JONAED

The purpose of this study was to determine how family climate and cognitive learning skills correlate with students’ academic achievement. It was guided by four research questions and two null hypotheses. The research was a co-relational study and was carried out in Ebonyi State. The population for the study comprised all the 25,298 SSI students in three education zones of Ebonyi State. The sample for this study comprised 395 respondents made up of 194 and 201 male and female SS I students respectively. A researcher-developed rating scale titled “Family climate and cognitive learning skills scale (FCLSS) and social studies achievement test (SSAT) were the instruments for data collection. The face validity of the two instruments was determined. For the testing of reliability of FCLSRS, the instrument was administered to 40 SSII secondary school students in Enugu State. The correlation co-efficients of the sets of scores for the items in each section were obtained using Cronbach Alpha. The reliability indices for the two sections include 0.86 and 0.82 respectively. Similarly, the reliability of SSAT was determined using test-re-test method. A reliability index of 0.85 was obtained for SSAT. The researchers administered the instrument using direct delivery technique with the help of three research assistants, one each from the three Education Zones in the State. Answers to research questions were sought using means and Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient; while the hypotheses were tested with the help of regression analysis at 0.05 level of significance. Findings indicated a positive relationship existing between students’ cognitive learning skills and mean academic achievement. The findings however indicated a negative relationship existing between students’ family climate and their academic achievement in social studies. It was among others recommended that parents should at all times listen carefully and be close to their wards, not only to verbal communications but to nonverbal communications and to the emotions that may lie beneath what is said. It was also recommended that teachers should make students undergo an educational training in the area of cognitive learning skills.