This paper is part of a study that was conducted in Ruiru Sub-County. The aim of the study was to examine the extent to which perceived inter-parental conflict influence academic achievement motivation among form three students. Three theories guided the study namely; Martin Seligman’s Learned Helplessness Theory, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory and Grych and Finchams’s Cognitive Contextual Framework Theory. The study employed mixed method research design on a sample of 281 students, 7 guidance and counseling teachers and 10 parents. The target population comprised form three students, guidance and counseling teachers and parents of the students. Purposeful sampling was used to select the guidance and counseling teachers and parents while proportionate stratified sampling technique was used to select schools from 13 public and 18 private schools in the sub-county as well as to from which the students were randomly selected. Data was collected using four instruments: Children Perception of Inter-parental Conflict Questionnaire (CPIC) and Academic Motivation Survey (AMS) for Students, interview schedule for seven guidance and counseling master/mistress and focus group discussion for ten parents. Data analysis was then done using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient (r) was used to establish the relationship between perceived inter-parental conflict and academic achievement motivation at 0.05 significance level. The results provided evidence that there was a significant relationship between inter-parental conflict and students’ academic achievement motivation in qualitative data. A major implication and recommendation of the study was that, teachers, parents and all stakeholders in education should work together in creating conducive school and home environments for the development of academic achievement motivation. New intervention should be devised to make inter-parental conflict less afflicting to the children.
Keywords: Academic Achievement Motivation, Form three students, Inter-Parental Conflict, Perception, Ruiru Sub County
