A study of parent involvement in their children's education at Pistis school

Abstract

This study was an attempt to investigate the ways in which parents get involved in the education of their children at Pistis School. It was a descriptive study, which was done using the opinion of parents as the basis for investigation. The major focus of the study was to investigate ways in which parents get involved in the education of their children, the barriers and promoters to parental involvement. The data collection involved the use of both closed and open-ended questionnaire. The Likert Scale of Summated Ratings also formed part of the instrument. The instrument was distributed personally to 74 parents. The research sought to discover ways, barriers and promoters to parental involvement through the Chi-Square Test of Independence .. The findings of this study revealed that parents with high educational level reported teaching their children values more often than parents with low education, while on advising teachers, parents with low education reported rarely advising teachers. Furthermore, it was discovered that regardless of their level of education parents reported always providing their children with necessary resources and helping their children with homework always. Parents at Pistis School get involved in the education of their children in five ways: by teaching their children values which are useful in the school, advising teachers on some matters, providing their children with necessary resources, helping their children with homework, and attending teacher-parent meetings. On barriers and promoters, parents with good relationship with teachers reported not at all affected by these four: perceived bad attitude of teachers, perceived fear of criticism by parents, perceived previous negative experiences, and perceived effects of large size of families. Parents who reported good and bad relationship are not at all affected by: perceived inadequate training of teachers, perceived cultural barriers, perceived language barrier between the parents and teachers, perceived lack of invitation from teachers, perceived refusal of teachers to come when invited home, and perceived lack of time. Regardless of the type of relationship, parents reported that they are very much affected by lack of time on their part to get involved in the education of their children. The following are the barriers to parental involvement at Pistis School from the perspective of parents with perceived bad relationship: perceived bad attitude of teachers, perceived fear of criticism by parents, perceived previous negative experiences, perceived large size of families and perceived lack of time by parents. The only barrier to parental involvement at Pistis School from the perspective of parents with perceived good relationship is their reported lack of time. Conversely, promoters of parental involvement at Pistis School are: perceived good attitude of teachers, perceived openness to criticism by parents, perceived ironing out of previous negative experiences, and perceived small families from the perspective of parents with perceived bad relationship. The need to create time is thought to be a promoter of involvement by both categories of parents.