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Socio-economic Background as Correlates on Academic Performance of

Students: A Case of Agricultural Science Students in University of Mpumalanga

Article in Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology · October 2016

DOI: 10.1080/09766634.2016.11885722

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© Kamla-Raj 2016 J Sociology Soc Anth, 7(4): 244-249 (2016)

Socio-economic Background as Correlates on Academic

Performance of Students: A Case of Agricultural Science
Students in University of Mpumalanga
Agholor Azikiwe Isaac

Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Resource Management,

Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Sciences, University of Mpumalanga,
Private Mail Bag X11283, Mbombela, 1200 South Africa
KEYWORDS Achievement. Parental. Resources. Intact-family. Home Language

ABSTRACT The study examined the socio-economic background as correlates on academic performance of
students in University of Mpumalanga. The objectives of the study were: i) to investigate the impact of household
characteristics on academic outcomes of students. ii) determine the relationship between access to home resources
and academic achievement of students. Random sampling was used to select 60 males and females from first year
diploma in plant production and bachelor qualifications. The range for result from first semester was categorized
for all courses offered. The data obtained were analysed using logistic regression to determine relationship between
the listed socio-economic variables and academic performance of participating students. Language of expression at
home ( β = -4.698, P< 0.022); Parental assistance ( β =5.583, Pd< 0.028) and Home Learning Resources ( β =
4.069, P< 0.045) were predictive of academic achievement respectively. The study concluded that parental
assistance is credible and fluency and literacy in a child’s home language assists in laying a mental and linguistic
foundation for learning.

INTRODUCTION also been discovered to account for at least fifty

percent of academic success while fifty percent
Socio-economic background of an individu- is attributable to environmental factors. Accord-
al is hinged on perceived self-concept, aspira- ing to Sirin (2005) environmental factors which
tion and position within a socio-cultural envi- are also linked to intellectual abilities and ac-
ronment (Deepa F and Chamundeswari 2014). cess to resources have been found to intensely
Learning and academic activities and the atti- determine the academic attainment of the stu-
tude towards learning are determined by socio- dents. Further, socio-economic background has
economic status. Chay (2001) asserted that var- also been discovered to be associated with aca-
ious studies which have been done showed that demic success and self-efficacy (Weiser and Rig-
socio-economic factors and students’ academic gio 2010; Shah 2012). The relevance and the as-
performance; and the level of attrition from sociation of socio-economic background with
schools and colleges are linked directly. Turker- academic performance was further expatiated and
Drob and Harden (2012) observed that socio- supported by the findings of Harper (2012), and
economic factors which embodies the social Engle et al. (2006) that there are positive rela-
demographic characteristics, educational and tionship between students brought up in homes
economic characteristics prevalent in a given of lower socio-economic status and academic
family have impact on the mental abilities of stu- achievement. Studies also revealed that students
dents. Turker-Drob and Harden (2012) asserted of lower socio-economic background are more
that genetic constitution of an individual has probably to originate from homes where mother
and father have not obtained certificate higher
Address for correspondence: than college diploma (Engle et al. 2006). In addi-
Agholor Azikiwe Isaac
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural tion, college students who happen to come from
Resource Management, homes where parents have no formal school cer-
Faculty of Science and Agriculture, tificates are less likely to receive academic sup-
University of Mpumalanga, port and incentives to continue their education
Private Mail Bag X11283, Mbombela, 1200 South
Africa (Bill and Terry 1982), and they are most likely to
Telephone:+27(0)786283593. be misinformed about tertiary education (Vargas
E-mail:[email protected]. 2004).
SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS 245

