Abstract

Parental involvement in children’s education is consistently found to be positively associated with their attitudes towards schooling. This study was designed to find out how parental involvement influences student’s attitudes towards schooling in the Alou subdivision, Lebialem Division. This study examines four variables that show the different ways in which parents get involved in their children’s education and its effects; parental guidance, parental motivation, parental expectation, and aspiration.

This study used a sample of 60 students from form four and 20parents from different educational backgrounds. Descriptive design and inferential statistics were used with an interview guide for parents and questionnaire being the instrument for data collection.  Validity of the instrument was ensured through the face and content validation.

The results showed that Parental guidance influences student’s attitudes towards schooling. This shows that proper parental guidance would foster student’s attitudes towards schooling positively. There is a positive influence of parental motivation on student’s attitudes towards schooling. The finding showed that parental expectations and aspirations have a positive influence on student’s attitudes towards schooling. Finally, parental involvement influences students’ attitudes toward schooling in Alou sub Division, Lebialem Division. Given the results, recommendations and further research were given.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

 

Introduction

Education is essential for the development of every society. The more educated the people of a society are, the more civilized and well-disciplined the society might be. The family has a responsibility to socialize children for making them productive members of society. The more the parents get involved in the process of imparting education to their children, the more the children might excel in their academic careers and become productive and responsible members of society.

It was assumed that academic achievement of students may not only depend on the quality of schools and the teachers, rather the extent of parental involvement had a vital role to play in the academic achievement of their kids. Children are more likely to have higher academic achievement levels and improved behavior when families are involved in their education (Bryan, 2005).

Numerous studies in this area had demonstrated the importance of family interaction and involvement in the years prior to entering school (Bergsten, 1998; Hill, 2001; Wynn, 2002). Research findings had also shown that a continued effort of parental involvement throughout the child’s education can improve academic achievement (Driessen, Smit&Sleegers, 2005; Fan, 2001; Hong & Ho, 2005).

The idea that parental involvement engenders students’ academic performance was intuitively appealing to the point that society in general, and educators in particular, had considered parental involvement an important ingredient for the remedy of many ills in education today. In the 1980s and early 1990s, studies were published that suggested the importance of parental involvement in school.

In the mid-1990s, the popular press, policymakers, and school administrators actively advocated parental involvement. The legislation was enacted, such as the Goals of 2000 which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in the United States, which has made parents’ involvement in their children’s education a national priority.

Research had consistently demonstrated that parental expectations for their children’s educational attainment strongly predict academic achievement. The parental expectation for educational attainment had positively predicted students’ achievement test scores (Benner & Mistry, 2007; Neuenschwander, Vida, Garret, &Eccles, 2007; Singh et al., 1995; Zhan, 2006), as well as Grade Point Average (GPA) (Seyfried & Chung, 2002).

This chapter is comprised of the following; the background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, significances of the study, operational definition of terms, and scope of the study.

Background of the Study

Parental educational level is an important predictor of children’s educational and behavioral outcomes (Davis, 2005). Education has been a vital aspect of human beings since it teaches people how to acquire skills, knowledge, aptitude, attitude, norms, and cultural values. Education can be formal (in a school setting), informal (churches, streets, peers), and non-formal (vocational centers). Education is a holistic system that incorporates all age groups.

The change in educational trend had called for the involvement of teachers, parents, and students. The new pedagogic approach confirms that education has shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered (NBA system). It can be clearly seen that parents had a vital role to play in the learner’s attitudes. This involvement of parents may go a long way in contributing to the decrease or increase in students’ attitudes towards schooling. The burst of the 20th century brought in a lot of developments in the world, such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and industrialization which have led to the high rate of commitment of parents to be able to pay less interest to students academic needs and attitudes towards schooling.

The current trend in education is making formal, informal, and non-formal education to be inductive. It had obliged parents, teachers, students, and the community to work in collaboration to improve students learning abilities and capacities.

Parental involvement in a child’s early education was consistently found to be positively associated with the child’s academic performance which is greatly influenced by their attitudes towards schooling. (Hara and Burke, 1998; Hill and Craft, 2003; Marcon, 1999; Stevenson and Bakar, 1987).

Specifically, children whose parents are more involved in their education such as; provision of school needs(pens, books, textbooks, uniforms, shoes, payment of school fees, assistance in homework, listening ear for school challenges, attending school activities and gatherings, give rewards and punishment for good and unaccepted behaviors respectively have higher levels of positive attitudes towards schooling than children whose parents are less involved.

Parents’ involvement in their children’s education can be detected through parental guidance, parental motivation and parental education expectations or aspirations for their children’s schooling, parent-child relationship, parental encouragement, parent-teacher relationship, and parental modeling.

