The Influence Of A Home Environment On Pupils Academic Achievement: A Case Study Of Kaskazini B District Of Unguja In Zanzibar

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of home environment on pupils‟ academic achievement. It investigated how parents‟ educational level, house hold chores, family income, learning materials at home and divorce as home factors influence pupils academic achievement in primary schools in Kaskazini B District of Unguja in Zanzibar. The study employed a case study design and data were collected through interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaires. Respondents were selected through purposive and random sampling techniques where a total of 115 participants were sampled. This sample consisted of 48 pupils, 40 parents, 24 primary schools teachers and 3 village leaders. Two theories, namely Social Learning Theory and Motivation theory of Maslow Hierarchy of Needs guided the study. The findings of the study indicated that home environment has influence on pupils‟ academic achievement, whereby pupils with stimulating home learning environment such as availability of learning materials at home, learning supervision at home, good family income have high possibility to achieve better in their academic tasks, and those with negative home environment including parents‟ divorce, poor learning supervision at home and excessive house hold chore mostly end up with undesirable academic achievement. Based on these findings, the study recommends that parents need to be educated on how they can create supportive home environment for the academic success of their children at school, reducing house hold chores to school children, ensuring the need of learning materials at home, strengthening parents-school cooperation, supervising and motivating children for their learning.