| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this quantitative study is determining the effect of family living arrangements on academic performance of secondary students in day schools in Arua district, a case study of Arua Hill division. This was done by comparing the academic performance of secondary students from traditional families and nontraditional in Arua Town college school, Nile High secondary school and Arua secondary school all located in Arua district in Arua Hill division. The study was based on the family living arrangements of these students. The independent variable of family structure or family living arrangements as used interchangeably in this research study was classified into either traditional family or nontraditional family. A traditional family for the purposes of this study was defined as one that comprises of entirely two biological parents or adoptive parents from birth, one male and one female, cohabiting in a marital relationship. A nontraditional family as for this study is one that comprises of single mother family, single father family or an extended relative family consisting of uncles, aunties, grandmothers, grandfathers and so on. This study was needed to investigate ambiguous findings in the literature and to find out which group performs better based on the different circumstances underlying each one of them. The academic performance considered in this study was the end of year 2019 academic performance. Grading of the students was used by the researcher that is first grade, second grade, third grade and fourth grade. These were further grouped to performed well (first grade and second grade) and underperformed (third grade and fourth grade).
The research study constituted of 94 respondents both male and female. In the results, univariate analysis for the respondents were done and bivariate analysis too. The research showed that female respondents were 57% while males were 43% implying that majority of the students are females and therefore unproportioned distribution of gender of the student (sex of the student) in this study conducted in Arua district, Arua Hill division. The mean age of the students was 18.244468 years with standard deviation of 1.739399 and a maximum age of 25 years and a minimum of 14 years.
From the research study, majority (52%) of the respondents had underperformed i.e. obtained either a third grade or fourth grade and 48% of the respondents had performed well that is to say obtained either a first grade or second grade. The students living in a traditional family was categorized into staying with biological parents or adoptive parents meanwhile students staying in a nontraditional family was categorized into staying with staying with father only, mother only or staying with relatives. It was discovered from the study that majority of the respondents lived in a nontraditional family (57%) and 43% of the respondents lived in a traditional family. Regarding religion of the respondents, 41% were Protestants, followed by Muslims (28%), followed by the Catholics (27%), then others (3% which comprised of the Jehovah ’s Witness and Seventh Day Adventists) and then the Traditional Religion (1%). Results of the study added to the body of knowledge of related studies that family living arrangements has no effect on the academic performance of students. | en_US |
