Impact of Maternal Employment on Adolescents Study Habits

The purpose of the present study was to find out whether the study habits of school students of working differ significantly from those of non-working mothers. The sample of the study consisted of 200 school students (100 school students of working mothers &100 school students of non- working mothers) studying in class Xth of Ranchi town. Study Habit Inventory constructed by Hassan (2003) of P.G. Department of Psychology, Ranchi University, Ranchi was administered to the selected sample to assess their study habits. The data so collected was analyzed statistically by employing mean, SD and t-test. The study revealed there were significant differences between the adolescent students of working and non- working mothers. Adolescents of working mothers had significantly better study habits than adolescents of non-working mothers. Further the study revealed that female students had significantly better study than male.

The first name which comes from baby's mouth is 'ma'. Mother is the first teacher of a child.
Mother is the person who takes care of child's nutrition, hygiene, education than anyone else in the family. Working mother in the present study shall refer to educated women with educational qualification as graduation and above and is engaged in any government, semi-government or private salaried job. Non-working mother in the present study shall refer to educated women with educational qualification as graduation and above but not engaged in any government, semigovernment or private job. With the emergence of a new economic pattern, increasing opportunities for education, rising standard of living and increased modernization, women from the middle and upper class families have also started coming out of their traditional role of a home maker to join the work force. The number of working women has been increasing year by year. The education of women is not imperative for the benefit for the women only but uplift of the society also. Today women from all corners started working in government, semi government or private salaried jobs. The entry of women in the workforce brings changes in the structure and function of family. Every member of the family occupies a vital position in the Study habits refer to the activities carried out by learners during the learning process of improving learning. Study habits are intended to elicit and guide one's cognitive processes during learning. Study habits are learning tendencies that enable students work privately. Study habits vary from student to student. Some habits are considered to be more desirable than others from the point of view of academic achievement. A good number of studies have been made in order to investigate the relationship between study habits and scholastic performance. Azikiwe (1998) describes study habits as "the adopted way and manner a student plans his private reading, after classroom learning so as to attain mastery of the subject". According to her, "good study habits are good asset to learners because habits helps students to attain mastery in areas of specialization and ensuing excellent performance, while the opposite becomes constraint to learning & achievement leading to failure". In recent years study skills and study habits or behaviors has been distinctly differentiated. Study habits of the children play very important role in reflecting the standards of education. Those Students who have good study habits are able to make effective study decisions, have the ability to differentiate the level of difficulty to learn the items, have high achievement motivation, socialized personality traits and problem solving appraisal. Without good study habits, a student cannot succeed. To succeed, students must be able to appropriately assimilate course content, digest it, reflect on it, and be able to articulate that information in written and/or oral form. Key is the ability to acquire effective study skills .Study skills: study skills are usually steps or procedures such as highlighting, outlining, notetaking, summarizing etc. that may be taught through explicit instruction (Gettinger & Seibert, 2002). Study skills are the specific techniques that make up the study plan.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The research on the effects of maternal employment on the child indicates mixed results. In a review of research on maternal employment and children's achievement for the National Academy of Sciences, Heyns (1982) concluded that "the children of working mothers differ very little from the children of non-working mothers. Another review published 2 years before found that there were measurable differences in academic performance and other measures of children's well-being depending on maternal employment status (Hoffman, 1980). Scarr (1984) noticed that school achievement of children of employed mothers was good compared to children of nonemployed mothers but Gottfried and Bathurst (1988) in contrast, found that the number of hours the mothers work was negatively correlated with school achievement. Muni (1995) observed that adolescents of employed mothers had a positive physical, intellectual and educational selfconcept and were better adjusted than the children of housewives. Blau (1999) determined that income was not as important a variable with respect to cognitive development in children as other familial aspects are. It was found that permanent income, that is income from a permanent career oriented position, is slightly significant. However, changing the families' income level has no significant effect. Children in different economic classes do seem to be on different cognitive levels. Maternal employment was found to be beneficial to children in low-income families. Perhaps these children receive more stimulation or education in their day care system than they would if they were at home. It can also be inferred that mothers of lowincome families are also less educated, thus having poorer parenting skills. The children of lowincome families with employed mothers scored higher on the cognitive tests and had less behavioural problems than children of low-income families where the mother was not employed.
Maternal employment may have more negative effects on child outcomes for children of twoparent families, high income or highly educated families (Gregg et al., 2005;Ruhm, 2004;& Leigh & Yamauchi, 2009). Research on maternal employment measured at the same time as the child outcome was reviewed recently in a meta-analysis by Goldberg et.al, (2008). They concluded from their analysis of 68 studies that the overall association between maternal employment and children's achievement, which was the sole child outcome in their analysis, was non significant. Children of non-working parent get higher grades in high schools, but at the same time feel less pressure about doing so (Essortment, 2002). Children of working mothers do not suffer any differently from anxiety, antisocial behavior or stress related problems than those of non-working mothers, had fever stereotyped gender-role attitudes and felt their mothers are more competent. Children of working mothers were also found to have a feeling of that they had control over their environment (Gershaw, 1988). Study conducted by Hoffman (1961) found that children of working mothers had lower intellectual performance than a matched group of children whose mother does not work. Some studies revealed that while the lack of mothers presence can impact a child negatively this impact is not as serve as what occurs if the mother does not work. Such factors include poverty, parental education and quality childcare (Booth, 2000). Abid (2006) revealed that guidance services have significant effect on the student's study attitudes, study habits and academic achievement. Significant differences were obtained in the academic achievement of students due to low and high level of goal orientation, study skills, scholarly study skills and over all study efficiency (Gakhar, 2005). Raiz et al. (2002) revealed that there existed a significant and positive relationship between achievement of the students and the said factors like schedule of study, habit of note taking and writing book. Franklin (2006) conducted a study to describe the study habits of undergraduate students who were enrolled in the initial phase of a teacher education programme at a large urban university.
The findings of the study indicate that a significant number of students study at home, cram the night before an examination, depends on other classmates to answer their questions, and feel that they spend an adequate amount of time preparing for academic classes. Lakshminarayanan et al. (2006) have made an attempt to compare achievers and non-achievers in study skills. Result in general indicates that achievers use higher level of study skills than non-achievers. Stella and Purushothaman (1993) examined the study habits of underachievers. The mean value showed that urban students had better study habits than rural students. Sud and Sujata (2006) who reported that girls have better study habits than boys. Suneetha and Mayuri (2001) also reported that boys and girls differ significantly in study habits. Harwod and Feruson (2000) and Akhani et al (1999) who reported that some areas of study habits are effected by maternal employment and some areas are not.

