1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
One of the most traumatizing experiences a student could have in life is a broken home. While the effects of broken home may be different on academic performance of the students, according to their stage of development, age and gender, Moneme (2001, p. 49) noted that “despite reconciliation efforts via family counseling most children suffer during and after the process. When their parents divorce, children feel as if their stability, their security and their world are all falling apart.” This unquestionably will affect the academic performance of such student.
According to Isude (2007, p. 16) “most student that came from broken homes react differently to the situation some can become very sad, showing symptoms of depression, unable to eat, sleep, read nor even attend classes. Their levels of anxiety can be very high as they experience feelings of being rejected or abandoned by one parent and sometimes, even both. Some cases of broken homes can even end up making students feel extremely lonely which is usually because one parent may be absent for long time. The resultant effect of their situation on the child's learning is lack of concentration and misplacement of priority”.
It is clear that a student in a broken home is most likely going to have a low academic performance when compared to other student with both parents.
Okwuha (2003, p. 17) pointed out the following effect of broken home in a students' performance ability. According to him a student feels he is not loved anymore by his parents and experience feelings of desertion and desolation. This feeling gets worst once he understands that he cannot get his parents back together, thus he experience feelings of helpless and powerless. Even though such person cannot display feelings of anger, he obviously feels angry. Often he feels that it is his fault, believing that it is because of something he said or did that has resulted in a parent leaving.
Divorce or broken marriage is not only a loss in the parent's lives but also in the children's life and their academic performance as well. Hence they experience feelings of grief which is akin to the mourning of death. They also feel guilty about the loyalty conflict they experience.
A student who is faced by these realities will obviously have a challenge performing creditably academic. It is an established fact that family stability is a must for an excellent academic performance.
The home has a great influence on the students' psychological, emotional, social and economic state. in the view of Ajila and Olutola (2007, p. 103), the state of the home affects the individuals since the parents are the first socializing agents in an individual's life. This is because the family background and context of a child affect his reaction to life situations and his level of performance.
The school is responsible for the experiences that make up the individuals life during school period, yet parents and individuals experience at home play tremendous roles in building the personality of the student and that the environment in which the students comes from can greatly influence his performance at school.
Although the home environment or family has been recognized as having a lot of influence on the academic performance of students. (Nzewuawah, 1995); Ajila and Olutola (2007), previous studies have concentrated in the area of Scio-economic status of parent which is one of the factors that induces divorce or causes a broken home. Other aspects of the parental environment such as the structure of the family have been grossly neglected. Yet, Ichado (1998) stated that parents' constant disagreement affects the academic performance of the students emotionally and this could lead to poor academic performance in the tertiary institution.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The family lays the psychological, moral and spiritual foundations in the overall development of the student. While the mother's significant role in this cannot be over-emphasized, studies on father-child relationship suggest that the presence of a father in the home influences significantly the development of a child (Agulanna, 1999). Thus, parathyroid is a responsibility regaining the full cooperation of both parents who must insure the total development of the offspring (s). Structurally a family is either broken or intact.
Whatever the structure of the family is, it has an effect on the academic performance of students from that family. The educational; issue of poor academic performance of most students in tertiary institution gave rise to this study. This study among other thing will find out the following
- The relationship between a student's family background and his academic performance
- The relationship between parental care and academic performance
- If it is possible for student's from broken homes to perform better than students from intact homes in academics.
1.3 Objective of the Study
What this study aims to achieve is to examine the academic performance of students from broken homes visa – vis their counterparts from intact homes. In other words, this research tends to find out the connection existing between broken home realties and academic performance.
It will also look into ways of enhancing the academic performance of students of broken home in particular in tertiary institutions in general. On the overall basis this research will find out the relationship between a student's family background and his academic performance.
1.4 Significance of the Study
Ohaja (2003), Based on this, the significance of this study cannot be over-emphasized, especially owing to increasing low standard of education in our tertiary institution. The study will provide a background upon which lecturers, counselor and academics planner will base their administration of students from broken homes.
The result of this study will provide insight to curriculum planners/formulators, researchers, and institute of education into the academic performance of students from broken homes. Above all, it is hoped that this research work serve as a guide and reference materials for students of public administration and researchers and that it will equally contribute to existing literature dealing with the subject matter and also suggest further areas of research into the effects of broken homes on students' academic performance.
1.5 Research Question
The following questions are provided to help provide answers to the issues of effects of broken homes on students' academic performance.
- Is there any relationship between a students' family background and his academic performance.
- What is the effect of non-provision of school materials and lack of psychological support occasioned by broken homes on the academic performance of students from, such homes?
- All thing being equal, do students from stable homes perform better than students from broken homes academically?
1.6 Scope of the Study
This study is focused on the effect of broken home on the academic performance of students in tertiary institution with special interest in ways of cushioning the negative effects of broken home on students' academic performance.
Four departments were carefully and randomly selected within Federal Polytechnic Nekede Owerri.
They include: Accountancy, Office Technology and Management, Business Administration and Management, and Banking and Finance. The first departments are co-educational while the other two are not. The reason for such selection is for thoroughness and comprehensiveness. It is also to ensure objectively and all-round representation.
1.7 Definition of Terms
For the purpose of the enhancing the understanding of the key terms and concepts used in this research, here are the operational definitions of terms and concepts used in the context of the meaning assigned to them for the purpose of this study. These include:
Effect:
This simply means the consequence or result of an action, event or process.
Family:
Family is a group of people related by blood. The family is also referred to as home in this study.
Divorce:
This is a legal dissolution on marriage already contacted.
Broken Home:
A broken home in the context of this study is one that is not structurally intact for various reasons; death of a parent devoices, separation, dissertation and intimacy in which case the family was never competed (Coukline 1996). Broken home and broken families were used interchangeably in this study.
Students:
A student refers to a person who is studying at school: secondary, university or college.
Academic Performance:
In this study, academic performance refers to extend a leaner/student achieve the systematic learning of instruction in school.
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