Home academic culture and secondary school students’ academic performance in public secondary schools in Meru County, Kenya

Abstract

The family lays the psychosocial, moral, and spiritual foundations in the overall development of the child. It is the smallest, most sensitive and important social system which is furnished and facilitated by a society as a larger social system. It is argued that high-quality parent-child interactions characterized by sensitive and supportive parents who provide security and confidence help children regulate and initiate social and nonsocial experiences. Thus, the importance of parents in their children’s educational achievement cannot be underrated. Nonetheless, there have been inconsistencies in the role of home academic culture on students outcome. Thus, this study sought to establish the perceived influence of home academic culture on the secondary school students’ performance. The study used a cross-sectional survey research design. The study employed questionnaires to collect data. The target population was 109,151 consisting of 52,650 students, 3,851 teachers and 52,650 parents. The study used simple random sampling to sample 212 form four students, 212 parents and 121 teachers. Purposive sampling was used to sample 53 principals from 53 randomly selected public secondary schools. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data was analysed using thematic data analysis. The results showed that most of the students, parents, teachers, and principals agreed that home academic culture influences students’ academic performance. The study findings also showed that majority of the students, parents, teachers, and principals perceived that the home academic culture influences students’ academic performance to a great extent. A chi square analysis indicated that the perception on the influence of home academic culture on students’ academic performance is significantly and positively correlated to the actual students’ academic performance. Thus, it was concluded that there is a significant relationship between principals,’ teachers’, parents’ and students’ perception of the influence of home academic culture on students’ academic performance and actual students’ academic performance.