The home environment and its effect on academic performance of public secondary school students in Kinondoni district

The purpose of this study was to find out how home environmental factors are associated to students academic performance. More specifically the study: (1) assessed the relationship between parents level of education and their children performance at school; (2) examined the association between parents income and students’ academic performance; (3) investigated association between domestic work performed by students and their academic performance; and (4) assessed the relationship between parents level of involvement in children’s studies and students’ academic performance. This study was conducted in Kinondoni District. The study employed mixed methodology with descriptive survey design to collect data from four public secondary schools. The sample size included 96 respondents including parents, students and teachers. Data were collected through interview, questionnaire and documentary review. The study adopted purposive sampling and simple random sampling. The strategy for data analysis was Statistical for Package for Social Science (SPSS) whereby Pearson’s moment correlation coefficient (r) was employed to determine the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Also, content analysis, figures and tables was used to analyze data.The study findings indicated that parents level of education, parents income, parents involvements in their children’s studies and domestic works performed by students have significance influence on academic performance of the students (p=0.01) .The study concluded that, there is relationship between home environment and students academic performance. Therefore, home environmental factors like income, education level of parents, domestic works performed by students and parental involvements in their children’s studies have effects on the academic performance of the learners. For better academic performance, it is recommended that students should be provided with conducive home environment. Parents should work closely with school administration through close supervision of their children academic progress and through assisting students in their studies at home and give them time for private study after school hours. Efforts should be done among school managements and parents to improve performance of the student. Government together with the community should cooperate to prepare hostels and boarding schools to support students in their learning. To gain deeper understanding of the effect of home environment on academic performance it is recommended for further research to conduct pure quantitative research on the issue.