Background of the Study

Education is the best legacy a nation can give to her citizens especially the youths.

This is because education is very important in the development of any nation or

community. Education is the process of transmitting what is worthwhile to members

of the society. According to Okafor (1981). Education embraces all those experiences

of the individual through which knowledge is acquired and intellect enlightened. For

Nwabachili and Egbue (1993) education is what goes on from one generation to

another generation. In this context, education is the process of socializing the child to

grow up as a fulfilled member of the society through informal, formal and non-formal

process. Informal education is the process of acquiring knowledge about the

environment and beyond through living with one another. According to Nwabachili

and Egbue (1993) formal education is a consciously planned form of socialization in a

formal setting such as school. They stressed that non-formal education involve all

those systematic programme? And processes of education and training that is done

outside formal education settings. All these forms of education cannot be achieved

without the influence of the family.

Family is the first social environment the child finds itself. According to Clifford

(1981) family remains the primary environment of the child. The author emphasized

that family environment has more chances of increasing or decreasing the intellectual

achievement of the child. Akubue and Okolo (2008), defined family as a small

kinship structural group with the key function of natural socialization of the new born.

Similarly, in Okunniyi (2004), family is defined as a primary social group of parents,

offspring and possibly other members of the household.

Family factors refers to all the conditions and circumstances in the family which

influence the child physically, intellectually and emotionally Muola (2010). Children

coming from different family backgrounds are affected different by such family

conditions that is why some children have good family background while some have

poor background. Citing fleege, Eke (1999) noted that with some families, the

background way vary from time to time for the same individuals.

Formal education therefore remains the vehicle for human development which must

start from the family. There are different categories of families. The major categories

of families according to Anderson and Taylor (2000) includes: Traditional families-

where the father is the major breadwinner and mother at home rearing children;

divorced families-families that have been reconstituted following the breaking of

marriage; single parent families-likely headed by women; step families-with new

siblings and new parents stemming from re-marriage.

A family could also be categorized as extended or nuclear. Extended families are

those in which large group of related kin in addition to parents and children live

together in the same household. This is the type of families prevalent in African

countries. Nuclear families are families where married couple resides together with

their children. Thin type of family is common in Western countries (Andersen and

Taylor 2000).

Families are of various sizes. Family size has to do with the total number of people in

a single family which may include the father, mother, children and even the extended

members - all living in one hamlet. According to Alio (1995) family size has

implication for education. The author emphasized that the size of the family

determines to a great extent the relative amount of physical attention and time which
each child gets from his parents. Large families are more common among the lower

class of the society. Children in large families may suffer poverty and lack parental

encouragement and stimulus which motivate their academic achievement (Eamon,

2005). Similarly, smaller family size has been linked with high academic achievement

(Majoribank 1996) Majoribank further stressed that students with fewer siblings are

likely to receive more parental attention and have support that leads to better school

performance Family (small or large size) remains the primary environment of every

child. The families begin the process of education and provide physical and

psychological needs of the child. This supports the view of Maduewisi (1982), that

the environmental experiences from family, peer group and school location have great

influence in determining child's intellectual ability. She maintained that bright

children from under-privileged family environment may turn dull due to impoverished

family environment. She added that mental development influence, intellectual

development. This is in line with Hebb (1987) who observed that the innate potentials

of children cannot be attained without adequate stimulating family environment

because the child cannot do well intellectually. The implication is that a proper

stimulating family environment with intellectual potential and appropriate teaching

methods will definitely enhance maximum performance of the child.

Durosaro and Durosaro (1990) in their study attempted to investigate the' relationship

between students' family and their academic performance; they found out that family

size influenced academic performance. Their study reveals that children from small

size families performed better at school than their counterparts from both average size

and large size families. Furthermore, Yoloye (1989) conducted a study to see if the

family factor variables might be useful in explaining their academic performance.

Some aspects of family variables examined in the study include family size and
parents' educational status. His findings were that the polygamous family sizes which

were naturally large, reduces the chances of children going to school in the first

instance. In addition, children from such backgrounds who are in schools have

reduced chances of achieving their goals. Thirdly, parents of such families are mostly

illiterate and incapable of providing adequate motivation for their children in schools

as compare with the literate nuclear families.

