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Social Support And Interpersonal Competence As A Predictor Of Academic Performance Among Senior Secondary School Students
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Academic performance is of maximum importance to parents, educators,
guardians and even the Government. This of course is because of the huge
impact education has on the national and economic development of the
country. According to Davison institute (2004), Performance is a measure
of quality and quantity of success one has in the mastery of knowledge,
skills or understanding. Performance is also defined as the observable
or measurable behavior of a person or an animal in a particular
situation usually experimental situations. (Simpson and Weiner, 1989).
This means that performance measures the aspect of behavior that can be
observed at a specific period, to determine a performance, a performance
test has to be conducted.
Academic performance
specifically, has been described by O’Donnell, Reeve and Smith, (2005)
as the extent of an individual’s knowledge in a given task in school. In
this context academic performance is the ability or level of success of
the students in their academic work ( which could either be excellent
or poor). Students should therefore put up personal effort in their
academic works in order to achieve excellence or success in their
academic work. Research have attributed students academic performance
to; parental factors, peer factors, teacher factors and interpersonal
competence. This study will examine the effect of social support and
interpersonal competence proficiency on students’ academic performance.
Social support can be broadly understood as an individual’s perception
of general support or space for supportive behaviors (available or
enacted upon) from people in their social network, which enhances their
functioning and may buffer them from adverse outcomes (Malecki and
Demaray, 2002). First social support comes from people in one’s social
network and for students students, these potential resources may include
parents, peers and teachers. Additionally, social support can take many
forms such as emotional or caring support (communicating love or
trust), instrumental support (providing time or resources),
informational support(providing information needed) and appraisal
support (providing feedbacks).
Parent/family support
Numerous studies and review articles published during the past 50years
provide evidence of the important role that parental support plays in
lives of children (Lamborn and Felbab, 2003; Peterson and Rollins,
1987). Parental support refers to “gestures or acts of caring,
acceptance and assistance that are expressed by a parent toward a child
(Shaw, Krause, Chatter, Comell and Ingersoll Dayton, 2004). Support from
parents received during childhood is thought to have significant and
lasting implication of a child’s academic life.
Research has
also demonstrated the importance of parents in the academic success and
performance of children across a range of ages, populations and
settings. Findings from parental monitoring research suggests that
parent-child communication and support are important predictors of
academic performance (Verner, 2007). Regarding the socialization process
in minority families (i.e. African American and Hispanic) support
(maternal and/or paternal) is related to indicators of pro-social
adjustments in adolescents such as academic performance (Bean, Bush,
Mckenry and Wilson, 2003; Kim, Brody and Murry, 2003), self esteem.
These findings extend the notion that social support is important in the
normal development of children and adolescents from diverse ethnic
backgrounds. In addition, aspects of parent-child relationships
specifically parental provision of emotional support, are among the
strongest predictors of subjective well-being (SWB) scientific term for
“happiness†during youth (Huebner, Suldo, McKnight and Smith, 2004).
Peer/classmate support
For young children, the family (parents in particular) is typically
their most important and influential source of support (Hall and
Brassard, 2008). As individuals move from early childhood into later
childhood and adolescence, however they spend increasingly more time
outside of the home interacting and developing relationships with others
including classmates and/or peers.
Within a school context, the
transition to high school can be very difficult as adolescents shift
from being the oldest and most physically mature in their school to the
youngest and least physically developed and recognized as students move
from middle school to larger high schools (Newman et al,2007). Peer
support during this transition is critical to the academic performance
of adolescents as studies have shown a positive link between supportive
peer relationships and academic performance i.e. Higher grade.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study examined social support and interpersonal competence as a predictor of academic performance among senior secondary school students, a case study of 2 private and 2 public schools at ilishan-remo, ogun state. The study employed the survey design and the purposive sampling technique to select 450 students across all faculties. A well-constructed questionnaire, which was adjudged valid and reliable, was used for collection of data from the respondents. The data obtained through the admini ... Continue reading---
