ABSTRACT
This study examined
impact parent-child relationship (warmth) and parenting styles on academic
engagement among adolescence in Enugu East local government area of Enugu state using 475participants from four
randomly selected secondary schools in Enugu East local government of Enugu
state (2 single sex schools- St. Patrick College, Emene and Trans-Ekulu Girls
Secondary School; and 2 mixed sex schools- Model Ideal College Abakpa and
Godfrey Okoye Secondary School, Thinkers’ Corner). A total of one hundred and
fifty (150) copies of the instrument were administered to systematically
randomly selected SS 1 & 2 students of each of the four schools the
participants (191 Males and 284 Females) were aged between 13 years and 21
years with a mean age of 15.93 years and a standard deviation of 1.22. Parenting
Style Inventory II (PSI-II); Parental Warmth Scale and Student Engagement Scale (SES) were used to collect data for the study.Multiple
Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses via the Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences (SPSS v23).The result of this study does not support
the null hypothesis since parent-child relationship (warmth) made a statistically significant positive contribution in
predicting academic engagement .The result of this study support the
null hypothesis because responsiveness did not make
statistically significant contribution in predicting academic
engagement. The result of this study support the null hypothesis for the reason
that autonomy did not make statistically significant
contribution in predicting academic engagement .The result of this study
does not support the null hypothesis since
demandingness made a statistically significant positive contribution in
predicting academic engagement. Among the
three dimensions of parenting styles, only demandingness made a statistically
significant positive contribution in predicting academic engagement.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
The Adolescence is a
fascinating stage of development full of many physical, cognitive, social, and
emotional changes. To Blackwell, Trzesniewski, Kali and Dweck (2007), this
stage or period is sensitive and a critical time with important implications for school achievement. Also, the increase in
academic demands and the complexity of the school structure make the task of
academic success for adolescents even more difficult (Patrikakou, 2004).
Achievement is almost the most
important issue for adolescents in education in any country and this is why
many key people ranging from educators to psychologists and to sociologists
have focused research attention and efforts towards identifying the reasons why
some students perform well academically while others fail and drop out.
Recently, nations such as Canada, has noted an increase in children with risk
factors that may compromise their present achievement and future success, and
approximately 27.6% or 1 in 4 students is considered to be at risk for school
failure (Jordan, 2006). Belfield (2007) also found out that across the 21.9
million adults in California, 2.19 million males and 1.96 million females (20%
of the students) were dropouts. Ghasemi (2010) in a study found that 22% of the
students in Iran suffer from low academic achievement due to family problems
and personal factors.
Besides factors such as
parental, school, teacher and environmental factors; personal factors such as
self-efficacy, engagement in academic work and personality also have
significant positive relationships with adolescent’s academic achievement
(Multon, Brown, & Lent, 1991; Fredrik, Blumenfield, & Paris, 2004).
Among these personal factors is the main variable of consideration in this
study which is academic engagement which is really emphatic among
the contributing personal factors to academic achievement and personal
development of adolescent students in schools. Such engagement can be described as the level of
commitment and involvement or the amount of time, energy and effort that students
put into their educational learning activities (Stewart, 2007).
Researchers have recently used the term engagement to refer to the extent to which students identifywith
and value schooling outcomes, and participate in academic and non-academic
school activities (Organization
for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2003). The definition of engagement usually comprises a psychological component pertaining to
students’ sense of belonging at school and acceptance of school values, and a behavioural component pertaining to
participation in school activities (Finn, 1993; Finn & Rock, 1997;
Goodenow, 1993; Goodenow & Grady, 1993; Wehlage, Rutter, Smith,
Lesko, & Fernandez, 1989). The psychological
component emphasizes students’ sense of belonging or attachment to school,
which has to do with feelings of being accepted and valued by their peers, and
by others at their school (OECD, 2003).
Another aspect of the psychological component concerns whether or not students
value school success – whether they believe that education will benefit them
personally and economically (Johnson et
al., 2001). Students who do not feel they belong at school, or reject
school values, are often referred to as alienated
or disaffected. The
participation component of engagement is characterised by factors such as
school and class attendance, being prepared for class, completing homework,
attending lessons, and being involved in extra-curricular sports or hobby clubs
(OECD, 2003).
Academic
engagement in the words of Willms (2003) entail investing quality time and
energy by students in educationally purposeful activities and being persistent
in the pursuitof academic success; it is an indicator that combine academic
identification (getting along with teachers, having an interest in the subject
matter and related behaviours and
attitudes) and academic participation (students work effort both inside and outside of school including
hours spent on homework, meeting deadlines and not skipping classes). Taylor
& Lundy (2016) refers to academic engagement as the degree of attention,
curiosity, interest, optimism and passion that students show when they are
learning or being taught, which extends to their level of motivation and
progress in education.Svanum and Biggatti (2009) points out that a student is
academically engaged when the said student takes advantage of learning
opportunities provided by their institution both inside and outside the
classroom and involves course related activities such as class attendance and
completion of assignment. In line with the foregoing, Horstmanshoff and Zimitat
(2011)defined academic engagement in terms of university students as a measure
of student’s involvement with university studies.
