Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Psychology)
The purpose of this study is to determine whether parents can be classified as a facet determining or influencing educational standards. The researcher aims at describing the importance of the parent as determinant of educational standards by means of:
a literature study, which confirms the importance of the parent, as well as an empirical study, based on a questionnaire which was submitted to respondents closely involved
with schooling aspects. The literature study describes the parent and its role with reference to specific aspects like personality development, cognitive development, moral development, motivation, socialization, biographical and milieu aspects.
Validity and reliability of the empirical components of the investigation was ascertained by means of Factor Analyses and Item Analyses. The identified variables (ie parents and their colloquial usage, their expectations, educational qualifications, handling of discipline, moral attitude, child motivation, involvement in school affairs, socio-andeconomic status, studyfacilities offered to the child and parents' marital state), constituted the multi-dimensional role used to investigate this specific facet.
Multi-variate Analyses (MANOVA and HOTELLING T-SQUARE) as well as Singlevariate Analyses (ANOVA, Student t-test, Scheffe test) were used in the statistical analysis of the data. Hypotheses on gender, home language, educational qualification, professional capacity, involvement in either High School/Primary School, school model involvement, age, place of residence, religious commitment, marital status, size of family, language medium ofschools of own children and income category were
set.
The most important findings were:
• parents are generally regarded as positive determinants of educational standards;
• specific respondents, grouped according to biographical data, eg home language, involvement in either High School or Primary School, marital status, size of family and place of residence, indicated no differences in perceptions regarding the parent as likely determinant of educational standards.
• parents' motivation and assistance offered to children; their moral beliefs and attitude; parents' discipline and study guidance and facilities offered at ho.,me were rated most important by the respondents.
Recommendations are:
• positive training of parents in eg. child motivation and study guidance can afford them psychological backup to support and motivate their children in a structured way;
• orientation towards a sound moral belief system can influence children in a positive way;
• parental involvement should be promoted intensively at school level as their involvement may stimulate their children's education and schooling (ie educational standards of a high level).