The teaching of “individual obligations in the family” and students’ performance of household chores a study of Senior High School students in the Tema Metropolis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out the impact of the “teaching of individual obligation in the Family” on the attitudes of SHS students towards the performance of household chores in their homes. The study was conducted at Tema Metropolis. The descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted for this study. The method was chosen because the study did not focus on causal effects in the population. Also it was chosen because it is based on a representative sample of the population, the results can be generalized to the overall population from which the sample came. A Sample size of 240 first year students and 260 second year students was used for the study. But the researcher sampled 100 first years and 100 second years because of time and resources. The simple random sampling was adopted for this study. Questionnaire and focus group discussions were used to gather information for the study. STATA Statistical Software Package and Microsoft Excel was used for the collation and presentation of the results. The results revealed some household chores were seen by the respondents as running errands for their parents/guardians, cooking, ironing of clothes and baby-sitting. In addition, the majority of respondents, irrespective of their academic year of study, agreed that it is their responsibility to co-operate with their parent/guardian at home. The findings also showed that most of the respondents felt they are obliged to do it. It was recommended that a forum should be created to educate parents/guardians on how to nurture and engage their children in chores in order not to affect their attitude of academic performance. Also further research should consider obligations in the family aside household chores. Finally, it was recommended that the topic “Individual obligations in the family” should be maintained to serve as formal confirmation of what they already know and other moral teachings should be added to build morally sound youth for our society.