Academic engagement involves cognitive
functions and self-regulatory strategies to pursue learning task (Butler, 2011);
therefore, it involves all actions students undertake to enhance their
learning. It emphasizes students various pattern of motivation, cognition and
behaviour (Baron &Corbin, 2012). It is therefore, a behavioral, emotional
and attitudinal involvement in learning and is concerned with concentration,
effort and persistency in academic related activities.
Academic engagement improves students’
inquisitiveness, level of motivation and consequently progress in academic
endeavors, (Stephens, 2015) and to a great extent may determineoutcomes such as graduation. It
aims at increasing successful student achievement levels and in understanding
students’ positive development (Appleton, Christenson & furlong, 2008).
Hence, it has grown in popularity recently probably as a result of increased
understanding of the role it plays in learning process and social development
(Fredrick et al, 2004). The concept typically arises when educators discuss
educational strategies and teaching techniques that address developmental, intellectual,
emotional, behavioural, physical and social factors that either enhance or
undermine learning for students (Parsons, 2011).Educators may hold different
views on students’ academic engagement for instance, observable behaviours such
as attending class, listening attentively, participating in discussions,
turning in work on time and following rules and directions may be perceived as
forms of academic engagement by some educators while others relate academic
engagement to internal states such as enthusiasm, motivation or interest.
Academic engagement is predicated on the
belief that learning improves when students are inquisitive, interested or
inspired and that learning tends to suffer when students are bored,
dispassionate or otherwise “disengaged”, (Fredrick et al, 2004). Hence, it
seems to play positively significant role in undergraduates’ ability to benefit
from academic experiences and consequently achieve academic success. Among identified factors that are related to
academic engagement are gender, race/ethnicity, students’ major, parental
involvement, educational institution and contact with different people (Jonson,
Crosnoe & Elder 2001; Taylor & Francis 2010; Pasquae & Murphy
2005).
The present study examined the impactof
parent-child relationship and parenting style on academic engagement of adolescents
in Enugu east local government of Enugu state. Research have shown that
children of involved parents who participate in their children’s education,
have higher standardized test scores and more academic aspirations (Bondioli,
2000; Hill, Castellino, Lansford, Nowlin, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2004).
Consequent
upon the large body of work demonstrating a connection between parenting
practices/styles and school achievement, studies are accumulating which suggest
that one pathway through which parenting has an impact on children’s school
performance is by shaping children’s classroom engagement, intrinsic
motivation, preference for challenge, valuing and commitment to school, and
enthusiasm, enjoyment, and interest in schoolwork (Epstein & Sanders, 2002;
Jeynes, 2007; Pomerantz, Grolnick, & Price, 2005).
Darling & Steinberg (1993) define
parenting style as "a constellation of attitudes toward the child that are
communicated to the child and that, taken together, create an emotional climate
in which the parents' behaviors are expressed". One of the most studied
approaches to understanding parental influences on human development is concept
of parenting style (Baumrind, 1967). Baumrind proposed parenting styles as
correlates to socialization of the children (Shyny, 2017). Afterwards, many
researches recognized the importance of researching role of parenting style in
child development (Kordi, 2010; Schaffer, Clark & Jeglic, 2009; Lim &
Lim, 2003). Many of the studies followed three parenting styles originally
proposed by Baumrind namely authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting
and permissive parenting, though in 1971, Baumrind added negligent parenting
(Shyny, 2017). Baumrind grouped parents to three (or four) parenting styles according
to their child rearing patterns, on the basis of her interviews with parents
and children.
Shyny (2017) opined that “there is a
growing interest in the role of parenting in a person’s affective and social
characteristics. The attention of educational researchers on the parenting
styles and their effects on school relevant developmental outcomes are also on
the rise. Several studies found that parenting style or parental behaviour has
statistically significant relation with developmental outcomes like
performance, achievement strategies, self-regulated learning, achievement
goals, self-efficacy and wellbeing of students”. Academic or school engagement
no doubt fall as component part of these factors, hence, a connection of
parenting styles and students’ academic/school engagement.
Furrer
and Skinner (2003) have in the past examined sense of relatedness (i.e.,
patterns of relationships with certain social partners such as parents, peers
etc.) for its role in student engagement and subsequent academic performance.