The economic implication of large family size is better explained in Okuniyi (2004)

who observed from his study that as families get larger, parents cannot give their

children the same amount of individual attention. They could not afford to provide

them with so many of the things which will help them to make the best possible use of

their years at school such as educational aids, and quiet comfortable rooms in which

to do homework undisturbed by the television, outings to places of interest, leisure

lime pursuits, and opportunities for traveling. What is most probably important of all,

according to him is the fact that the parents of large families were found not to talk

with their children to the same extent as parents of small families.

Another aspect of family environmental factor is the structure of the family.

Structurally, a family is either broken or intact. A broken family in this context in one

that is not structurally intact for various reasons; such as death of a parent, divorce,

separation, desertion and illegitimacy in which case, the family was never completed

(Coukline 1996). Life in a single parent family can be stressful for both the child and

the parent and such families are faced with the challenges of diminished financial

resource?!, assumptions of new roles and responsibilities, establishment of new

pattern in intra- familial interactions and reorganization or routines and schedules,

(Agulanna 1999).
In single parent families, children may suffer some psychological and social problems

which affect their academic performance. Danesy and Okedian (2002), in theirstudy,

lamented that street hawking among secondary school students have psychologically

imposed other problems, such as sex networking behavior, juvenile delinquent

behavior, which take much of the student school time that necessitated the poor

academic performance and drop out syndrome noticed among young school students.

They also lamented that the maternal and paternal deprivation of essential needs of

the young students have promoted their poor performance in public examination as

JSCE, WASSCE and NECO. Similarly, (Okunniyi 2004) asserted that a child who

suffer maternal and paternal deprivation may experience academic problems

including truancy in the school. This is because the child may lack some necessities

like school fees, books and uniforms. These factors, according to the authors, are not

conducive for effective parenting because when the single parents are overburdened

by responsibilities and by the own, emotional, reaction to their situation, they often

become irritable, impatient and insensitive to their children's needs.

Apart from the structural pattern of the family, another powerful variable in the family

that determines the students’ academic performance is the family socio-economic

status (SES). According to (Jeynes 2002), the socio-economic status of a child h most

commonly determined by combining portent's educational level, occupational status,

and income level. Social class and economic status of the parents determine the type

of school and the standard of training they desire for their children. The occupation or

profession of the parents, the educational level and whether the mothers are working

or non-working mothers places them at an advantage or disadvantage to evaluate their

children's academic work and monitor their progress.

Status is often determined by the individuals’ economic attainment, though it is

sometimes ascribed on the individual. Okunniyi (2004), identified three distinct socio-

economic groups or status which are common in many countries. They are: upper

class- which is made up of rich business men and top government officials among

others; middle class- which consists of skilled workers, professionals and middle

ranked government workers and the lower class- which is made up of manual

workers, petty trader and low income government officials.

Francis (2007) opines that the lower income families may be aware of the importance

of education in the society, but at the same time, they are also aware of their limited

resources to measure up with such educational demands. According to the author, a

family that can scarcely provide for the basic needs of the family which include rood,

shelters and clothing will hardly motivate the academic excellence of their children,

instead they will pressurize their children so seek for job opportunities with the little

education they acquired so far to support the family. The implication of the agreement

is that for families are likely to give their children poor academic background

because- of lack of financial support.

The socio-economic status of a family is capable of affecting the behavior of the

children and determines their aspiration. Families with high socio-economic status

often have more success in preparing their children for school because they typically

have access to wide range of providing their young children with high quality child-

care books and encourage children in various learning activities at home. They also

have easy access to information regarding their children's health, as well as social,

emotional and cognitive development (Ojo and Yilma 2010),

Ojo and Yilma also noted that in all socio-economic groups, parents face major

challenges when it comes to providing optimal care and education for their children

and these challenges are more pronounced in poor families. This, according to them,

is because sometimes, when the basic necessities are lacking, parents must place top

priority on housing, food, clothing and health care, regarding education materials and

books as luxuries. They added that poor families may also have inadequate or limited

access to community resources that promote and support children's development and

school readiness. They further asserted that these disadvantages can negatively affect

families’ decisions regarding their children development and learning. This situation,

according to Ojo and Yilma, may also expose the infants in poor families to a greater

risk of entering kindergarten schools unprepared, unlike their peers from rich families.

