The academic performance of Central Philippine University Development High School students with present and absentee fathers: a comparative study

Abstract

This study compared the academic performance of students at Central Philippine University Development High School SY 2002-2003 whose fathers were present at home and absent from home. It further determined the profile of the students’ fathers in terms of age, educational qualification, occupation and family’s socio-economic status. A validated questionnaire was used in data gathering, Chi-square and Gamma test were used to analyze the data collected from 170 out of 196 respondents chosen using the systematic random sampling, which represents 87 percent of the total sample pairs, who were subjected to a one-shot-survey. The findings showed that absentee fathers were slightly younger than fathers who were present at home. Majority of both groups of fathers were college graduates or had attained higher education. Majority of the absentee fathers are professional/technical or related workers while only one third of the fathers who were present at home holds the same occupation. Respondents with absentee fathers come from families of higher socio-economic status while respondents whose fathers were present at home come from the families of average socio-economic status. There is a weak association between respondents’ academic performance and fathers’ age, educational qualification, occupation and family’s socio-economic status for both groups (with absentee fathers and with fathers who were present at home) and the association was found to be statistically not significant at five percent level.