Parental Attitude, Socio-Economic Status and Home Facilities as Predictors of Secondary School Students’ Learning Outcomes in South-West, Nigeria

This study examines the predictive influence of parental attitude towards their children education, parents’ socio-economic status, and home facilities on secondary school students’ learning outcomes in South-West, Nigeria. The study adopts the correlation survey design. Multistage sampling technique is adopted for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select Lagos, Oyo and Ekiti states from the South-west zone. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 4,670 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) students from 348 public secondary schools that have presented students for West African Senior School Certificate Examination between 2001 and 2010. Home Factors Questionnaire (HFQ) (r = 0.79) were used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions at 0.05 level of significance. Two components of home education factors as indicated by the students: parents’ socio-economic status (β = 0.165 t = 9.21) and parental attitude toward children’s education (β = 0.459, t = 24.911) contributed significantly to students’ learning outcomes, while home facilities did not. A significant difference was found between the learning outcome of students from the three socio-economic background (F (3, 2656) = 100.347, P < 0.05. Learning outcome of students from high and medium socio-economic backgrounds was not significantly different from each other. Therefore, parents should demonstrate positive attitude towards their children’s education.