Parental Pressure and Academic Performance of Students of College of Arts and Sciences of Notre Dame of Midsayap College, Midsayap, Cotabato, Philippines

This study aimed to determine the level of parental pressure of college students and its relationship to their academic performance. It made use of the descriptive correlational research design to describe the characteristics of the respondents in terms of sex, age, year level, and person or persons who raise and take care of their family; the parental pressure they experienced; the academic performance they accomplished; and the strength and direction of relationship between parental pressure and academic performance. This study was conducted in Notre Dame of Midsayap College, Midsayap, Cotabato, Philippines during the second semester of academic year 2022-2023. It included as respondents thirty-two purposively selected honor students at the College of Arts and Sciences. They were 21 to 28 years old, majority of whom were females, and mostly graduating students. Either their father, mother, brother or sister or both raise and take care of their family. Findings revealed that the respondents had experienced high level of parental pressure with respect to expectations, rewards and penalty, support and encouragement, and setting rules and standards; while they experienced moderate level of parental pressure with respect to monitoring, and comparison. Moreover, they strongly agreed that the acts or practices of their parents of explaining to them the importance of sacrifices to earn a career, of reminding them of their studies as preparation for their future work, and of expressing joy when they perform well in their studies had put pressure in them to do well in their study. A few of the respondents had accomplished excellent academic performance although most of them had accomplished good academic performance. There is a weak and negative relationship between parental pressure and academic performance, implying either that too much parental pressure could cause negative effect on the academic performance of their children, or that the very low academic performance of children could prompt parents to put more parental pressure over them. Nonetheless, the strength and direction of relationship between these variables was not significant, implying that the observed relationship occurred merely by chance, and not true to the population of interest – the college students.