RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED PARENTAL ATTACHMENT AND THEIR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN EDO STATE

Abstract

Poor achievement of secondary school students in their certificate examinations has created a lot of social vices among young school leavers in recent years. As a result, this study investigated the relationship between secondary school students’ perceived parental attachment and their academic achievements in Edo State. The study was guided by five research questions and two hypotheses. Population of study comprised all SS2 students of the state owned (public) secondary schools. A sample size of 1201 students in SS2 was randomly drawn from 30 senior secondary schools, out of the 310 state owned (public) secondary schools. The research design was correlational survey and instruments used for data collection were parental attachment inventory (PAI). The instrument was adopted for use. It has been validated and it has reliability coefficient (internal consistency) of 0.88 for (PAI). Other instruments used in the study were end of term grades or students’ achievement scores in Mathematics and English Language. Administration of research instrument was done through direct delivery approach and data were analysed using summated scores, percentages, t-test Pearson r. Hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance and findings revealed that 1023(85.2%) of the students have good parental attachment, while 232(19.3%) of the students had excellent academic achievement in Mathematics, 378(31.5%) of them had excellent academic achievement in English Language. It was also revealed that relationship existing between secondary school students’ parental attachment, and their academic achievements was neither significant in Mathematics nor in English Language. Based on the findings, recommendations were made.