Parents are observed having meetings with their children especially over the weekend to discuss school challenges for the past week and how to resolve it, discussing great people in the society who it due to their educational levels, giving hope and courage to children for their future successes. Based on the thesis premise, the study explores the underlying concerns of students’ attitudes towards schooling vis à vis parental involvement.  Baloyi (2003)  notes that informal education within the family has been present since prehistoric times.

According to  Koross,  Ngwane  and  Sang,  (2009) family members  groomed  the  child  through teaching,  praise,  discipline  and  socialized   them into gender roles.  This was  done  within  the  institution  of the  home  under  the  tuition  of  parents,  hence  the claim that  parents are  the  first  educators  of  the  child (Springate  and Slegelin,  1999). Nsamenang (2005) averred the family is the basic unit of the society and has always provided learning opportunities to children such that they can acquire skills and become competent members of their community.

This therefore shows that the family train children to acquire knowledge and skills they need to adapt and become full functional members of the community. Farrant (2005) averred that parental involvement in the education of their children has existed as long as mankind as parents have always taught their children the basic skills and knowledge needed by the children for survival in their environment.

Tambo (2012) averred that parental involvement in education has always been an integral part of education as parents get involved in planning school projects through Parents Teachers Associations (PTA) meetings in Cameroon before independence. Equally, Tambo iterated that parental involvement in their children’s schooling is important nowadays as children tend to be influenced by their parents on what to study and what to specialize in.

Still, Mweru (2008) emphasized that parental involvement in the education of children starts from early childhood care practices and education as they provide basic training to the children on how to perform basic tasks in the house. This, therefore, shows that from Biblical time till date parents have had the primary role of educating and training their children to succeed in all their activities.

 Contextually, this study is carried out within the context of parental involvement and students’ attitudes towards schooling in  Lebialem Division, South West Region of Cameroon. Parents have always looked out for the wellbeing of their children from the time of creation where parents take care of the helpless young ones.

There seems to be agreement that most parents in Cameroon are responsible for the daily responsibility, education, and training of their children while some parents seem not to have a lot of interest in the academic performance of their children. Alou municipality is a locality with parents engaged in different economic activities and jobs turn to limit parents from engaging effectively in their children’s school activities.

Wade and Moore (1987) have aptly described parents as one in the best position to supply relevant knowledge about their children. Within the traditional community, parents remain the first contact of the children, and basic learning starts within the family. The role of nurturing the child has no substitute hence, parents are always involved in the schooling of their children from paying fees, communicating with teachers, supervising homework, attending class meetings, and talking with the children to build their educational aspiration.

Through these engagement activities by parents, the students tend to develop an interest in their learning and their academic achievement improves. Therefore, parental involvement or support by parents apart from payment of fees and buying of school books supports children to learn effectively.

The involvement of parents in the education of children is of major importance since parents start observing the children and taking care of them from birth. Parental involvement directly affects the academic achievement of learners. Parents put in much to educate their children as such they are involved in one way or the other to see that their children are properly educated.

Today, in Cameroon educators are talking of the competency based approach method of teaching and learning (MINESEC, 2012). Children can effectively acquire skills when parents supervise and direct their activities at home, check the tasks assigned to them by their teachers and give feedback through effective communication with teachers on the children’s activities at home. This study will therefore look at the effect of parental involvement on students attitudes towards schooling in Alou Municipality

Statement of the Problem

Parental involvement is the active participation of parents in the education of their children. Despite some measures put in place such as the employment of disciplinarians by the government to ensure discipline in the school, offering of subsidies by the government for students’ education, the school has also created PTA association which is organized to educate and counsel parents on how to get involved in their children education, offering of rewards to deserving students.

On the contrary, during my practicum 1 and 2, I observed that most students come to school in assorted or wrong uniforms, students been driven home for not paying school fees, sent out of class for not doing homework, come to school without writing materials and textbooks, students do homework without home assistance, students come to school late because of household chores.

The problem still continues to exist and because of this, it is deemed necessary to research on this problem so as to seek lasting solutions.  There is the need to underscore parental involvement in this state of affairs as regards student’s education and their attitudes towards schooling. The result of the findings helped in making some invaluable recommendations.

Objectives of the Study

General Objectives

Generally, the main objective of this study is to investigate how parental involvement influences students’ attitudes towards schooling in secondary schools in Lebialem Division.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives of the study were as follows;

1. To examine how parental guidance affects students’ attitudes towards schooling in secondary schools in Lebialem Division.
2. To find out the extent to which parental motivation affects students’ attitudes towards schooling in secondary schools in Lebialem Division.
3. To examine the extent to which parental expectation affects students’ attitudes towards schooling in secondary schools in Lebialem Division.
4. To examine how parental aspirations, affect students’ attitudes towards schooling in Lebialem Division.