CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

In our country today more than half of the students with high academic performance are those whose parents have a high interest in their children’s education as such they provide them with both psychological and educational needs while those students who perform poorly academically do not receive educational and psychological support from their parents for studying.

Motivation is what gives direction to our behaviour, by arousing, sustaining, and directing it towards the attainment of some educational goals. This parental motivation refers to the interest parents show in the education of their children, by providing them with both educational and psychological needs.

This research work is out to find out the role parental motivation play in the academic achievement of their children in secondary schools. This chapter is made up of the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance of the study, the scope of the study, and definition of terms.

Background of the study

According to Gestwicki (1992), parental motivation in education is instrumental in determining students’ success at all levels of learning. It also has benefits like children’s benefits and parental benefits. In addition to the above, surveillance of homework and reaction to students’ academic grades are motivation factors to students’ academic performance (Grinsburg & Bronstein, 1993). Thus, children take learning very seriously when parents get involved in their education.

Looking at the fact that children’s education begins at home, that is informal education, it is needless to ask the role parental motivation plays in the education of their children. When parents are involved in the education process of their children they turn to take it very seriously than when they are not.

They do not only take part in their school but in the society as a whole, that is social life. When parents are involved in their children’s education they become aware of their children’s educational needs. This awareness causes parents to prepare their children both materially and psychologically.

Parental motivation can be manifested in the area of providing necessary instrumental materials to children, encourage children to regularly attend school, and creating a healthy rapport or relationship with teachers and administrators at school.

Motivation is a goal-directed activity that can be instigated and sustain. It should be understood that motivation is a process rather than a product. As a process, it cannot be observed but rather it can be inferred from a behavior. We can also say motivation is the act of instilling interest in a learner to learn to achieve a certain goal in life.

There are several ways through which parents get involved in their children’s academics in the bid to ensure that they succeed in their endeavors. These ways include embracing their imperfection that is accept their mistakes, reconsider rewards, always endeavour to have a meaningful conversation with the child, consider their capabilities, express appreciation when they do something good, lead by example that is show example for them to follow for children see their parents as their role models which they always try to emulate. This is the idea of Edward Deci, professor of psychology (Deci, 2001).

It should be understood that when students are motivated they turn to excel more because they know that someone is out there expecting something great from them and that will prompt them to be serious and perform well in their academics.

The theories which will be used in this piece of work will be Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory and Murray’s theory of needs. Maslow’s theory says parents needs to provide the basics needs of children like food, shelter, water, cloth to their children because without the basic needs the child’s psychology will be disturbed and the child will not be able to study well. Thus basics needs should be provided before higher-order needs.

Statement of the problem

Parental motivation on its part is motivation which refers to the beliefs, attitudes of a parent is doing an investigation into their children’s academic so as to ensure their success in education.

This work was aimed at investigating the role which parental motivation plays on children’s academic performance. The word motivation simply is a goal-directed activity that is investigated and sustained. This simply means that for motivation to be achieved it must be directed towards the attainment of a goal and for these goals to be sustained it must undergo some degree of follow up.

It is for this reason that the researcher deemed it necessary to pose the fundamental question: what are the effects of parental motivation on students’ academic performance in Kumba municipality?

Objectives of the study

General objectives

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of parental motivation on student’s academic performance in Kumba municipality.

Specific objectives

The specific objectives of this study were to find out the following:

1. How parental provision of school requirements affect students’ academic performance
2. How does parental assistance affect their children’s academic performance
3. How parental reward to their children affect their academic performance