Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement: Discovering Educational Challenges among Secondary School Students

Socioeconomic status (SES) significantly affects both student educational outcomes as well as the likelihood of educational success. SES is typically the biggest determining factor affecting how well a student performs in school academically and how well they will do in the future. This study primarily examined how SES can affect secondary students' academic performance and what barriers to achieving academic success exist for low-income students. Therefore, the quantitative design used to investigate the impact of SES on academic success involved administering a survey sample of 100 students from existing population. Questions were designed to include key socioeconomic indicators (e.g., parent education level, parent occupational status, family income, home learning environment, access to educational resources) as well as the students' academic behaviors and barriers to success. The data from the survey respondents were transferred to statistical analysis tables by using univariate statistics (i.e., frequency counts, percent of sample). There is strong evidence indicating that socioeconomic factors have an impact on students' access to academic resources, such as learning materials, that they have supportive home environments, and that their parents are involved in their education, all of which positively affect the academic behaviors of these students, such as having a completed homework assignment, being engaged in classroom activities, and attempting to achieve academically. On the contrary, candidates with low-income families also faced difficulties when it came to their studies. Financial barriers were listed amongst other limitations such as; lack of tutoring methods, lack of access to academic resources, duties around the house, and then stress due to the financial condition of their family. Overall results of this study showcase how much influence socioeconomic status has on a child's academic performance, which promotes the need for educational programs/policies in order to assist in reducing socioeconomic disparities within education.