RESEARCH ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS OF PARENTS AND ACDEMIC

PERFORMANCES OF STUDENTS

ABABA, SHERYL ANN B.

GALLARDE, KHIZEL JANE P.
GICA, AILEEN L.
GILLADO, LOR-ANN B.
LAOC, IGIE R.
ONCONE, MAD B.

RESEARCH SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION OF THE

COLLEGE OF AGICULTURAL SCIENCES SOUTHERN
PHILIPPINES AGRIBUSINESS AND MARINE
AND AQUATIC SCHOOL OF
TECHNOLOGY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE SUBJECT

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH AND RESEARCH WORKS

MARCH 2012

CHAPTER I
PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction

Education is the best legacy a nation can give to her citizens especially
the youth. This is because the development of any nation or community depends
largely on the quality of education of such a nation. It is generally believed that
the basis for any true development must commence with the development of
human resources. Much then is said that formal education remains the vehicle
for social-economic development and social mobilization in any society.

Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined

total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or familys
economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education,
and occupation. When analyzing a familys SES, the household income, earners'
education, and occupation are examined, as well as combined income, versus
with an individual, when their own attributes are assessed. (National Center for
Educational Statistics, 2008).

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Philippines, like any other third world countries, is suffering from
economic crisis which largely affect on education status of the people. One in six
school-age-children are deprived of education, tells us of what is in store in our
country future (National Statistical Coordination Board).

Research indicates that children from low-SES households and

communities develop academic skills more slowly compared to children from
higher SES groups (Morgan, Farkas, Hillemier, & Maczuga, 2009).

In America, many children who are poor, regardless of race, come from
homes that lack stability, continuity of care, adequate nutrition, and medical care
creating a level of environmental stress that can affect the young childs
development. As a result, these children enter school with decreased word
knowledge that can affect their language skills, influence their experience with
books, and create different perceptions and expectations in the classroom
context. (Hart and Risley 1995).

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Poverty has the strongest correlation with high dropout rates; in 2007, it is
estimated that dropout rates for students living in lowest quartile of family income
were more than 7 times higher than those of students in the highest family
income quartile (i.e., 16.4% vs. 2.2%). 5 (NCES, 2007).

The school system in low-SES communities are often under resourced,

negatively affecting students academic progress (Aikens & Barbarin,2008).
Inadequate education and increased dropout rates affect childrens academic
achievement, perpetuating the low-SES status of the community.

In order to prove that socio-economic status of the parents affect the

academic performances of the students, this study will be conducted by the
Bachelor in Secondary Education(BSED) students at Southern Philippines AgriBusiness and Marine and Aquatic School of Technology College of Agricultural
Sciences(SPAMAST-CAS) at Matti, Digos City.

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Statement of the Problem

1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of:

1.1 Income
1.2 Parents educational attainment
1.3 Family size
2. What is the academic performance of the students during the first semester of
the school year 2011-2012?
3. Is there a significant difference in the students academic performance in relation
to:
a. Parents income
b. Educational attainment
c. Family size
4. Is there a significant degree of relationship between the socio-economic status
and students academic performance?

5
Significance of the Study

To the SPAMAST Administration, the result of the study will help the
school administration in planning and revising the curricular program of the
school in relation to the differences of students in socio-economic status.

To the guidance counselors, they will be given information as bases in

guiding and counseling student with low academic performances.

To the classroom teachers, they will be guided to be flexible in dealing and

handling student with different economic background and will be given bases on
what are the things to do to improve the academic performances of the students
who are in the lower class family.

To the students, students will develop self-confidence to excel

academically motivated by their parents. Students will be confident in uplifting
their academic status as a result of the motivation and support from their parents.
Students also will be encouraged to study more.

6
Definition of Terms

The following are the terms and their meaning which are made by the
authors in the purpose of helping the readers for easily understanding.

SPAMAST Students Students who are officially enrolled in SPAMAST-CAS in

the courses of BSED, BSIT, BSAB, BSAE, BSA, BSAF.
Socio economic Status A students individual position with in a hierarchical
social structure based in their family members occupation, education, income,
wealth, and place of residence.
Academic Performances Refers to how students deal with their studies and
how they cope with or accomplish different task given by their teacher. As used in
the study, this refers to the grade during the 1 st semester S.Y. 2011-2012.

