Familial, Personal, and Educational Factors Affecting School Failure among High School Students: A Meta-Analysis

To help with the reduction of school failure its causal factors need to be identified. The most significant among such factors are those rooted in the person, his/her family, and the educational setting. A set of 15 studies conducted on this subject are meta-analyzed herein in order to determine the effect size for each of the factors and that of the common factors. A comparison of effect sizes revealed that school factors have the highest effect followed by personal and familial factors. Among school factors the incongruences between school facilities and students’ needs, with the effect size of 0.89, is shown to be the most effective. Among the familial factors, parental supervision and support with the effect size of 0.73, and the income level with the effect size of 0.54, come before parental squabbles which showed an effect size of 0.43. Among the personal factors, lack of motivation ranks first with effect size of 0.68, very close to the teacher competency among school related factors. It is thus concluded that to improve the educational system, teacher training and teaching methods should be considered.