Academic Achievement of Students in Basic Science among Secondary Schools in Rivers State: Synergy of Parents? Educational Background, Socio- Economic Status and School Location

Academic achievement of students in schools is very important to stakeholders in education and those outside education sub-sector. The falling standard in our education system evidenced in the poor students performance in recent time beckons for a probe to unveil the actual causes of the development. In view of the above, researchers and educators have studied several variables that could be responsible for the poor and falling standard and had come up with deferring results. However, the synergy of these variables on students academic achievement have not been fully examined which is why this study is raised. The study examined the synergy and relationship between academic achievement of students in Basic science and parents socioeconomic and educational status, alongside school location. It adopted a correctional design to examine the relationship between parents SES, educational level and the location of schools with students academic achievement in Rivers State. The population of the study consisted of all the students in the selected schools in the three senatorial districts of the state, out of which a sample of two hundred (200) students were randomly selected. Three null hypotheses were raised and tested at 0.5 level of significance. Data were gathered through a self designed instrument titled the Students Performance Questionnaire (SPQ) and Teachers Questionnaire (T. Q). The null hypotheses were tested using one way ANOVA, t-test and regression analyses. Findings show that the synergy of parents socioeconomic status and location of the schools strengthened students academic achievement in Basic Science. However, the study revealed that the educational background of the parents does not synergized with other variables to influence the academic achievement of students.