Authors: Stella Karimi Muthomi and Boniface Njuguna Mwangi
Africa Nazarene University, Box 53067-00200, Nairobi
Email: stellakarimi1234@gmail.com
Abstract
Previous studies point out that parents play an important role in the academic performance of learners in ECD, however, they fall short of delineating how the specific parental characteristics such as educational background, occupation, attitude and involvement influence the acquisition of skills such as language, mathematics, psychomotor, environmental, creative and religious education. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of selected parental characteristics on children’s academic performance in public pre-schools in Tigania West Sub-County, Meru County. Then selected factors include the following: parental education background; occupation; attitude towards education; and involvement on their children’s ECD academic performance. This study employed a cross-sectional survey design. The target population was 5966 subjects comprising of 111 ECDE teachers and 5855 parents for the 5855 pupils in 85 ECDE centers. A total of 350 respondents were sampled using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics such as percentages and means were used to analyze data while multiple regression analysis was used to test hypotheses. The study established that low parental educational background among others hinders them to assist their children in learning. It was also established that parental occupation determines the extent to which they assist their children in learning. The study also indicated that parental positive attitude towards ECD education does not help to explain the low academic performance of ECD children. It was further found that parental lack of involvement such as the inability to discuss with teachers on aspiration for their children supervise their children’s academic work at home and inability to make any follow-ups on their children’s education on their own volition negatively influences academic performance of ECD children. The selected parental characteristics accounted for 46.9 % of variance in the preschool learners’ academic performance. Parental involvement was found to be the most potent predictor of learners academic performance (β = 0.487, t (46) = 4.86, p < 0.05). The study recommended that the Ministry of Education should initiate and promote adult education in order to help counter the negative effect of low educational background on the performance of children in ECD and that the community should be sensitized on the need for parents to be actively involved in their children’s education.
Keywords: Early Childhood Development Education, Parental Characteristics, Preschool Children Academic Performance
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Suggested Citation
Karimi, S.M. & Mwangi, B. N. (2020). Influence of selected parental characteristics on children’s academic performance in public pre- schools in Tigania, Meru County, Kenya. African Research Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 7(1), 165-177. Available online at http://arjess.org/education-research/influence-of-selected-parental-characteristics-on-childrens-academic-performance-in-public-pre-schools-in-tigania-meru-county-kenya.pdf
