A study of academic achievement of scheduled caste secondary school students in relation to study habits, home environment and school environment

Abstract

The present study entitled, A STUDY OF ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SCHEDULED CASTE SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN RELATION TO STUDY HABITS, HOME ENVIRONMENT AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT is an attempt to find out the effect of home environment, school environment and study habits on academic achievements of scheduled caste students. The scheduled caste which are treated as untouchables continue to remain at the bottom of India s caste hierarchy. They also remain at the bottom of economic hierarchy, having no land of the own and relegated to undertake only menial/dirty and ill paid jobs. The major caused that have kept the scheduled caste down in the society have been poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, fear and resultants inability to assert themselves. The descriptive survey method is used in the present investigation. The sample consists of 600 scheduled caste students. Amongst them 350 were boys and 250 were girls from 30 schools of three districts viz. Jind, Jhajjar and Rohtak. There are three independent variables i.e. home environment, school environment and study habits and one dependent variable i.e., academic achievement. Home Environment Inventory, School Environment Inventory by K.S. Mishra and Study habit Inventory by M. Mukhopadhyaya and D.N. Sansanwal were used as a tools for the study. Tenth class marks were considered as academic achievement of respondents. Correlation, Mean, Standard Deviation and t test were the statistics used for data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that there was no significant relationship between study habit and academic achievement. Home environment had significant effect on academic achievement but school environment does not play a significant role in academic achievement. Ultimately the study while help teachers to touch the exact points of the deficiencies of their students. It is their disadvantageous environment which has pushed them for below, as regards academic achievement, study habits and concerned.