Family Conflict, Interpersonal Relationship and Senior Secondary Schools Students' Academic Performance: The Counselling Implication

Abstract

 Good education does not happen by chance. It is a product of effective teaching and learning coupled with the effort of the teacher, the school, the students, parents and their various home environments. Therefore, this study investigated the influence of family conflict and interpersonal relationship senior secondary schools students' academic performance and the counselling implications.

A survey research design of the ex-post-facto type was employed in the study. Two thousand four hundred (2400) Senior Secondary School Two (SSS2) students comprising 1200 male and 1200 female were sampled for this study. Data were collected using questionnaire. Four research hypotheses were raised to guide this study, while data were analyzed using Multiple Regression Analysis and Pearson Product Moment Correlation significant at 0.05 alpha level.

Results indicated that family conflict and interpersonal relationship accounted for 24.3% of the variance in the senior secondary schools students' academic performance (R = .505; R² = .255; Adj. R² = .243; F _(1,2398) = 5.113; p = 000). The most potent predictor of senior secondary schools students' academic performance among the predictor variables of the study is family conflict (β = .284; t = 9.249; p = .000) followed by interpersonal relationship (β= .185; t = 5.856; p = .000). Student gender (Female = R = .371; R² = .137; Adj. R² = .136; F _(1,68) = 9.041; p = .011); Male = R = .332; R² = .110; Adj. R² = .107; F _(1,46) = 5.893; p = .007) was found to moderate the influence of family conflict and interpersonal relationship on senior secondary schools students' academic performance. Also, a significant high relationship was observed between family conflict and senior secondary schools students' academic performance (r = .387) as well as interpersonal relationship and senior secondary schools students' academic performance (r = .448). It was further shown from the table that a significant relationship equally exist between family conflict and interpersonal relationship (r = .401).

The study concluded that all hands should be on deck in ensuring that appropriate counselling programmes such as group counselling, family counselling, and supportive associations are designed to help children from negative home environment and their parents so as to improve the children academic performance at school. Also, no stone should be left unturned in nipping in the bud the growing monster called negative home environment in our society as it does not lead to the proper and successful educational development of our children.

Keywords: family conflict, interpersonal relationship, academic performance