The influence of parental visiting on social-emotional status and academic performance of boarding secondary schools students in Kakamega district, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of parental visiting on the social-emotional status and academic performance of students in secondary schools. The main objective was to establish whether parental visiting has an influence on the social emotional status and academic performance of students. The main research question was; Does parental visiting have an influence on the social emotional status and academic performance of secondary students? The study was based on Abraham Maslow‟s theory of the hierarchy of needs which states that lower needs (social-emotional) must be met first to motivate one to attain higher needs (intellectual).The study adopted a causal-comparative design to compare the effect of parental visiting frequencies on the dependent variables. The independent variable was parental school visiting and dependent variables were social-emotional status and academic performance. Simple random and Stratified sampling techniques were used to select schools that have visiting programs for the study. Form three students were selected for the study. A sample size of 255 students (proportion of girls and boys) was considered for the study. The main instruments of data collection were questionnaire and a documentary analysis guide. Piloting was done in the neighboring District. Validity of the instrument was determined using split half test method for accuracy. A reliability significance level of 0.778 was obtained. Data analysis was done through descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics included; means standard deviations, frequencies and percentages. Hypotheses were tested by use of the ANOVA and Chi-square to determine the level of interaction and association of variables. Findings revealed that visiting days have an influence on the academic performance but insignificant on the social-emotional status of students. It is hoped that the research findings will be useful to students, teachers, parents, curriculum developers and policy makers in improving the social emotional status and academic performance of students