To find out if household incomes and parenting styles affected students’ academic performance in Australia, I created a questionnaire. If I could find any clues that could help solve problems in Japan, I would consider myself lucky. The questionnaire consisted of ten questions that are classified into three categories: household income, parenting style, and academic performance. The household income category includes questions such as the number of meals eaten per day, whether parents are employed, the amount of monthly allowance, and whether students can spend money without restrictions. The parenting style category includes questions such as how often parents tell students to study and whether they enjoy traveling with their parents. The academic performance category includes questions such as asking about their special skills and their scores on the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN).
In Australia, I surveyed a 17-year-old class and collected 24 valid responses. Of the 24 students, one student eats only once a day, while three students eat twice a day. All of them said they do not receive any allowance from their parents. The student who eats one meal a day has both a father and a mother, but only the mother is working. Two of the students who eat two meals a day said both parents have jobs, while the other said only the father does. I thought that these three students might come from low-income families.
Regarding parenting, the student who eats one meal a day mentioned a minor problem with her father, saying: “My father always tells me I need to stop doing what I enjoy so I can get a higher ATAR [The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank].” The other three did not mention any problems with their parents. In terms of academic performance, the student who eats one meal a day seemed to perform well, stating: “I am good at memorizing things, and I learn dancing, kung fu, hockey, piano, and guitar.” She wants to be a surgeon in the future. One of the students who eat two meals a day can speak two languages because their family originally came from Indonesia, while another wants to do something related to music. Contrary to my initial idea, none of them show any particular academic problems.
Then, I checked the data of the 21 students who eat three or more meals a day. Among them, 16 students don’t receive a monthly allowance. One of them said she does not like going on trips with her parents. According to her, her parents say: “Study longer; do better.” She studies for four hours per day. Two other students study for three to five hours a day (one is from Japan), seven of them for two to three hours, and four for one hour. Studying for four hours per day could be relatively long for Australian students. I assume she could have parenting problems; however, her academic performance does not seem to be so bad. She wants to study biochemistry or pharmacology in the future.