Abstract:
This study was carried out to examine the influence of parental socioeconomic status and home education environment on students’ academic achievement using path analysis. The study adopted an ex-post-factor research design. The population of the study was 7,636 senior secondary school II students from Zone B Education zone of Benue State. The sample of the study was 360 respondents representing about 5% of the total population, drawn using proportionate stratified random sampling technique from two local government areas. The instrument for data collection was a 15 item structured questionnaire titled: Parental Socioeconomic Status and Home Education Environment Questionnaire (PSESHEEQ), modeled on a four (4) point rating scale. The response options for items were - Strongly Agree (SA); Agree (A); Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD) with numerical values of 4,3 2, and 1 points assigned to each of the responses respectively. A data collection format of students’ academic achievement was used by the researcher to collect the existing three consecutive end of term’s examination results of the sampled students. The instrument was validated by five experts. Cronbach Alpha was used to determine the internal consistency of the questionnaire items. The reliability index of the instrument was 0.68. Data collected was analyzed using Pearson Product moment correlation coefficient to answer the research questions while multiple regression analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Also, Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS) was used to estimate the paths coefficients which measured the magnitude of the relationship between the predictor variables and the criterion variable. The major findings of the study were; There was a significant relationship between parental socioeconomic status and students academic achievement; there was also a significant relationship between home education environment and students’ academic achievement and there was a significant difference between the mean achievement score of students from high socioeconomic status and students from low socioeconomic status. It was recommended among other things that parents should provide adequate fund for their children which will help in obtaining the necessary reading materials that may enhance students’ academic achievement. The government should provide adequate reading materials and conducive learning environment for the less privilege so they can also compete favourably with their counterparts from high socioeconomic status.
