Influence of Parental Educational Status on Attitude and Performance in Mathematics among Senior Secondary School Students in Katsina State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the influence of parental educational status on senior secondary school students’ attitude and performance in Mathematics in Katsina State, Nigeria. The study adopted an ex-post facto survey research design. The population comprised 215,370 senior secondary school students in public secondary schools in Katsina State, from which a sample of 382 students was selected using multistage sampling. Data were collected using the Attitude towards Mathematics Questionnaire (ATMQ) and a Students’ End-of-Term Result Sheet to collect students' performance. The ATMQ had a Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient of 0.88. Data collected were analysed using simple linear regression at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that parental educational status significantly influenced students’ attitude towards Mathematics, F(1, 380) = 66.842, p < .05, with an R² of .127, indicating that parental educational status explained 12.7% of the variance in students’ attitude. Similarly, parental educational status significantly influenced students’ performance in Mathematics, F(1, 380) = 64.171, p < .05, with an R² of .138, indicating that parental educational status  accounted for 13.8% of the variance in students’ performance. The study concluded that parental educational status is a significant factor associated with students’ attitude and performance in Mathematics. It was recommended that educational stakeholders strengthen parental involvement, school–home collaboration, and academic support programmes to assist parents in supporting their children’s learning of Mathematics, irrespective of their educational background.