Scope and Limitation

This study will focus only in the effects of the socio-economic status of the
parents on the academic performances of the students of SPAMAST-CAS
students in the second semester S.Y. 2011-2012. All of the courses of the school
will be the respondents of this study.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW ON RELATED LITERATURE

Socio-economic Status
A family's socioeconomic status is based on family income, parental
education level, parental occupation, and social status in the community (such as
contacts within the community, group associations, and the community's
perception of the family), note Demarest, Reisner, Anderson, Humphrey,
Farquhar, and Stein (1993).
The segregating nature of social class, ethnicity, and race may well reduce
the variety of enriching experiences thought to be prerequisite for creating
readiness to learn among children. Social class, ethnicity, and race entail a set of
'contextual givens' that dictate neighborhood, housing, and access to resources
that affect enrichment or deprivation as well as the acquisition of specific value
systems (Crnic and Lamberty, 1994).
Across all socioeconomic groups, parents face major challenges when it
comes to providing optimal care and education for their children. For families in
poverty, these challenges can be formidable. Sometimes, when basic necessities
are lacking, parents must place top priority on housing, food, clothing, and health
care. Educational toys, games, and books may appear to be luxuries, and
8

parents may not have the time, energy, or knowledge to find innovative and lessexpensive ways to foster young children's development (Ramey and Ramey
1994).
Similar results are found by Teese (2003) in his analysis of the
performance of students in Victoria. He found clear and consistent trends for
children from lower socio-economic status families to have lower VCE scores
(Year 12 results) and Year 5 benchmarking test results. The same relationship
was found for other measures of student engagement with schooling, such as
attendance rates. Teese introduces the concept of equity density, drawing
together a number of factors such as family status, family occupation, and
language background status and so on.

The ACER study1 examined student achievement scores on tests of

reading comprehension and mathematics from five studies that tested the literacy
and numeracy levels of 14 yearolds in Australian schools conducted between
1975 and 1998, as well as trends for all students and for smaller groups of
students. Students results were discussed through examining averages,
medians and the distributions of results and changes over time. Results were

reported by socio-economic status (SES), language background, gender and

location. The overall conclusion of the ACER study (Rothman, 2002; 2003) was
that while overall achievement levels of students remained relatively stable
between 1975 and 1998, notable differences were found between students by
socio-economic status, both at an individual level and between schools.

Ainley (2003) discusses further analyses of the Longitudinal Surveys of

Australian Youth data in terms of the factors that impact on Equivalent Tertiary
Entrance Ranks (a means of generating equivalent Year 12 results between
Australian states). Ainley found that the most significant influence on Year 12
score is a students demonstrated proficiency in literacy and numeracy in earlier
years of schooling (Year 9 in this study), which represents an accumulation of the
students skills in foundation areas of learning. The second greatest influence is
the particular school a student attends. Ainley suggests, in line with other
research, that school culture or environment, teaching practices, student
confidence and motivation, organisation and resources may contribute to
differences among schools. Socioeconomic background, as measured by

parental education, wealth and occupational status, was the third most important
influence on tertiary entrance performance. Students whose parents are
10

professionals, (and to a lesser extent, managers), achieve higher tertiary

entrance scores. It is not difficult to envisage how socio-economic factors also
impact on the two former variables (prior performance and school attended), over
and above the unique effect of the individual socio-economic status of individual
students.

The PISA study also undertook more sophisticated analyses that

examined how the students achievement is associated with their own
background and also how it is associated with school factors. The betweenschool variance in Australia, although relatively small, was largely explained by
the socio-economic status of the students. However for Indigenous students, the
relationship between socio-economic status and reading achievement was much
weaker, indicating that Indigenous students from higher socio-economic status
families do not perform substantially better than those from lower socio-economic
status families. This suggests that other factors besides socio-economic status
operate in relation to the achievement of Indigenous students (Greenwood, Frigo
and Hughes, 2002).

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Academic Performances
Perceived cognitive competence is defined as the extent to which children
believe that they possess the necessary cognitive skills to be successful when
completing academic tasks, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic (Harter &
Pike, 1984).

There are theoretical pathways through which children's perceptions and

expectations of their cognitive competence are influenced by others: (a)
performance accomplishments/performance mastery, (b) vicarious reinforcement,
(c) verbal persuasion, and (d) emotion regulation (Bandura, 1977).
In addition, a child's increased perception of cognitive competence is
consistently related to higher academic performance (Chapman, Skinner, &
Baltes, 1990; Ladd & Price, 1986; Schunk, 1981).

A positive student-teacher relationship has been defined as the teacher's

perception that his or her relationship with the child is characterized by closeness
and a lack of dependency and conflict (Birch & Ladd, 1997).

12

The significance of parent attitudes toward education and school is less

well understood, although attitudes are believed to comprise a key dimension of
the relationship between parents and school (Eccles & Harold, 1996). Parents
convey attitudes about education to their children during out-of-school hours and
these attitudes are reflected in the child's classroom behavior and in the
teacher's relationship with the child and the parents (Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez,
& Bloom, 1993).

Another influential study into student achievement was reported in 2001

by ACER (Lokan, Greenwood and Cresswell, 2001). The OECD Program for
International Student Assessment (PISA) was conducted in 2000 and measured
the performance of 15 year old students in reading, Mathematical and Scientific
Literacy Skills. Students from 32 countries were involved in this assessment
program. Altogether, more than a quarter of a million students were involved in
PISA 2000.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Research Locale
This study will be conducted in the SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES AND
MARINE AND AQUATIC SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY (SPAMAST)-CAS Matti,
Digos City, Davao Del Sur.

