Abstract

The main thrust of the research project is to investigate. the influence of home environment on student intellectual development and academic predominance in government secondary schools in Kumba sub-division. this is because some parents provide educational materials like text books, and home teachers for their children while others do not, where as some students come to school properly fed, others do not. one then wonders whether the influences of home environment had played in these issues. in this light the main problem of this research is to find out if there exist a relationship between Kumba sud- division a relationship between family background and students’ academic performance. the school is for the most part made up of students who come from different parental backgrounds. the family background of a child is most likely to influence the academic performance of that child. education is a very expensive enterprise. the more material and financial resources available to an individual, the more and better quality education that will be at his disposal. the two most important functions of the family to the child are economic and education functions. previous studies have shown that parents of high social and economic class encourage their children learn by providing motivation, incentives and reinforcement relative to parents of the lower social and economic class. related theories that seek to explain class differences in educational attainment.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.o Introduction

Home environment is the surroundings where one lives. Harris & Gibbon (1996), see home environment as that which provide children with educational tools needed to achieve academic success. According to Tambo (2012), students are exposed to three types of education; formal, informal and non-formal. In line with UNESCO, formal education is training typically provided by an education or training institution, structured (in terms of learning objectives, learning time or learning support) and leading to certification. It is intentional from the learner’s perspective. Non-formal education is training which takes place outside the formal system either on a regular or intermittent basis, while informal education is learning resulting from daily life activities related to work, family or leisure. Informal learning is part of non-formal learning. It is often referred to as experience based learning and can to a certain degree be understood as accidental learning.

This therefore means that children learn informally at home and this forms the foundation of the formal learning that takes place in schools. The focus of this study is on the home environmental factors affecting the intellectual development of students. This entails the objects, materials, parents, siblings, and social life that exist in the home in which the student finds himself/herself. All the variables    at home that affect a person’s existence, behaviour and performance constitute the home environmental factors.  Education is the process of instructions aimed at the all-round development of the individual, facilitating realization of self-potential and latent talents of an individual (Anderman, 1999). Education makes man a right thinker and a correct decision maker. It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. Without education, man is as though in a closed room and with education he finds himself in a room with all its windows open towards outside world (Anderman, 1999).

 

1.1 Background of the Study.

Education is the process of instructions aimed at the all-round development of the individual, facilitating realization of self-potential and latent talents of individual (Anderman, 1999). Education makes man a right thinker and a correct decision maker. It is through education that knowledge and information is received and spread throughout the world. Without education, man is as though in a closed room and with education he finds himself in a room with all its windows open towards outside world (Anderman, 1999). In the current scenario, education has a pivotal role to play in the economic and social development of any nation. Bearing in mind the importance of education, it is the need of the hour to promote the academic achievement of students, who form the concrete foundation for the country’s progress.

Academic achievement is defined as the performance of the students in the subject they study in the school (Clark, 1983). Academic achievement determines the student’s status in the class. It gives children an opportunity to develop their talents, improve their grades and prepare for the future academic challenges. The primary environment of a student is the home and it stands to exert tremendous impact on the students’ achievements (Hoover-Dempsey et al, 2005). Moreover, the home is the primary agent of education in the child. Thus, the way the child lives, the food he/she eats and his/her life style is influenced by the home. The type of family system the child is exposed to could influence his academic achievement in school (Keith, 1993). Academic success of a child depends on what parents do at home. Also, Aremu (2000), found in his study that undergraduates that received democratic type of parenting performed better than their counterparts from autocratic homes.

According to Education News Colorado on 18th June 2012, many parents in United States of America are now living in poverty than in 2000. According to Hacker (2008)58.5 percent, of all Americans will spend at least one year beneath the poverty line which is one dollar a day, at some point between ages 25 and 75. This social economic status of the parents translates into parents’ inability to adequately finance their children’s education. According to Eze, (2002) homes vary markedly in socioeconomic status and academic level, not in amounts of wealth but in the ways in which the family income is obtained. Many authors (Harris & Gibbon, 1996; Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001; Jameson, 1997; Wallis & Cole, 1998) discuss factors in a home environment that provide children with educational tools needed to achieve academic success. Jameson (1997) specifies the importance of a quiet time and place for homework. There was also a discussion on the negative impact of television, but the positive impact of praise.

Harris and Gibbon (1996), state communication is a vital component for school success. Parents who prepare their children talk about setbacks, possible stressors and coping skills. Wallis (1998), wrote a parent’s guide on the importance of encouraging, praising nd involvement. Methods and results of an empirical study by Kohl (2000), show divorce is the most common but only one way a traditional family might develop into a single-parent family. Registered marriages are declining in the United States, but separations and divorces remain very high. Half of all marriages are expected to end in divorce. Then again, not all people who separate actually file for divorce. A more representative statistic might be, approximately 64% of the marriages will be disrupted.

Whether the reason is divorce or something else Kohl (2000), reminds us that 50% of the country’s children will live in a single-parent home by the year 2001. He further argued that Children from divorced families are more likely to have difficulties with school performance, delinquency, and disruptions in peer relationships, precocious sexual behavior and substance abuse. Financial challenges is a prevailing feature amongst many developing countries around the world with ever increasing severe effects of social and economic backdrop felt in countries within sub-Saharan Africa (Hill,2008). It is arguably a multidimensional challenge found in different forms both in urban and rural a reassembly possibly differing in its intensity with the effect felt most in day secondary schools depending on the school size.

