CHAPTER 3
PROCEDURE AND METHODOLOGY
This chapter gives a description of population of the study, sample of the study,
instruments used in the study, data collection method and the procedure used for the analysis of
data.
Population of the study:
The population of the study comprised 8533 intermediate science male and female
students of grade 12, who appeared in the intermediate examination (Part I) 2006 at the Board of
Intermediate and Secondary Education Rawalpindi.
Sample of the study
The aim of the study was to examine the effect of home environment on the achievements and
personality of the students. Home environment, the independent variable of the study comprises
of socio economic status along with family relations, family size, birth order and family type.
Cluster sampling technique was used for the selection of the sample of the study. It was decided
to select one male and one female college from each tehsil of Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Attock and
Chakwal districts. Finally 11 male and 10 female colleges were selected because no science
student was enrolled in Government College for Women Murree, in the session 2005-2007. The
number of science students in the selected colleges ranged from 10 to several hundreds. It was
decided to select all the available students of the college, if the total number of science students in
a college was not more than 70. If the total number of students was more than 70, students of only
one section of the college were selected. As a result data was collected from 724 students, among
them 410 were female and 314 were male students. Name of male and female colleges and their
relevant respondents’ number is given in tables No. 1-2 respectively.
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Table # 1: Name of Male Colleges and Number of Respondents
Name of Colleges
1. Govt. College Asghar Mall Rawalpindi
Number of Respondents
70
2. Sarwar Shaheed Nishan-i- Haider Govt. College
23
Gujar Khan Rawalpindi
3. Govt. Degree College Kahuta (Rawalpindi).
14
4. Govt. Degree College Murree (Rawalpindi)
10.
5. Govt. College Attock
34
6. Govt. College Pindi Gheb (Attock)
11
7. Govt. College Fateh Jang (Attock)
18
8. Govt. Degree College G. T. Road, Jhelum
28
9. Govt. Al-Baruni Degree College Pind Dadan Khan, (Jhelum)
14
10. Govt. College Chakwal
68
11. Govt. College Talagang (Chakwal)
24
Total
314
Table # 2: Name of Female Colleges and Number of Respondents
Name of Colleges
Number of Respondents
1. Govt. College for Women Sattelite Town Rawalpindi
127
2. Govt. College for Women Gujar Khan ( Rawalpindi )
18
3. Govt. College for Women Kahuta ( Rawalpindi )
15
4. Govt. College for Women Attock
56
5. Govt. College for Women Pindi Gheb (Attock )
14
6. Govt. Girls Inter College, Fateh Jang ( Attock)
09
7. Govt. College for Women Jhelum
53
8. Govt. College for Women Pind Dadan Khan (Jhelum)
11
9. Govt. College for Women Chakwal
86
10. Govt. Girls Inter College Tala Gang ( Chakwal)
21
Total
410
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Research Instruments:
The main aim of the study was to examine the effect of home environment on the
personality and academic achievements of the students. To collect information about home
environment (independent variable), personality and academic achievements of students
(dependent variables), following instruments were used;
Personality Instrument
In order to determine the personality of students a five factor personality inventory
developed by Dr. Tom Buchanan (2001) was used. The test materials and underline philosophy of
this inventory is derived from the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg 1999a). This
inventory is intended to access the five main domains of the Five Factor Model. The current
dominant model in theory and research on personality proposes that personality is best described
in terms of a hierarchal model with five main domains (Goldberg 1990; Costa & Mc Crae 1992;
Digman, 1990), openness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, agreeableness and extroversion.
It is based on an IPIP inventory developed by Goldberg (1999b). This five factor personality
inventory is attached at appendix no II.
The number of statements in each factor are presented in table 3.
Table # 3- Number of statements in each subscale of IPIP Personality Inventory
Name of Subscale
No of statements
Statement serial No.
Openness
7
1,4,15, 17, 23, 25, 35
Extroversion
9
5, 6, 13, 16, 18, 27, 32, 40, 41
Conscientiousness
10
7, 8, 14, 20, 21, 26, 29, 31, 34, 39
Emotional Stability
8
2, 3, 9, 12, 22, 28, 33, 36
Agreeableness
7
10, 11, 19, 24, 30, 37, 38
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To solicit the responses of the students five point Likert type scale was used, having the
responses: very accurate, moderately accurate, neither accurate nor inaccurate, moderately
inaccurate, very inaccurate.
