An Assessment of Parents Level of Income: Implication on their Expectations on the Academic Achievement of their Children in Some Selected Public Secondary Schools in the Bamenda II Sub Division

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the effects of parental level of Income and implications of their expectation of their children’s academic achievement The study made use of the descriptive survey design. The sample was made up of 100 randomly selected lower sixth students of GBHS Down Town and GBHS Ntamulung and 50 conveniently selected parents. The instruments used for data collection were questionnaire and interview guide. In data processing, a pre-designed EpiData Version 3.1 database which has in-built consistency and validation checks was used to enter the data. Further consistency, data range and validation checks were also performed in SPSS version 21.0 to identify invalid codes. The data were presented using frequency counts, graphs, percentages and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient was used to test hypotheses. The findings indicated a significant relationship between parental income and set expectations for children’s academic achievement.

The implications of these findings are that parents should obtain a clearer understanding of their beliefs and expectations concerning their children. For example, while many parents may be setting very high academic expectations for their children, they should understand how those expectations play out in terms of student performance. Also parents should realize that parental expectations may be unrelated to students’ prior performance, and they should be aware that parental expectations may not be linked to students' perception about their academic competence. Parents are discouraged from expectations based on their SES background, and encouraged to become sensitive to the children’s abilities and interests.