Motivation of the research
Researchers got interested in the field of education of children of working and non-working mothers, to find out the problems and benefits. Therefore, the importance of maternal employment inspired the researcher to conduct a study on study habits and maternal employment.

Hypotheses
1. There is no significant difference in study habits between adolescent students of working and non-working mothers. 2. There is no significant difference in study habits between male and female students.

Procedure
The study habits test was administered to both groups with instructions to complete all questions honestly and not to discuss the questions with fellow students. Scoring was done according to the respective scoring keys. In order to fulfill the hypotheses of the study the score obtained were analysized with mean, SD's and t value.

Analysis of Data
Data is by analyzed using statistical techniques like mean, SD and t-ratio. Bar diagrams graphs were drawn to make the results transparent. Table -1

Figure -1: Showing mean scores of adolescent students of working and non-working mothers on study habits
The above table-1 depicts the mean scores of the student's adolescents of working mothers and non-working mothers on their study habits. The mean scores of working mothers group for revision, seriousness, systematic study habits, regularity, concentration, other than books and total study habits score is found to be 12. 87, 11.59, 12.46, 12.89, 14.85, 11.07,10.86 and 69.08 and of non-working mothers group is found to be 9. 96,8.92,9.39,9.87,11.07,7.85 and 54.78 respectively. All the t-values are statistically significant at 0.01 level of significance. It means adolescents of working mothers are better study habits than adolescents of non-working mothers.  Hence the hypothesis there is no significant difference in study habits between adolescent students of working and non-working mothers is rejected. The findings of the present study have support from the observation made by Harwod and Feruson (2000).