and a lack of time to give homework to children.
Furthermore, the study found that single parenting challenges can be overcome by providing students with basic necessities and encouraging their children to work hard in school. It was also discovered that single parenting causes economic hardships among students, a lack of parental support, a lack of school resources, life stress and instability, as well as anxiety and depression.
The study concluded that divorce, death, separation, and being unmarried are all causes of single parenting. Furthermore, the study confirms that single parenting has a negative impact on students’ academic performance in secondary school. According to the study, single parents should purchase all school supplies for their children and devote time to academic issues pertaining to their children.
The study also suggests that teachers pay more attention to single-parenting students and provide counseling to them in order to encourage them. In addition, the government should identify and address the needs of single parenting students.
INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER ONE 1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
According to Nyarko (2007), children who have experienced parental separation, divorce, or death do not perform well or achieve academically. When both parents are present, the child is more likely to receive the best care. When one of the parents is absent from a child’s life, a void is created because the child loses the support that would have come from that parent.
According to Salami and Alawode (2000), single parenting results from various types of separation, divorce, having children out of wedlock, or the death of one spouse, which leaves the roles in the hands of a single parent.
Researchers in the United States have consistently discovered effects of single-parent families on the educational achievement of children.
For example, when reviewing research findings from large longitudinal data sets (Zill, 1996) discovered that students from nuclear intact families performed the best academically, while students from other family types, such as stepparent families and single-parent families, performed poorly.
Children raised in single-parent households are at risk of not reaching their full potential. Students from stepparent families, on the other hand, outperformed students from single-parent families (Sander, 2001).
Similarly, Han and Huang (2000) discovered in their study on college attendance and education expenditure in Taiwan that children from single-parent families attended college at a lower rate than children from intact families.
According to Amoakohene (2013)’s research in Ghana on the relationship between single parenting and academic performance of adolescents in senior high school, there are some problems that are unique to single parents and create difficulties in raising children.
These issues include: resentment toward the absent spouse, loneliness, poverty, and fear of raising children alone without assistance. According to the findings of the study, academic performance and single parenting are negatively related; thus, the more cases of single parenting, the poorer the academic performance.
Mrinde (2014) conducted a study in Tanzania about the challenges that students with single parents face in obtaining secondary school education in Kinondoni Municipal and discovered that the challenges that single parented students face in obtaining secondary education are not only multiple but also self contradictory.
They are complex because no single challenge can stand alone and explain the challenge without being linked to the others. As a result, the difficulties revealed are financial hardship, a lack of parental care, a lack of supervision and monitoring, a lack of guidance and counseling, and a lack of socialization.
It was also revealed that single parented students’ educational attainment has suffered as a result of poor academic performance, poor attendance, dropping out of school, and engaging in risky behaviors. According to the findings, it was recommended that single parent students who are experiencing financial hardship be identified so that the government can assist them in paying their fees.
Bashagh (2015) discovered that low income, teachers’ attitudes toward parents, parents’ ignorance and low level of education, parents’ attitudes toward teachers, personal commitments to work, and poor communication between teachers and parents were factors impeding parents’ involvement in the learning process and students’ academic performance in selected secondary schools in Arusha City.
As there is no empirical study in the area of single parenting in relation to academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha City, the researcher set out to assess the effect of single parenting on students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Arusha City to fill the research gap.
1.2 Research Problem Statement
Students who have experienced the separation, divorce, or death of one of their parents do not always perform well or achieve their full potential. They also run the risk of not reaching their full potential. Various studies on single parenting and its impact on students’ academic performance have been conducted, but no study has been conducted on single parenting and academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha City. As a result, the purpose of this study was to assess the impact of single parenting on the performance of students in secondary schools in Arusha City.
1.3 Study Objectives 1.3.1 GENERAL OBJECTIVES
The study’s overarching goal is to assess the impact of single parenting on students’ academic performance in a sample of secondary schools in Arusha City.
1.3.2 PARTICULAR OBJECTIVES
The following objectives are specific to this study:
i. To identify the causes of single parenting in Arusha City secondary schools.
ii. To identify the barriers that single parents face in supporting their children’s academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha City.
iii. To propose solutions to the identified challenges faced by single parents in students’ academic performance in Arusha City secondary schools.
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1.4 Research Issues
The following research questions are guiding this study.
i. ii. What are the challenges that single parents face in terms of their children’s academic performance in secondary schools in Arusha City?
iii. What are the proposed solutions to the identified challenges faced by single parents on students’ academic performance in Arusha City secondary schools?
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1.5 Hypotheses for Research
There is no statistically significant relationship between single parenting factors and students’ academic performance in Arusha City secondary schools.
1.6 Theoretical Structure
Theory of Cognitive Development by Lev Vygotsky (1978)
According to Vygotsky’s (1978) cognitive development theory, parents play an important role in the process of making meaning. Vygotsky goes on to say that cognitive development is influenced by social interactions and guided learning in the zone of proximal development, where children and their partners co-construct knowledge. According to Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up influences how and what they think about (Roth & Lee, 2007).
He also believed that certain higher functions were developed through a child’s direct interaction with significant people in his or her life. One of the reasons that a child from a single parent family may not perform to their full potential is the absence of the missing parent to guide, discipline, direct, model, and teach (Rothstein, 2004).
According to Vygotsky, mental development is the intertwining of biological development of the human body and the appropriation of the cultural, ideal, or material heritage that exists in the present to coordinate people with each other and the physical world (Bronfenbrenner, 2002).
Furthermore, Vygotsky’s concept of cognitive development implies that the social world shapes how children think. Vygotsky (1978) believed that children learn more effectively when their learning is best supported at appropriate times when the caregiver assists them in learning new tasks.
“When children raised in single-parent households are left alone for extended periods of time or placed in the care of uninvolved caregivers, their academic skills are not fully supported” (Knox & Virginia, 1996).
As a result, the researcher has used Vygotsky’s cognitive development theory because he believed that everything a child learns is through interactions with knowledgeable partners.
Thus, children who experience cooperative and assistive, rather than punitive, parenting styles will quickly increase cognitive skills and be motivated to learn. This applies to practical skills such as writing and building things out of blocks, as well as learning ethical and problem-solving behavior (Brooks, 2011).
IMPACT OF SINGLE-PARENTING ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF STUDENTS IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS
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