Parents’ Participation In Improving Academic Performance Of Pupils With Hearing Impairment In Mbeya City Primary Schools

ABSTRACT

The study investigated parents’ participation in improving the academic performance

of pupils with hearing impairment (HI) in Mbeya City primary schools. The study

starts by examining parents’ participation in educating children with HI. It further

scrutinizes parents’ attitudes in supporting their children with HI in improving

academic performance, and lastly, it identifies challenges facing parents in

improving the academic performance of children with HI.

The study was guided by Ecological System Theory (EST) founded by

Bronfenbrenner in 1917-2005. It employed a mixed-method approach that is

qualitative and quantitative. Also, the study adopted a convergent parallel mixed

method design. The targeted population included parents of pupils with HI, special

education teachers, head teachers, and pupils with HI where the representative

sample of 64 respondents was used. Data were obtained through interviews,

questionnaires, and documentary reviews. Moreover, purposive sampling and simple

random sampling were used. Data were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

The founded sub-themes were bounded with descriptive analysis and quantitative

data were analysed by using the statistical package for social science (SPSS) version

20.

The study shows that most of the parents have been participating in improving the

academic performance of their pupils with HI in primary schools through buying

school materials like exercise books, school uniforms, hearing aids, and others.

Additionally, majority of the parents had positive attitudes toward their pupils with

HI. Furthermore, it was indicated that parents were facing some challenges in

improving the academic performance of their pupils with HI due to the economic

problems, low level of education, stigmatization, misconceptions, and

communication barrier (sign language) among parents.

The study, therefore, recommends that parents should be trained on sign language to

be able to communicate well with their children with HI. Furthermore, the problem

of HI should be well addressed among communities to avoid stigmatization and

misconceptions. Since hearing aids are expensive, the government should take full

responsibility to make sure that these devices are easily accessible and at affordable

prices.