Index of Family Relations
To measure the intra-familial environment as perceived by students, the Index of Family
Relations (IFR) was used. This index was originally developed by Hudsen (1982). It comprises of
24 items. It uses five point Likert type scale to solicit students responses, the responses are: all of
the time, good part of the time, some of the time, a little of the time, none of the time.. The high
score on the respected measure indicated pleasant intra-familial environment, where the low score
indicated poor family relationships. This index of family relation is attached at appendix No. I.
Translation of instruments
Both the above mentioned instruments were translated into Urdu by the researcher. The
Urdu translation was validated by a committee of three experts, who gave the certificate for the
authenticity and validation of the Urdu versions of the instruments. Authenticated translated copy
of these two instruments is attached at appendix no. IV and V. A certificate for the authenticity
and validation of these instruments issued by a committee of experts is attached at appendix no.
VIII. .
Pilot Testing
Both the instruments were pilot tested. The reliability coefficient of both the instruments
was determined by applying Cronbach Alpha Reliability Method and it was found
Index of Family Relations and 0.792 for total personality inventory.
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α = 0.82 for
Demographic Variable Information Performa (DVIP)
A demographic Variable Information Performa (DVIP) was developed by the researcher
to collect information relating to the demographic variables of the study. The Performa consisted
of the following variables;
1. Parental education
2. Family income
3. Father's occupation
4. Institution's name
5. Parents' own house or not
6. Servant available at home
7. Transport facility available for students to attend their institution
8. Facilities available at home i.e, Television, Telephone, Computer, Internet, Air conditioner,.
9. Size of the family
10. Birth order (Sibling position) of the student.
11. Type of family i.e, Joint or nuclear
Achievement Score
The achievement score of students at intermediate level for annual examination 2006
(Part I) of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Rawalpindi was collected
from the result gazette of the BISE Rawalpindi 2006 (part 1). The result of those students who
failed in one or more subjects was collected from the office of BISE Rawalpindi, personally by
the researcher. Out of 724 subjects, 512 passed the examination and 212 failed in one or more
subjects. Total marks in part I were 550 and 182 was passing score.
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Collection of Data
For data collection research instruments were administered to subjects with the
permission of the principal of each college. The data from the colleges of Rawalpindi Gujerkhan
and Chakwal and Jehlum was collected by the researcher personally. The data from other colleges
was collected by sending research instruments to the teachers of those colleges. The instructions
for the administration of the research instruments were sent to those teachers along with the
research instruments.
Scoring Procedure
Following methods were applied to score the collected data.
Personality; for personality determination every student’s total score was calculated by summing
up scores on 41 items of personality inventory. Each item is scored according to the following
categories, “I” very inaccurate, “2” moderately inaccurate, “3” neither accurate nor inaccurate,
“4” moderately accurate, “5” very accurate. The scoring was reversed for the negative items. The
scores on five factors of personality were calculated by summing up the scores of items relevant
to each category.
Family relations; for determining the family relations as perceived by students, total individual
scores were calculated by adding up 24 items of the index of family relations. Each item is scored
according to the following categories, “I” none of the time, “2” a little of the time, “3” some of
the time, “4” a good part of the time, “5” all of the time. The scoring was reversed for the
negative items. On the basis of total score students were classified into three categories i.,e Poor,
Moderate and good. The values are given in table 4. The classification was based on experts’
opinion. A certificate issued by experts for the authentification of classification of family
relations is attached at appendix X.
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Table # 4 Classification of subjects on the basis of family relations
Score
Classification
Up to72
poor
From 73 – 96
moderate
More than 96
Good
Socioeconomic Status:
Socioeconomic Status is the term used by Social Scientists and Sociologists to describe
the position of individual or a group in a hierarchical social structure. This status is measured
through socio economic indicators such as Parental education, Family income and occupation,
Housing Facility and Material possessions (Adler et al, 1994). In the present study, researcher
used the following indicators for the calculation of parent's socioeconomic status on the basis of
experts’ opinion: Parental education, Family income, and ownership of a house, Availability of
home servant and other facilities available at home i.e, Telephone, Television, Internet, Computer
and Air conditioner. Numerical values were assigned to each variable and total score on SES was
calculated for each subject of the study. Scoring procedure for different indicators of
socioeconomic status is given below.