Historically, home environments influence adolescents’ aspiration in more developed countries than in less developed counties. The social upbringing of the child begins from home (family). Particularly in Cameroon, the father is the head of the home while the mother takes care of the children’s upbringing (Hill, 2004).  It is the home that makes the child to identify his or herself in the society, culture, religion or social class. Thus the home continues to exercise a strong influence over the child’s life and academic performance in school. According to Tchombe and Nsamenang (2011, p.207), home environment in the Cameroon context is characterized by kinship and children are introduced very easily to activities that are age-related base on cultural beliefs and principles that fostered the child’s cognitive development from a holistic framework.

The home environment in Cameroon and Africa in general has a stronger influence on the students than in other parts of the world. They practice community living so children are bound to commune in their environment while in the western world people practice (USA, Europe) an individualistic way of bringing up their children (Mario, 2006). The home environment in Eurocentric society is highly nuclear and labour intensive (Goody,1976) children are left in guidance of nannies who become their immediate teachers. Another difference is that the child is surrounded by a variety of media that contribute to the child’s intellectual development and academic performance.  Anene (2005), states that the home is a single and most significant environmental factor in enabling children to develop the trust, attitude and skills that will help them to learn and engage positively with the world. It is the foundation on which babies, young children and youths can grow to achieve their full potential. Good home environment provides the love, security, simulation, encouragement and opportunities that help children to flourish. Nanalee (1997), pointed out that as children grow beyond babyhood, a positive home learning environment provides social interaction, attention and activities which promote the development of positive attitudes to learning, as well as the acquisition of physical, intellectual, language, social and emotional skills. At the age of 3 and 10 parents can provides the building blocks for literacy and cognitive development.

Musili (2012), holds that when a child’s environment is enriched with a variety of interesting activities (stimuli) with age sensitive difficulties, they explore and construct meaning out of them.  He equally says that the human intellect can only develop if we put it at work. That is to say for students to develop intellectually, they must be engaged in simulative activities, such as reading story books, playing simulative games on the laptop and also watching educative programs on the television. Children are motivated to work on activities and learn new information and skills when their environments are stimulated with interesting activities that arouse their curiosity and offer moderate challenges (Ajila and Otutola, 2000). The same can be said about home environment, and unfortunately there is much variability in motivational influences in homes. Some homes have many activities that stimulate the way children think, while others lack such simulative time with them on learning.

Much of the variability in the relationship between family income and children’s intellectual development comes from the family infancy and early childhood, when they are under the direct influence of parents. As children mature, schools and peers also begin to play a role in their intellectual socialization. There is much evidence supporting the hypothesis that the quality of a child’s early learning in the home environment relate positively to the development of intelligent and reading skills, (Meece, 2002, Chai & Lefevre, 2002), and parental involvement in schooling also predict achievement (Luckner, Whaley & Egeland, 2004). Activities like educative games, family games, educative TV programs and parents who may be interested in their children cognitive development and spent Over a period of time, it has been observed that students exposed to the same lessons by the same teachers perform differently when they are evaluated (Adesehinwa, 2013).

According to Graetz (2009), parental education is highly correlated with children’s educational attainment. The quality and extent of parental involvement in students’ intellectual development is greatly determined by their level of education. In addition to the studies discussed above, many other studies (Balli et al, 1998; Baker& Stevenson, 1986; Poston and Falbo, 1990), have cited out that parent’s educational level as one of the most important indicators that determines parental involvement. As stated by Lockheed et al. (1989), the higher the standard of the parents’ education level, the higher would be the parent’s academic aspirations for their child.  Educated parents will always believe that it is important to help a child with his or her homework but this is different if a child is from a home where his or her parent are not educated. Parents’ educational level plays an important role in the level of parent involvement and most of these research has been with secondary school students (Sui-chu & Williams 1996). More findings describe that the higher the educational level of the parents, the greater the likely hood of the students to have better intellectual

 

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The notion of relevance of home environment on student intellectual development and school achievement has great intuitive appeal and has been popularized in educational practice. Education now widely acknowledge the importance of the family (leichter, 1974), as they have during earlier historical periods (Clarke-swtewart, 1978b). Because of the importance attributed to the family, the specific means through which the family might influence intellectual development need to be delineated. Study of family influence are especially timely because families are undergoing changes, such as in the increase number of one-parent family, the increased participation of father in child rearing, and the increased participation of mothers in the work force. This chapter discuss some of the ways in which families may influence children’s cognitive development and achievement (Goodson and Hess, 1978).

Many factors such as lack of facilities in school, lack of teachers, indiscipline, low intelligence, anxiety, pupils’ need to achieve and so on have been found to cause poor academic performance. While these factors have been identified as possible factors that contribute to the variations in academic performance not much has been done to show the role played by the students’ home environment on his/her academic achievement. This study therefore attempted to find out whether the differences in academic achievement can be attributed to differences in their home environments.

 

1.3 General Research Objective

The general research objective of this study was to investigate the influence of home environment on students’ intellectual development in government secondary schools in the Kumba Municipality of Meme Division.

1.3.1 Specific Research Objectives

1. To determine the influence of parents’ socio-economic status on students’ intellectual development and academic performance.
2. To examine the influence of environmental condition and social interaction on the intellectual development and academic performance of students.
3. To investigate the effect of parent educational background on students’ intellectual development and academic performance.