FAMILY TYPE AND SCHOOL ADJUSTMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN EMOHUA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, RIVERS STATE.

Abstract

Personal experience shows an increase in the cases of maladjusted students in the secondary school especially in areas of truancy, examination malpractice, school drop-out, fighting and other school violence and offences. This phenomenon seems to have some direct connection and link with the kind of family background or family structure that these students come from hence, this study is to explore the influence of family structure on school adjustment of primary school pupils in Etche Local Government Area. The design used in this study is causal-comparative or what may be referred to as ex-post-facto design. The population for the study was made up of 2,362 primary four pupils in the 48 public primary schools in Etche Local Government Area in Rivers State. The sample size for the study is 236 primary four pupils representing 10% of the entire population. Two instruments were used for study namely: Home Environmental Inventory (H.E.I). The Cronbach Alpha technique was used in determining the internal consistency. The reliability co-efficient of 0.84 was obtained. The data collected by administering the research instruments was analyzed in line with research questions and hypotheses. The researcher used mean and standard deviation to answer research questions. The hypotheses was answered using t-test. The result of the hypotheses tested reveal that the various family types include separated/intact, polygamous/monogamous families. This shows that family structure does not really have any significant influence on the school adjustment of pupils in Etche local Government Area. Based on the result it was recommended that parents should make more efforts to show interest in their children by creating a conducive environmental for study and academic work.