ADOLESCENTS’ APPRAISAL OF CONTRIBUTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT OF PARENTS TOWARD THEIR SOCIO-COGNITIVE ADJUSTMENT LEVELS IN THE NEW NORMAL

Abstract

This study investigated the adolescents’ appraisal of the contributions of educational attainment of their parents toward their socio-cognitive adjustment levels in Enugu State Nigeria. Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The design was evaluative survey. The population of the study was all the senior secondary SS1 students in public secondary schools in Enugu state totaling 10,850 students during the 2022 academic year. The sample size consisted of 656 students chosen through simple random sampling technique. A Profoma made up of 40 items and nine check lists were developed. The check list was used to elicit responses from the adolescents based on their parent’s educational attainment and the profoma items were used to appraise the socio-cognitive adjustment levels of the adolescents as well as the influence of the educational attainments of their parents on their socio-cognitive adjustment levels. The data collected were analyzed using aggregate scores for research question I, 2 and 3. The hypotheses were tested using –t- test for mean scores. The findings of the study revealed among others the following; that educational attainment of parents is a factor in their proper socialization (socio-cognitive adjustment). That Enugu state has about 90% of its parents as having undergone formal education while about 10% has no formal education. The study further revealed that the adolescents rated their parents’ education influence factor as 63.6% and 33.4% appreciable and below expectation respectively. The study further observed a gap in both the socio-cognitive adjustment levels and parental influence factor of both the urban and rural adolescents. The following recommendations among others were proffered namely, that parents should be encouraged to beef-up their educational standard, stakeholders should be provided with satellite learning centers and encourage parents to avail such opportunities.