Parents' motivation is another family factor which influence the academic

performance of students. Students under motivated condition, exhibits purposeful

behavior aimed at achieving academic set goals. The achievement of these goals

determines the motive, Hickey and Lindsey (1995) clearly distinguished two-

perspectives of motivation; these are situational and dispositional perspectives.

According to them, disposition perspective asks questions about students' general

orientation to learning which relates the students' priority and students' nature. The

situational perspective according to the scholars focuses on learning context. These

scholars further identified to factors that greatly influence students' motivation. These

are: interpersonal factors such as curiosity, perseverance, and autonomy (intrinsic-

factors) and environmental factors such as parents, peers and sibling (extrinsic

factors).

Research shows that supportive and attentive parenting practices positively affect

academic performance (Eamon, 2005). In addition, high parental aspirations have

been associated with increasing students' interest in education (Majoribanks, 2005).

The effect of parental motivation and involvement in their children's school has on

academic performance is less clear (Domina 2005), parental motivation and

involvement in school has been linked to both positive and negative influences on

academic performance (McNeal, 2001, Domina, 2005). Explanations for this

discrepancy are not conclusive. It is thought that the type of involvement and

motivation may make a difference and that in some cases parents become involved

after their child has already academic difficulties (Domina, 2005, McNeal, 2001).

Other recent research has found more conclusively that while parental motivation may

not help academic performance, it does help prevent behavioral problems (Domina,

2005).

Students with fewer siblings are likely to receive more parental attention and

motivation and thus have more access to resources than children from large family.

The additional attention and motivation leads to better school performance

(Majoribanks, 1996, Thondike, 1997 and Samon, 2005).

Thorndike reorganized seven ways of motivating students viz: awareness on the part

of the parents of the value of education whether such parents are literature of illiterate;

existence of books, newspapers, comic books; good nutrition am' sleeping habit;

adequate facilities for sleep, for study and for rest; satisfaction physical needs like

food, shelter and clothing; objects in the home which challenges the child's curiosity.

Douglas (1984) established a positive correlation between children's academic

performance and motivation. The author laid considerable emphasis upon interest as a

factor governing children's chances of being awarded grammar school admissions.

For the author, the simple most important factor that influence educational attainment
of children appears to be the degree of parent’s interest in their children's education.

Douglas further stated that middle class parents express great interest in their

children's education as indicated by more frequent visits to school to discuss

children’s progress, buying relevant textbooks and other necessary materials needed

in the school for their children. The author also found from his study that parental

interest and encouragement become increasingly important as a spur to high

attainment as the children grow older. He also attached importance to the child's early

years, since in many ease:*, performance during the first years of school is reflected

throughout the secondary school. He suggested that during primary socialization,

middle-class children receive greater attention and stimulus from their parents. This

forms basis for high achievement in the educational system.

Students from low socio-economic status families may not be strongly motivated to

do well in school and may not be knowledgeable about techniques of being successful

in school. High socio-economic status parents who have benefited in a variety of ways

from education serves as effective and enthusiastic advocate of schooling (Carlson,

2003). In line with this Qkwulanya (2003) opines that motivation from educated

parents strengthens the academic aspiration and language development in their

children to perform better in their academic work. According to the scholar, some

children may come from homes were academic is much valued, where there are books

around them and most of the time, they see their parents reading. Their parents may

give them books as Christmas presents. They encourage them to read many books

wither by organizing mini, library for them at home or by encourage to use the state

library. The author went further to emphasize that some children may come from

illiterate homes, where no importance is attached to books. In such families children

scarcely see their parents at home.

In all, the researcher's conclusion is that motivated students are likely to engage in an

activity more vigorously and more effectively than unmotivated one. Motivation is

always goal orientated. The importance of parental level of education to academic

achievement of students cannot be over emphasized. Students from professional and

to a lesser extent managerial occupational backgrounds exhibit higher academic

performance (Gary, 2001). In support of this view, Onochie and Okpalla (1985)

opined that educational level of parents which is an indicator of socio-economic status

has direct influence on child's values and academic achievement in the school. They

mentioned that children from illiterate families may learn little or nothing from home

that can help them develop interest in academic. This is in contrast to what is

obtainable from children from literature families where parents provide atmosphere

conducive for the formation of good study habits (Qeca, 1980).

