PARENTS’ SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS AS A PREDITOR OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF BIOLOGY STUDENTS IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL IN OKE-ERO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KWARA STATE

Abstract

The study investigated the parents’ socio-economic status as a predictor of students’ academic performance of senior secondary school biology students in Oke - Ero Local Government Area, Kwara State. Correlational research design was used. The population of the study comprises of senior secondary school biology students of the selected school. The sample consisted of 200 students from 10 senior secondary schools randomly selected for the study. Two instruments were used for the study. The instruments were, Questionnaire on Parent Social Economic Status as Predictor of Academic Performance in Biology (QPSESPAPB) and Biology Performance Test (BPT). The instruments were self-developed by the researchers for collection of data. Validity of the instruments was ascertained through face and content validity. The reliability coefficients for the two instruments were obtained 0.81 for QSESPAPB, while that of BPT was 0.79. Four research questions guided the study and four hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The data extracted from the field were analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis for testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significant. Results drawn from the analyses indicate that parents’ income, occupation and educational qualifications predict the students’ academic performance in biology in public senior secondary school students in Oke-Ero LGA Kwara State. It is therefore, recommended that parents with high socio-economic status should assist the students from low social-economic status through school Also, Parents with low educational qualifications should encourage their children to attain high qualifications