Introduction
Student achievement in the educational domain depends on a variety of factors, addressing which educators can facilitate instruction approaches, organization of the learning process, and academic outcomes. In the context of the modern student-centred trend in pedagogy, the inclusion of individual factors in working with learners is essential (Garcia & Skrita, 2019). Scholars agree that family environment, in general, and the presence of siblings in a child’s family, in particular, impact the academic achievements of a student (Anderson, 2017; Jia et al., 2022). However, the research problem addressed in this paper is related to the ambiguity of the implications of the relationship between having no siblings and academic performance. The importance of the investigated issues is justified by the necessity to avoid negative implications for students’ success opportunities due to the neglect of environmental factors.
Discussion
On the one hand, according to Anderson (2017), family size “affects not only the environment in which children grow up but also the architecture of their brains” (para. 6). The researcher claims that if a student is the only child in the family, their IQ level is a higher, hence better educational achievement. Such an opinion is justified by the positive implications of having no siblings since parents’ attention and resources are focused on the benefits of one individual. On the other hand, Jia et al. (2022) state that the combination of factors such as age, gender, socio-economic status, and the status of being the only child predetermines the level of academic performance. Thus, it is essential to clarify the dependence between the status of being an only child and academic performance to inform educational decision-making in facilitating success opportunities for diverse students.
The objective of this study is formulated in the following research question.
Research Question: Is the academic performance of a child with siblings different from the academic performance of a child without siblings? The study will be based on quantitative inquiry, which implies the identification of a hypothesis and variables. Given the evidence retrieved from the reviewed literature, the hypothesis for the study might be as follows: children with no siblings will demonstrate better academic performance levels than children with one or more siblings. The relationship between two sets of variables will be established when testing this hypothesis. In particular, the independent variable will be the status of having no siblings and the status of having at least one sibling; the dependent variable will be academic performance.
Conclusion
One should provide an operational definition of the dependent variable in question due to the need to clarify its meaning in the context of this study. Academic performance is defined as the level of educational achievement measured in the form of average grades in all subjects (Garcia & Skrita, 2019). Thus, to test the hypothesis, the researcher will conduct a quantitative study with two groups of participants (individuals with and without siblings being in different groups) by comparing their academic performance. The methods of data collection that will be used include a survey and document analysis to obtain information about students’ family status and academic performance. The method of statistical analysis will be used to analyze the collected data and answer the research question. It is anticipated that the results of this study will provide an evidential basis for adjusting teaching approaches to the academic achievement opportunities predetermined by the family environment.
References
Anderson, J. (2017). Neuroscience shows that our gut instincts about only children are right. Quartz. Web.
Garcia, J. D., & Skrita, A. (2019). Predicting academic performance based on students’ family environment: Evidence for Colombia using classification trees. Psychology, Society & Education, 11(3), 299-311.
Jia, C., Yang, Z., Xin, T., Li, Y., Wang, Y., & Yang, T. (2022). Differences in school performance between only children and non-only children: Evidence from China. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 1-14. Web.