Family Factors and Adolescents’ Academic Performance

Abstract

Family is one of the most significant environments in children’s development, thus family factors have an important influence on adolescents’ personal growth. To provide a theoretical basis for pedagogy research and helpful guidance for parents and teachers to educate children, this study explores the impact of various family factors on adolescents’ academic performance, including family size, parent’s cohabitation status, parent’s educational level, parent’s job, family educational support, and the quality of family relationships. This study uses data from secondary school students from Portugal, which contains information on student’s families and grades. This study uses ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient to analyze the relationship between family factors and adolescents’ academic performance. Then, this study uses multiple linear regression analysis and stepwise regression to analyze the impact. Results show that parent’s educational level and the quality of family relationships could both affect adolescents’ grades. Besides, the impact of the mother’s educational level is most significant.