In this study, they specifically examined the following relationships: (a) the
association between relatedness and classroom engagement and performance; (b)
the role of parents, teachers, and peers on engagement; (c) the influence of
age and gender on the relation between relatedness and engagement; and (d) the
level of engagement associated with different relatedness profiles (i.e.,
patterns of relationships with certain social partners). Results suggested that
student- and teacher-reported levels of student behavioral and emotional
engagement each mediated the relationship between aggregated relatedness
(across parents, teachers, and peers) and student grades. Moreover,
student-reported relatedness to parents, peers, and teachers significantly
predicted both student- and teacher-reported student engagement beyond
student-reported perceived control at one point in time and also across the
school year from fall to spring (Furrer & Skinner, 2003). Student feelings
of relatedness overlapped moderately across partners (parents, peers, and
teachers), yet relatedness with each partner was uniquely important in
predicting engagement.
MacDonald
(1992) considers warmth as a main component of an adaptive parent-child
relationship, and refers to emotional nurturance and affectionate care giving
expressed from a parental figure to the child. MacDonald also concluded that
warmth and affection in the family evolved as an independent system of motivation,
which was distinct from the process of attachment that prevents harm or loss.
Thus rather than simply a behavioural contingency system at play, warmth, then,
provides positive social reward that drives parent and child behaviour over the
course of their relationship (MacDonald, 1992).
Statement of Problem
According to OECD(2003),
school is central to the daily life of many youths in
that they view schooling as essential to their long-term well being, and this
attitude is reflected in their participation in academic and non-academic
pursuits; and they tend to have good relations with school staff and with other
students – they feel that they belong at
school. However, some youths do not share this sense of belonging, and do not
believe that academic success will have a strong bearing on their future. These
feelings and attitudes may result in their becoming disaffected from school
(Finn, 1989; Jenkins, 1995). They may gradually withdraw from school
activities,and in some cases participate in disruptive behaviour and display
negative attitudes towards teachers and other students (OECD, 2003). These students who have become disaffected from school tend
to create one of the biggest challenges for teachers and school administrators
as they try to meet their need to be fully engaged in school.
Despite the high importance of students’
academic engagement as one of the key factors that determine academic achievement
and the problem disengagement in school create for the student, the school and
society at large, some students are still found in lapse engaging academically.
Academic engagement has long been found as a critical factor in shaping college
outcomes (Gasiewski, 2012). Despite the need, findings still indicates that students
find it difficult to engage academically (Trawler 2010; Perkmann 2013). This
problem of students’ difficulty engaging academically makes research on factors
influencing academic engagement to remain an important research question.
Studies have been carried out to
determine factors that influence academic engagement, (Jonson, Crosnoe &
Elder 2001; Talor & Francis 2010; Pasquae & Murphy 2005; Granville
& Dika, 2002; Fredricks & Blumenfeld, 2004) but not much of these
studies have been done to see the impact of parent-child relationship and
styles of parenting. Also, enough has not been done in Nigeria especially in
the south-east in regards to this context, hence a gap in knowledge. This study
therefore, will seek to fill some gap in knowledge by examining the impact of
parent-child relationship and parenting style on academic engagement of
adolescent students in
secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government.
Purpose
of the Study
The purpose of this
study was to determine the impact of parent-child relationship and parenting
style on academic engagement of adolescent students in secondary schools in Enugu East
local government. Specifically, the study would seek to
determine whether:
1.
Parent-child
relationship would have impact on academic engagement of adolescent students in
secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government.
2.
Responsiveness
parenting styles would have impact on academic engagement of adolescent
students in secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government.
3.
Autonomy
granting parenting styles would have impact on academic engagement of
adolescent students in secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government.
4.
Demandingness
parenting styles would have impact on academic engagement of adolescent
students in secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government.
Operational
Definition of Key Variables
Academic engagement: Students’ investment in and
commitment to learning, belonging and identification at school, and
participation in the institution environment and initiation of activities to
achieve educational goals as measured using the
31 item Student Engagement Scale (SES) byDoğan
(2014).
Parent-Child
Relationship:The unique and enduring bond between a parent or caregiver
and his or her child measured
using the Parental Warmth Scale from Child Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control
Questionnaire (PARQ/Control; Rohner & Khaleque, 2005). The mean warmth
received by each participant from both parents represents his/her parental
warmth score.
Parenting Style:This is a collection of attitudes
towards the child that are communicated to the child and that, taken together,
create an emotional climate in which the parents' behaviors are expressed.
Parenting style in this study is measured using Parenting Style Inventory II
(PSI-II) by Darling and Toyokawa (1997) based on the three parenting style
dimension of demandingness, responsiveness and autonomy granting. The mean
score for each of the three dimensions from both parents represents each
participant’s parenting style score.
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