Students' Academic Achievement as A Function of Gender, Parents' Educational Background And Learning Strategies in Dessie Town High Schools
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Date
2005-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The major concern of this study was to examine how far gender, parents'
educational background and learning strategy components predicted students'
academic achievement. A total of 380 subjects, (188 males and 192 females)
were involved in the study from Dessie Town high schools. A Likert type five
point scale self-report measures and a s h ort supplementary questionnaire,
which u sed to obtain demographic data, were administered. The overall
academic achievement, Mathematics a chievement and Language achievement
scores were obtained from school records. Correlation, t-test, analysis of
variance and multiple regressions were used for analysis. Results obtained
through Correlat ion analy s is portrayed that except gender, both parents'
educational background and learning strategy components indicated
significant association with academic a chievement. The t-tes t reve aled that
the re exis ted significant average diffe rence in mathematics a chievement in
favor of males and language achievement favoring females, but there was no
statistically significant difference between male and female students in the
overall academic achievement. Moreover, statistically s ignificant gender
difference was observed in seif- regulating strategy in favor of males but no
significant d~1erence was revealed in cognitive strategy u se. The ANOVA
results indicated s ignificant students' academic achievement differences due
to their parents' educational Ie v-:; [ differences. ' Students who come form
educated Parents perform better in school than their counterparts who come
from uneducated parents. Similar students' academic achievement re sults
were also observed with their paternal or male guardian and maternal or
female guardian educational leve ls. The multiple regression analysis
displayed that both parents' educational background & learning strategy
components had statistically significant contribution on s tudents' academic
achievement, exp laining 88% of the variation in academic achievement. 'Of the
variables treated in the study , parents' educational background was the best
predicto r variable in students academic a c hievement
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Keywords
Educational Background and Learning Strategies