Parental Background and Students’ Academic Performance: A Comparative Study in North-Central Nigeria

This paper examined the academic performance of male and female Islamic Studies students based on their parental background factors such as education, occupation, income and involvement in senior secondary schools in North-Central Nigeria. Four research hypotheses were outlined. This study was a quantitative research and questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection while 384 respondents were advantageously selected as sample. The opinions of experts were used to establish the validity of the instrument. Indeed, for the reliability of an instrument, a Test-retest method was conducted for the questionnaire and the results were used to calculate the reliability coefficient which was 0.76. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences vision 23.0 was used for data analysis. The outcome of this paper indicates that there is no significant difference in scores for both male and female respondents in relation to these parental factors (education 0.09>0.05, occupation 0.29>0.05 and involvement 0.31> 0.05). It is only parental income which was shown as different between the male scores (M=23.09; SD= 4.69) and female scores (M=20.83; SD=4.74). It shows that students whose parents with educational background and who engage in respected occupation support both male and female secondary school students equally particularly in Islamic Studies. In addition, only parental income has shown the difference between mean score for both male and female secondary school students in Islamic Studies in north-central. Therefore, this study contributes to existing knowledge by comparing academic performance of male and female students in Islamic Studies based on dimension of parental background such as education, occupation, income, and involvement in north-central geo-political zone of Nigeria. It is recommended that the government, school management, Islamic Studies teachers and parents should play collaborating roles on female education in order to boost their performance in Islamic Studies in secondary schools in North-Central Nigeria. Irrespective of the learners’ parental background, parents should also assist and encourage their female students in leading them towards achieving outstanding academic performance in Islamic Studies in secondary schools in North-Central Nigeria.