Parental occupation is also an important family factor variable. The occupation of

one's parents may determine to a large extent one's opportunity to attend secondary

school or not. Ezeji (2001) noted that parents like their children to take to their

occupation, like parents who are lawyers, doctors, musicians among others. Examples

of such people in the country- include Gani fawehinmi, the prominent human right

lawyer, Oliver Akalite (Oliver De coque) and Osita Osadebe who were famous

musicians each of these great men had one or more of his children in his type of

occupation. Uwaomn (2066) asserted that most vocational students were children

whose parents are farmer or craftsmen. In Nigeria most children whose parents cannot

afford to pay for high cost of formal education enroll into apprenticeship programmes

such as carpentry, brick laying, petting trading and others. In the study area, there is a

seeming general poor performance among secondary school students. Evidences of

the poor performances are seen in both students' internal and external examination.
For instance, the available records of WAEC result analyses from 2005 to 2011

indicate downward trends in student' academic performance. According to the

analyses, the achievement levels of students are as follows: 2005-27.53%, 2006-

15.56%, 2007-25.54%. 2008 13.76%, 2009-25.99%, 2010-24.94% and 2011 -30.99%

(source: WAEC Lagos).

It is against this background that the researcher is interested investigating the role of

family factors on students’ academic performance in Yaba area of Lagos state. The

researcher intends to assess the variables in the family factors with a view of assessing

their relative role on academic performance of senior secondary school student in

Yaba Local Government area of Lagos state.

Education is the best legacy a nation can give to her citizens especially the youths.

This is because education is very important in the development of any nation or

community. Education is the process of transmitting what is worthwhile to members

of the society. According to Okafor (1981). Education embraces all those experiences

of the individual through which knowledge is acquired and intellect enlightened. For

Nwabachili and Egbue (1993) education is what goes on from one generation to

another generation. In this context, education is the process of socializing the child to

grow up as a fulfilled member of the society through informal, formal and non-formal

process. Informal education is the process of acquiring knowledge about the

environment and beyond through living with one another. According to Nwabachili

and Egbue (1993) formal education is a consciously planned form of socialization in a

formal setting such as school. They stressed that non-formal education involve all

those systematic programme? And processes of education and training that is done
outside formal education settings. All these forms of education cannot be achieved

without the influence of the family.

Family is the first social environment the child finds itself. According to Clifford

(1981) family remains the primary environment of the child. The author emphasized

that family environment has more chances of increasing or decreasing the intellectual

achievement of the child. Akubue and Okolo (2008), defined family as a small

kinship structural group with the key function of natural socialization of the new born.

Similarly, in Okunniyi (2004), family is defined as a primary social group of parents,

offspring and possibly other members of the household.

Family factors refers to all the conditions and circumstances in the family which

influence the child physically, intellectually and emotionally Muola (2010). Children

coming from different family backgrounds are affected different by such family

conditions that is why some children have good family background while some have

poor background. Citing fleege, Eke (1999) noted that with some families, the

background way vary from time to time for the same individuals.

Formal education therefore remains the vehicle for human development which must

start from the family. There are different categories of families. The major categories

of families according to Anderson and Taylor (2000) includes: Traditional families-

where the father is the major breadwinner and mother at home rearing children;

divorced families-families that have been reconstituted following the breaking of

marriage; single parent families-likely headed by women; step families-with new

siblings and new parents stemming from re-marriage.

A family could also be categorized as extended or nuclear. Extended families are

those in which large group of related kin in addition to parents and children live
together in the same household. This is the type of families prevalent in African

countries. Nuclear families are families where married couple resides together with

their children. Thin type of family is common in Western countries (Andersen and

Taylor 2000).

Families are of various sizes. Family size has to do with the total number of people in

a single family which may include the father, mother, children and even the extended

members - all living in one hamlet. According to Alio (1995) family size has

implication for education. The author emphasized that the size of the family

determines to a great extent the relative amount of physical attention and time which

each child gets from his parents. Large families are more common among the lower

class of the society. Children in large families may suffer poverty and lack parental

encouragement and stimulus which motivate their academic achievement (Eamon,

2005).

Durosaro and Durosaro (1990) in their study attempted to investigate the' relationship

between students' family and their academic performance; they found out that family

size influenced academic performance. Their study reveals that children from small

size families performed better at school than their counterparts from both average size

and large size families. In addition, children from such backgrounds who are in

schools have reduced chances of achieving their goals. Thirdly, parents of such

families are mostly illiterate and incapable of providing adequate motivation for their

children in schools as compare with the literate nuclear families.