The Respondents
The respondents of the study will be the students of SPAMAST-CAS,
Matti, Digos, City in this school year 2011-2012. All students in all courses will be
its respondents.

Research Design
This research will use a descriptive survey with questionnaire that will
serve as an instrument in gathering the data. This will determine the impact of
socio-economic

status

of

parents

to

the

academic

performance

and

achievements of the students.

14
Research Instrument

The socio-economic status of parents in relation to the academic

performance of education student in SPAMAST will be determined through a
questionnaire.
The questionnaire will be answered by the student-respondent regarding
their academic performance during the first semester (S.Y.2011-2012) and their
family background of their parents and family size.

Sampling Design and Techniques

Sampling will be drawn from the Education students of SPAMAST-CAS,
Matti, Digos City. The Stratified Random Sampling (SRS) will be used in the
study.
In determining the sample size of the total population of students, the
slovin formula will be used with 5% margin of error. The formula is expressed as:
n= N/1 + Ne2
Where:
n= sample size
N= population
e= 5% margin error

15

To determine the number of samples, 15% margin of error will be used:

Number total of students= N/1 + Ne2
Where:
N=300

Data Gathering

The following steps will be done in gathering data:

1. Submission of permission letter to conduct a research to each department
to the dean of SPAMAST-CAS.
2. Distribution of permission letter to the department head of each
department.
3. Formulation of questionnaire.
4. Distribution of questionnaire to the chosen respondents.
5. Retrieval of the questionnaires.

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Conceptual Framework

Independent Variable

Dependent

Variable

Variable

SOCIO-ECONOMIC
STATUS OF PARENTS

STUDENTS
ACADEMIC
PERFORMANCE

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Statistical Tool
The statistical tool to be used in the interpretation of data.

1. Descriptive statistics such as mean and frequency distribution to describe

the students level of satisfaction. The mean will be computed as:
X=FX/N
The following will be used for the interpretation of mean for the students
satisfaction questionnaire (SSPF) will be based on:
Rating:
5 = Very High
4 = High
3 = Moderate
2 = Low
1 = Very Low

18
Literature Cited
Ainley, J. (2003). Early literacy and numeracy achievement influences ENTER
scores. ACER
Bandura A. Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change.
Psychological Review. 1977;84:191215. [PubMed]

Birch SH, Ladd GW. The teacher-child relationship and children's early school
adjustment. Journal of School Psychology. 1997;35:6179.
Chapman M, Skinner EA, Baltes PB. Interpreting correlations between children's
perceived control and cognitive performance: Control, agency, or means-ends
beliefs? Developmental Psychology. 1990;26:246253.
Crnic, K., & Lamberty G. (1994, April). Reconsidering school readiness:
Conceptual and applied perspectives. Early Education and Development 5(2),
99-105. Available online: http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/library/1994/crnic1.html
Demarest, E.J., Reisner, E.R., Anderson, L.M., Humphrey, D.C., Farquhar, E., &
Stein, S.E. (1993). Review of research on achieving the nation's readiness goal.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

19
Greenwood, L., Frigo, T. and Hughes, P. (2002). Messages for minority groups in
Australia from international studies. ACER Research Conference 2002, p.25.
Harter S, Pike R. The pictorial scale of perceived competence and social
acceptance for young children. Child Development. 1984;55:19691982.
[PubMed]

Kellaghan T, Sloane K, Alvarez B, Bloom B. The Home Environment and School

Learning. Jossey-Bass Publishers; San Francisco: 1993.
Ramey, S.L., & Ramey, C. T. (1994, November). The transition to school: Why
the first few years matter for a lifetime. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(30), 194-198.
Research Highlights, 2003, p. 8-9.
Rothman, S. (2003). The changing influence of socioeconomic status on student
Teese, R. (2003). Blueprint Funding reform. A presentation to the Department of
Education and Training, Victoria.
Zill, N., Collins, M., West, J., & Hausken, E.G., (1995, December). School
readiness and children's developmental status. ERIC Digest [Online]. Available:
http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/eecearchive/digests/1995/zill95.html

Name of
Siblings

Ag
e

Year Level
Preschool

Elementary

secondar
y

College

Academic
Achievements

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
ANSWERS
QUESTIONS
YES
1. Do you think the income of your family is enough for your
daily needs?
2. Is your study continuous?
3. Do you think your allowance affects your performance in
school?
4. Do all your siblings have a continuous study?
5. Do you submit your school requirements on time?
6. Do you have any scholarship?
7. Do you have any personal computer at home?
8. Do you have any laptops?
9. Do you have any failing grades?
10. Do you have any unfinished requirements last semester?

NO