The home setting where a student is nur- socio-economic factors on achievement of stu-
tured has influence on his academic attainment dents in many perspectives. Hamid (2011) ob-
and level of performance. Students from homes served that there were synchronized associa-
with lower socio-economic background are pre- tion between family earnings and students
disposed to minimal learning resources and are achievement in English language. Students
less likely to obtain encouraging support for whose parents earn higher family income were
academic stimulation (Vernon-Feagans et al. discovered to obtain higher grades in aptitude
2012). In contrast, students from homes with test as well as better grades in senior school
higher socio-economic background are more certificate examination in English. The study of
motivated and are likely to have increased aca- Hamid (2011) was also supported by Shamim
demic prospects (Dilworth-Bart 2012). Further- (2011) who posited that students whose par-
more, Sainz et al. (2012) observed that the phys- ents earns higher income often perform better in
iognomies of the home setting have an impact English language than students whose parents
on the learning behaviour, and cognitive devel- are in lower income brackets. The reasons ad-
opment of a student. Parents play a major role in duced for this positive correlation of higher fam-
behaviour moulding and they remain the main ily income and achievement in English language
avenue for values and interest towards the stu- was the early exposure of students of high in-
dents’ learning (Sainz et al. 2012). Parents’ level come family to English medium schools com-
of education and academic attainment is related pared to students whose parents fall within the
to the extent of academic assistance given to lower income bracket. Further, Aikens and Bar-
their child. Scholars have also come up with the barin (2008) alluded that students from lower
suggestion that peer group influence and adopt- socio-economic background attain English lan-
ed mentors plays a significant role in the aca- guage competencies very slowly, and tend to
demic achievement of students (Edman and Bra- display a sluggish alphabet recognition, poor
zil 2007). According to Mji and Mbinda (2005), pronunciations and are more prone to reading
child independence, responsive support, and snags. It is against this backdrop that this study
aims to investigate the socio-economic back-
affection are linked to high quality parent-child
ground as correlates on academic performance
relationship. The quality of relationship that a
of students’ in the new University of Mpuma-
student receives from parents is associated with langa, South Africa.
academic achievement (Grolnick and Ryan 1989;
Matsen et al. 1999); and parents’ participation in Objectives of the Study
school activities which include: SGB meetings,
School Open Day, assistance with homework, 1. To investigate the impact of household
also has tremendous influence on the students’ characteristics on academic outcomes of
academic achievement (Fan and Chen 2001; Cat- students.
sambis 2002). Further, Bank et al. (1990) posited 2. To determine the relationship between ac-
that educational ambition of parents is also as- cess to home resources and academic
sociated with academic performance of students. achievement of students.
This is confirmed by the assertion (Leung et al.
1987; Astone and Mclanahan 1991) that parents METHODOLOGY
with great educational ambition expect their child
to obtain decent grades and complete school in Population
good time. According to Naevdal and Thuen
(2004), higher academic achievement is common- A total of 60 students comprising of male
ly linked to families with two couples (intact fam- and females were drawn from first year diploma
ilies). This assertion also gave credence to the in plant production and bachelor agricultural
study of Amato (2001) that students from fami- extension and rural resource management qual-
lies with both parents (intact family) staying to- ifications participated in the study.
gether often do better than students from single
parentage in many instances including school Sample and Sampling Techniques
assessment scores; and are more likely to grad-
uate from school in good time with low level of Random sampling was used to select stu-
attrition. Studies have revealed the impact of dents who participated in the study. This was
246 AGHOLOR AZIKIWE ISAAC

carried out by selecting male and female stu- Ethical Consideration

dents from diploma and bachelor qualifications
in the new University of Mpumalanga. The se- Students who participated in the study were
lection was done after due consultation and ap- pre-informed about the aims as well as the se-
proval from relevant authority to use the speci- crecy and protection of their privacy. They were
fied number of students for the study. also informed that taking part in the study was
voluntary and the right to stop their participa-
Instrument tion at any stage of the study was also wel-
comed. The relevant authority in the University
Demographic questionnaire was the instru- of Mpumalanga gave approval for the study and
ment adopted to elicit information on some of the courses offered by students and qualifica-
the socio-economic characteristics of the par- tions were collected from the examination de-
ticipating students. Questions raised were about partment of the university.
the employment status of participants’ parents,
language spoken at home, consideration in terms RESULTS
of affluence (high and low SES), how often par-
ents offer assistance in school work/assignment, The effect of socio-economic background on
level of education of parents, ownership status overall student academic achievement will be
of house, infrastructures or amenities available mediated by parental assistance. In the past, sta-
at home and challenges experienced with home tistical illustrations have elucidated that socio-
infrastructures. Respondents were asked to in- economic and parental assistance are significant
dicate their level of agreement with each item predictors of academic achievement and level of
using a 5-point Likert scale (most often, very education anticipated by students. In his study,
often, undecided, often, less often) on the ques- Jacobucci (2012) who adopted the use of cate-
gorical data in mediation analysis observed that
tionnaire item about parents assistance with
when the independent variable, X, is categorical
school work/assignment. The questionnaire item but M and Y are continuous, then the technique
on parental affluence also used a 5-point Likert is suitable. From the foregoing, the variable so-
scale (very poor, poor, average, rich very rich) to cio-economic background, although categorical,
indicate the level of agreement. First semester was included in the mediation analysis as the
results of participating students were utilised to independent variable. Logistic regression anal-
ascertain whether there is a relationship between ysis were in two phases: Firstly using Intact fam-
socio-economic background and academic per- ily (IF), Language of Expression at home (LE),
formance. Questionnaire items were summed up Parents’ Assistance (PA) and Parental Affluence
and Cronbach Apha was 0.81 which indicates (SES). The Intact family (β=1.677, P< 0.365)
perfect reliability. The range for result from first were not significantly predictive of academic
semester was categorized as: less than 50, 51- achievement of respondents, while the other
60, 61- 70, 71- 80, 81- 90, and 91 and above for all variables, Language of expression at home [β= -
courses offered. Respondents were asked only 4.698, P< 0.022]; and Parental assistance
to indicate the scores obtained on a particular [β=5.583, P< 0.028] were predictive of academ-
subject according to the specified range. Re- ic achievement respectively (Table 1).
spondents gave their informed consent on their In the second phase, the Parental Affluence,
examination scores on all the subjects offered in Employment Status and Home Learning Resourc-
the first semester. es were investigated using logistic regression.
Result from the analysis revealed that Home
Data Analysis Learning Resources (β = 4.069, P< 0.045) were
predictive of the academic performance of the
The data obtained were analysed using lo- students. However, no other socio-economic
gistic regression to determine relationship be- variable significantly predicted academic perfor-
tween the listed socio-economic variables and mance (Table 2).
academic performance of participating students.
In order to avoid the violation of assumptions DISCUSSION
of normalcy, linearity and homoscedasticity of
variables, initial data screening and analysis were The study investigated the impact of house-
performed. hold characteristics and access to home learn-
SOCIO-ECONOMIC BACKGROUND AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENTS 247