Parental Education
To score parental education, an eight point scale was used. Similar procedure was used
by Arif (1982) and Rana (2002). The values are mentioned in table 5.
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Table # 5 Scoring procedure for parental education
Parental education level
Score
Uneducated
0
Primary
1
Middle
2
Matric
3
Intermediate
4
Graduate
5
Post Graduate
6
MBBS/B.Sc Engineering
7
PhD
8
Family Income:
Table 6, shows the scale used for monthly family income
Table # 6 Scoring procedure for family income
Monthly Income
Score
Up to 5000
1
<5000 to 10,000
2
<10000 to 15,000
3
<15000 to 20,000
4
<20000 to 25,000
5
Above 25,000
6
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Value '1' was assigned to all other indicators of the socio economic status i.e, availability
of home servant, ownership of a house, and other facilities at home including computer,
telephone, television, internet and air-conditioner.
On the basis of parental socio economic status all subjects of the study were classified into three
categories. The classification was based on percentile scores. The values are presented in table 7.
Table # 7 Classification of subjects on the basis of socio economic scores
Score
Classification
Up to 25th percentile
Low
Less than 9
26th to 75thpercentile
Average
10
to 15
Above 75thpercentile
High
More than 15
For collecting demographic information about the subjects of the study, a demographic
section was attached with the instruments which included questions about family size, position of
the subject in his/her siblings (birth order), and type of their family. The effect of family size,
birth order, and family type on student’s academic achievement and personality was also studied.
After studying the results of various research studies (Bossard, 1954; Loomis et al., 1949, Nye,
1952; Fisher &Hasyes, 1941; Darmin, 1949; Fleeg, 1945; Zajonce and Marcus, 1976;
Schiefelbein and Valenzuella, 1993;Adler, 1933; Mac Donald, 1969; Luosa & Brophy, 1970;
Rothbart, 1971; Rosenblat & Skoogher, 1974; Roe, 1953; Jones, 1954; Altus, 1965 Terman,
1925), and consulting relative experts, numerical values were assigned to subjects of the study
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according to their family size, birth order and family type. The values assigned and classification
of subjects regarding the size of their family, birth order and family type is given below.
Family size
All subjects of the study were classified into three groups on the basis of family size. The
classification is presented in table 10.
Table # 8 Classification of subjects on the basis of family size
Family size
Total No. of brothers and sisters
small
1 to 3
average
4 to 6
Large
7 and more
Value ‘1’ was assigned to large, ‘2’ to average and ‘3’ to small family
Birth order
All subjects of the study were classified into three groups on the basis of their birth order, i.e.,
First born, Second born and Last born. Those subjects who were neither first born nor second
born were placed in the category of second born. Value assigned to first, last, and second born
was ‘3’, ‘2’ and ‘1’ respectively.
Family type
On the basis of family type students were divided in two groups, i.e, nuclear and joint. Value
assigned to joint and nuclear family was ‘1’ and ‘2’ respectively.
Home environment
As mentioned in the theoretical framework of the study, student’s home environment comprised
of family relations, socio economic status of students’ parents, size of the family, birth order of
the student and type of the family.. Thus students’ home environment was determined by
summing up the score of the subjects from the index of family relations and other demographic
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variables which affect students’ personality and their academic achievements. Expert’s opinion
was taken to determine the percentage weight of every variable. A certificate issued by experts
for the authentification of relative weight % of components of home environment is attached at
appendix IX. The percentage weight given to each variable is mentioned in table 8.
Table # 9 Relative weight % of every variable to determine home environment
Variable
Weight %
Family relations
50
Socioeconomic status
20
Size of the family
10
Birth order
10
Type of the family
10
On the basis of total home environment score, all subjects of the study were classified
into three groups. The classification was based on percentile scores. The values are presented in
table 9.
Table # 10 Classification of subjects on the basis of home environment
Score
Group
Up to 33rd percentile
Lower
1 to 70
Between 34th &75th percentile 71 to Middle
76.46
Above 75thpercentile
Higher
More than 76.46
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Analysis of Data
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and t-test were used to test the hypothesis of the study. The
alpha (p) level of 0.05 was used in all tests of hypothesis. Null hypothesis No 1 to 21 and 29 to 63
were tested by applying Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Null hypothesis No. 21 to 28 and 64 to
70 were tested by applying t-test.
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