The effect of adjustment abilities of the students belonging to Joint and Nuclear Families on their academic achievement during the Covid-19 lockdown period concerning the interventional measures taken by their schools and families

Abstract

Introduction: Immediately after the cause of Covid 19 transmissions was discovered, the governments imposed a universal lockdown to stop public movement. The educational institutions, offices, industries, entertainment places, community centers, and shopping complexes were closed partially or fully. Though lockdown was the only effective remedial measure to control the menace of the Covid 19 pandemic, it had many negative side effects. People lost their jobs or worked with less salaries and privileges. Businesses and the production of goods and services are affected drastically. Due to these situations, the recession and economic slowdown started in a very challenging way. These occurrences were having a huge negative impact on the psychology of people. The family life of people has been worst affected and the children, mostly adolescents were the worst victim of this lockdown. On the one way, they were on the brink of rapid growth and development process, and on the other hand, they did not have any scope to channel these internal and external changes concerning their physical, mental, and emotional processes. Therefore, it was obvious they were facing huge adjustment problems. They were often feeling bewildered to see the family environment and behavior of the parents and other family members toward them. Again the impact of the lockdown was different on the joint family and Nuclear Families. In Joint Families, children were not having many challenges concerning passing their time effectively, but the situations of the Nuclear Families, mostly the Nuclear Families of the urban areas were very challenging. Here the children were not having much scope to pass their time with extended family members or move out for meeting friends as the restrictions were stricter in urban than rural settings. Therefore, it was found, many a time they even reacted to the situations. In the mean, while the educational institutions started teaching online this was again a new system of getting education for children. The online mode had again severe drawbacks related to the transaction of curriculum, examinations, assessment of learning outcomes, the academic achievement of students, logistic and technical issues, etc. In the present research, the researchers tried to identify the effect of adjustment abilities of adolescent children belonging to joint and Nuclear Families on their academic achievement during the lockdown period.

Research Gap: Though online teaching somehow worked like a bridge between the children’s engagement in their studies and the satisfaction level of their parents, yet lack of face-to-face teaching created a huge loss in the acquisition of basic skills, particularly the slow learners and students with impairment.  Therefore, researchers found that the closure of schools produced unequal learning opportunities, and lacked develop a sense of competitiveness and collaboration in learning However, the situations were not the same for all schools. Schools mostly managed by private management started their online education program in a better way compared to the schools managed by the Govt. bodies. Similarly, the benefits of the system vary from family to family considering the socio-economic and cultural capital of the family including the education of the parents. Schools with educated parents, sound economic conditions, and a good family environment gave better learning opportunities than schools having fewer privileges.  In this regard, The study population was the students studying their senior secondary classes in 23 schools during the lockdown period in the academic year 2019-20 and 2020-21. Some researchers found that in the self-financing schools the teachers were not getting a salary regularly as the parents did not pay the school fees of their wards timely. That was de-motivating the teachers and they were also conducting their duty casually.

Research Objectives: To find out the effectiveness of interventional measures taken by the families of the students to develop their adjustment abilities and academic achievement during the Covid 19 lockdown period. To find out the effectiveness of interventional measures taken by the schools of the students to develop their adjustment abilities and academic achievement during the Covid 19 lockdown period. To find out the whether there was a consistency in the performance of the students between their adjustment abilities and academic achievement criterion. To find out the effectiveness of interventional measures taken by the families of the students to develop their adjustment abilities and academic achievement during the Covid 19 lockdown period concerning their demographic characteristics. To find out the effectiveness of interventional measures taken by the schools of the students to develop their adjustment abilities and academic achievement during the Covid-19 lockdown period concerning their demographic characteristics. To find out the effect of adjustment abilities of the students belonging to JF and NF on their academic achievement during the Covid-19 lockdown period. To find out the correlation between adjustment abilities and academic achievement of the students during the Covid19 lockdown period. To find out the correlation between interventional measures taken by the families and schools of the students to develop their adjustment abilities during the Covid19 lockdown period. To find out the correlation between interventional measures taken by the families and schools of the students to develop their academic achievement during the Covid19 lockdown period.

Research Design: Considering the nature of the research a Quantitative research design, named, an exploratory survey research design was applied.  

Population and sample: The simple random sampling method was applied to select 300 students studying the classes X, XI and XII during the academic year 2020-21 in various secondary schools of the Mathura district. Thus the population of the study was the whole students studying in secondary classes during the above academic session which was hit by the lockdown concerning Covid 19 pandemic. The students were again segregated as per their demographic profile, such as gender, family type, socio-economic background of the parents, residential location, qualification of the parents, principal income source of the parents, etc.

Research Tools: Since there were no readily made standardized research instruments to address the objectives of the research available the researchers decided to develop a relevant research tool, accurate, objective, sensitive and efficient to measure what it intended to measure.

Data Collection techniques: The data were collected online through the Google form survey platform. The responses of the students were automatically captured on the platform. These responses were later retrieved in MS Excel format for the analysis of the data and interpretation of the findings.

Data analysis and interpretation: The structured method of inductive data analysis was employed in the current study, as it is considered to be a flexible qualitative approach to analysis. Based on the perceptual understanding concerning the interventional measures taken by the family and schools towards their adjustment abilities and academic achievement, the responses of the students were calculated as the average score for each item and then collectively under a domain of positive, negative, and undecided responses. Data under each demographic characteristic were scored individually. For the significance of the hypotheses, the appropriate statistical treatment was applied to the data, and the as per the findings the interpretation was derived. The results were again compared and contacted with the most recent related studies in the area of research and finally, the new findings from the research were discussed concerning the studies to be undertaken by future researchers.

Results: The overall satisfaction rate of the students towards the interventional measures taken by their families and schools was below 60%. It was found that there was a strong consistency between the overall performances of the students concerning their adjustment abilities and academic achievement. It was also found that the satisfaction rate of both girls and boys towards the interventional measures of their schools and families was almost the same except in a few cases the boys were found to be more satisfied then the girls. It was revealed that students belonging to urban areas, nuclear families, high Socioeconomic backgrounds, highly educated parents, and parents whose occupations were service found more satisfied than their peers. It was also found from the independent t-test that in both JF and NF the effect of adjustment abilities was very significant on the academic achievement of the students as the result was significant at 0.01 levels. This signifies the interventional measures taken by the families and schools of the adolescent children to develop their adjustment abilities to coup up with the challenging situations of the lockdown helped the students to improve their academics. It was found that there was a positive correlation between the adjustment abilities and academic achievement of the students and between interventional measures taken by the families and schools during Covid 19 lockdown period concerning their adjustment abilities. Also, it was found that there was a positive correlation between the interventional measures taken by these two bodies concerning their academic achievement.