Table 1: Logistic regression for intact family, language of expression and parental assistance

Variables B S.E. Wald df Sig. (p) EXp (B)

Intact family 1.677 1.851 .821 1 0.365 5.352

Language of expression -4.698 2.055 5.225 1 0.022 ** .009
Parents’ assistance 5.583 2.547 4.806 1 0.028 ** 265.850
**
Significant at 0.05; 0.01

Table 2: Logistic regression for parental affluence, employment status and home learning resources
as predictors of academic performance

Variables B S.E. Wald df Sig. (p) EXp (B)

Parental affluence .264 .541 .239 1 .625 1.303

Employment status 0.21 1.381 .000 1 .988 1.022
Home learning resources 4.069 2.362 2.968 1 0.045 ** 58.471
**
Significant at 0.05; 0.01

ing resources on academic performance of stu- cess, open conversation about academic im-
dents. The results shows that language of ex- provement and mentoring. However, parental
pression at home (P=< 0.022) and parental as- assistance may not entirely be responsible for
sistance (P=< 0.028) were significantly predic- students’ academic performance, but it is undis-
tive of academic performance of the students. putable that parents’ involvement in a child aca-
Previous studies have indicated that using stu- demic affairs enhances academic success (Glick
dents’ home language for instructions and ex- and Hohmann-Marriot 2007). The congenial at-
pression is crucial to effective learning. A stu- titude portrayed by parents toward their child
dents’ proficiency in his home language easily usually cascades into positive reinforcement for
translates to access into the wider society for the child and will translate into a significant ac-
realities. UNESCO (2003), posited that the use ademic achievement.
of home language for expression in schools will The parental affluence as socio-economic
assist in achieving quality education. Addition- characteristics has no relationship with academic
ally, research has also shown that a child’s ca- performance of students (P< .625). This result
pability to learn a second or additional language is in contradiction with many studies. For exam-
at school does not suffer when their mother ple, Lavin-Loucks (2006) found that children from
tongue or home language is used for instruction poor homes suffer from intellectual problems
and expression at home. The competency, flu- which translate into poor academic achievement.
ency and literacy in a child’s home language Another contradiction is the study of Amatea
assists to a large extent to lay a mental and lin- and West-Olatunji (2007) which found that
guistic foundation for learning. When a child school failure was partly due to low socio-eco-
gets formal instruction at home in their home nomic status of parents. Academic performance
language throughout, then transition of the in- is not attributed to parents’ level of affluence.
struction to academic learning is faster. Further- Most students from homes with low socio-eco-
more, parental assistant on academic work of nomic status in most societies have displayed
the students was also found to be predictive of academic ingenuity and in some cases performed
academic performance. Parents are role model better as exemplified in this study. Interestingly,
for their children, as well as avenues for social, parents within the low socio-economic bracket
academic, moral and inspirational support for in most cases strive harder to also enrol their
academic endeavour. Interestingly, results from children sometimes in day care centres that of-
the study show that parents assistance (P = < fer curricula fashioned towards laying a good
0.028) recorded a significant positive relation- foundation for future academic success. Result
ship to student academic performance. The re- from the study also indicated that ‘Intact family’
sult is consistent with the findings of Sigfus- have no significant relationship to the academic
dottir and Kritjansson (2009), who found that performance of students. This result leads cre-
parent support is exemplified in the form of ac- dence to the findings of Weiser and Riggo (2010),
248 AGHOLOR AZIKIWE ISAAC

who found that students who were raised by home assist to a large extent in laying a mental
single parents were not only able to secure ad- and linguistic foundation for learning.
mission to the university but also performed well
academically. Interpersonal family variables, pa- RECOMMENDATIONS
rental involvement and parents aspirations for
their children were found to be significantly re- The study recommends that diverse mitigat-
lated to academic performance. ing remedies that are already in place to increase
Home learning resources are relevant in academic performance should not exclusively
building an enviable environment for good study be directed at schools but also be focused on
habits and could impact on academic perfor- socio-economic variables. The home environ-
mance. Nevertheless, majority of the respon- ment must be taken on board in formulating ed-
dents do not have study rooms and other re- ucational policies and interventions. Since home
sources but were inclined to fair performance. language of expression is effective for increased
The findings of this study revealed that home academic performance, home language should
learning resources (P< 0.045) have a signifi- be considered for use at schools in consonant
cant positive impact to academic performance. with already existing languages. Furthermore,
This findings are consistent with Teachman parents should be encouraged to provide unin-
(1987) who found that the provision of home terrupted and congenial learning environment
learning resources not only assist students to for their children at home since this could trans-
maintain above average performance but also late into substantial academic achievement.
gives an ideal orientation towards academic
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