Another aspect of family environmental factor is the structure of the family.

Structurally, a family is either broken or intact. A broken family in this context in one

that is not structurally intact for various reasons; such as death of a parent, divorce,
separation, desertion and illegitimacy in which case, the family was never completed

(Coukline 1996). Life in a single parent family can be stressful for both the child and

the parent and such families are faced with the challenges of diminished financial

resource?!, assumptions of new roles and responsibilities, establishment of new

pattern in intra- familial interactions and reorganization or routines and schedules,

(Agulanna 1999).

Apart from the structural pattern of the family, another powerful variable in the family

that determines the students’ academic performance is the family Socio - Economic

Status (SES). According to (Jeynes 2002), the Socio - Economic status of a child

most commonly determined by combining portent's educational level, occupational

status, and income level. Social class and economic status of the parents determine the

type of school and the standard of training they desire for their children. The

occupation or profession of the parents, the educational level and whether the mothers

are working or non-working mothers places them at an advantage or disadvantage to

evaluate their children's academic work and monitor their progress.

The socio-economic status of a family is capable of affecting the behavior of the

children and determines their aspiration. Families with high socio-economic status

often have more success in preparing their children for school because they typically

have access to wide range of providing their young children with high quality child-

care books and encourage children in various learning activities at home. They also

have easy access to information regarding their children's health, as well as social,

emotional and cognitive development (Ojo and Yilma 2010),

Parents' motivation is another family factor which influence the academic

performance of students. Students under motivated condition, exhibits purposeful

behavior aimed at achieving academic set goals. The achievement of these goals

determines the motive, Hickey and Lindsey (1995) clearly distinguished two-

perspectives of motivation; these are situational and dispositional perspectives.

According to them, disposition perspective asks questions about students' general

orientation to learning which relates the students' priority and students' nature. The

situational perspective according to the scholars focuses on learning context. These

scholars further identified to factors that greatly influence students' motivation. These

are: interpersonal factors such as curiosity, perseverance, and autonomy (intrinsic-

factors) and environmental factors such as parents, peers and sibling (extrinsic

factors).

Research shows that supportive and attentive parenting practices positively affect

academic performance (Eamon, 2005). In addition, high parental aspirations have

been associated with increasing students' interest in education (Majoribanks, 2005).

The effect of parental motivation and involvement in their children's school has on

academic performance is less clear (Domina 2005), parental motivation and

involvement in school has been linked to both positive and negative influences on

academic performance (McNeal, 2001, Domina, 2005).

Students with fewer siblings are likely to receive more parental attention and

motivation and thus have more access to resources than children from large family.

The additional attention and motivation leads to better school performance

(Majoribanks, 1996, Thondike, 1997 and Samon, 2005).

In all, the researcher's conclusion is that motivated students are likely to engage in an

activity more vigorously and more effectively than unmotivated one. Motivation is

always goal orientated. The importance of parental level of education to academic

achievement of students cannot be over emphasized. Students from professional and

to a lesser extent managerial occupational backgrounds exhibit higher academic

performance (Gary, 2001). In support of this view, Onochie and Okpalla (1985)

opined that educational level of parents which is an indicator of socio-economic status

has direct influence on child's values and academic achievement in the school. They

mentioned that children from illiterate families may learn little or nothing from home

that can help them develop interest in academic. This is in contrast to what is

obtainable from children from literature families where parents provide atmosphere

conducive for the formation of good study habits (Qeca, 1980).

Parental occupation is also an important family factor variable. The occupation of

one's parents may determine to a large extent one's opportunity to attend secondary

school or not. Ezeji (2001) noted that parents like their children to take to their

occupation, like parents who are lawyers, doctors, musicians among others. Examples

of such people in the country- include Gani fawehinmi, the prominent human right

lawyer, Oliver Akalite (Oliver De coque) and Osita Osadebe who were famous

musicians each of these great men had one or more of his children in his type of

occupation.

It is against this background that the researcher is interested investigating the role of

family factors on students’ academic performance in Yaba area of Lagos state. The

researcher intends to assess the variables in the family factors with a view of assessing

their relative role on academic performance of senior secondary school student in

Yaba Local Government area of Lagos state.