Factors Influencing Academic Performance among Pre-School Children in Ashaiman

Abstract

Background: The natural surroundings of every school is an area that is very important to understand as children spend a significant portion of their lives there and also because they are more susceptible to health implications due to their age and health status. The health implications resulting from some environmental factors like smoke, dust and noise can ultimately affect the academic progress of students. Objective: This study mainly examined the determinants (socio-demographic, environmental factors, health outcomes and living habits within and outside the school) of pupil‟s academic performance among children in pre-school. Design: A cross-sectional study design was used to determine the factors that influenced academic performance of pupils in pre-school. Methods: Questionnaires were administered for data collection among the school children. STATA (version 14) was used for analysis and presentation of results. Bivariate analysis using Chi-square and logistic regression were used to find the factors that significantly influenced academic performance and its domains (cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills). Other confounding variables such as school attendance and class size were also considered for this study. Results: 51% of the children scored above average on the cognitive skills, 64.5% scored above average on affective skills, but 52.5% below avearge on psychomotor skiils. In all, 54.5% scored above average on the overall scale. With respect to socio-demographic factors, being a never married (OR=2.76, 95% C.I=1.31-5.78) or divorced parent (OR=7.05, 95% C.I=1.47-8.69) was positively associated with improved cognitive skills in children. Being a female, improved psychomotor (OR=2.58, 95% C.I=1.39-4.80) and affective (2.99, 1.84-4.84) skills. With respect to environmental factors, being exposed to self-reported noise frequently was likely to reduce cognitive skills. Children who were not exposed to second hand smoke (2.15, 1.17- 3.94) had improved psychomotor skills. Again, children who were frequently exposed to selfreported noise (0.45, 0.22-0.92) had reduced cognitive skills. Similarly, children who were frequently exposed to mold odor (0.50, 0.25-0.97) had reduced psychomotor skills. With respect to General health problems, children who reported having sore throat (0.27, 0.10-0.66) or hoarseness of voice (0.45, 0.22-0.93) had reduced overall academic performance. With respect to living habits within and outside the school, Pre-school children who absented themselves between 5-10 days (0.11, 95% CI=0.022-0.608)) and more than 10 days (0.07,95%CI=0.018-0.279) were 89% and 93% less likely to perform better than those who only missed school for less than 5 days. Also, pupils in a class with size more than 40 (OR=0.19, 95%CI=0.041-0.883) were 81% less likely to outperform those in a class with a size of less than 40. Conclusion: In the siting of schools, Government, Ghana Education Service and various NGO's should consider building schools in places that are not heavily polluted by noise and dust