The absence of a father or father figure and its impact on the academic success of high school males

There are different theories as to why achievement gaps sometimes exist between males and females, but research has revealed that there are important factors in and out of schools, such as parental involvement, which affect the academic success of high school male students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to research the impact that involvement from a father or father figure has on his son’s education in high school. Does living without a father or father figure involvement cause inequity of opportunity for high school males? From this, the research tested the lack of father or father figure involvement and its relationship to the academic success of high school males as compared to the academic success of high school males with father or father figure involvement. Academic success was determined by the behaviors that measure achievement: attendance patterns, discipline referrals, and final grades in high school courses. Survey results measuring the types of parental involvement were administered to the parents/guardians of 215 high school male students in a county Tennessee school system in order to compare the behaviors and beliefs of families in the study groups. Most importantly quantitative methods including a between subjects multianalysis of variance (MANOVA) were conducted to validate the hypotheses. Results indicated that membership in the independent variables (family structure) influenced the dependent variables. In other words, father involvement contributed significantly to the grade point averages, the absences from school, and the discipline referrals. Therefore, based on the findings of this study, the researcher rejected the first null because there was a difference in the academic success in the three groups of students. Also there was a significant difference in the academic behaviors of those students related to family structure. Because the findings revealed a statistically significant difference in the absences and discipline referrals of the students, the second null was also rejected. Furthermore, implications and recommendations from these results for research were discussed