Parental Characteristics and Academic Performance of Students in Public Day Secondary Schools in Busia County, Kenya

Parental characteristics though not given full attention in many studies, are critical in influencing students’ academic performance in schools. The study focused on the effect of demographic, socio-cultural practices, Economic status of parents, and parental engagement on students’ academic performance in public day secondary schools in Teso North sub-county. A cross-sectional survey design was used in this study. The study involved a sample of 355 in a study population of 4,787 respondents who included students, parent representatives, principals, form four class teachers and sub-county director of education. Both primary and secondary data was collected. The tools for primary data included questionnaires, interview schedules and Focus Group Discussions while secondary data was collected using document analysis guide. Purposive, and simple random sampling techniques were employed. Validity was checked through consultation with supervisors and reliability coefficient of 0.788 was established. Both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were employed to analyze data using SPSS version 25 and results presented in tables, charts and graphs. The study results revealed that the family demographic characteristics, household Economic status and parental engagement positively influence performance of students. A reduction in socio-cultural practices by a household will lead to increase in students’ academic performance by 54.6%. Moreover, the greatest contributor to students’ academic performance came from household Economic status with75.6 percent. The study recommends stake holders in education to create awareness to parents on the negative effects of socio-cultural practices on academic performance and find interventions to reverse the declining trends in students’ performance in National Examinations.