Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ON PARENTING STYLES,
LANGUAGE
DEVELOPMENT AND
SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS
Robert Barwick
Research Report
EPT125
Introduction
The successful education of children as the future of our kind, has been an
integral part of society for many, many years. It was not until the
development of psychosocial theories such as those of Freud and Erikson,
did our understanding of how children actually interpret the information
they receive, begin to develop. This increase in the importance of psycho
development in childrens growth provided for measures to be used to
assess those factors that influenced childrens abilities and perceptions of
themselves. For the purpose of this report the variables of how Gender
and Parenting styles coincide and the role and influence they have on
childrens language development and on self-efficacy in children aged 512.
Prior studies have been conducted to assess the importance and the
effects of parenting styles and the outcomes that are seen in children.
Hibbard and Walton (2014, p.270) suggest that parenting styles are
crucial to childrens academic and social outcomes. Many educators are
interested in how students self-efficacy is influenced by different
parenting styles, along with gender. In a research report, its states that it
is due to students self-beliefs that high academic standards can be met
1 | Page
,that is, an intrinsic sense of drive (Pajares & Valiante, 1999, p.390).
Pajares and Valiante focused their report on how gender affected selfefficacy of children toward the task of writing.
In previous research to study the effect of gender on academic
performances, Skaalvik & Skaalvik (2004, p.242), focused not on writing
self-efficacy, but on self-efficacy towards mathematics. The report found
the boys generally had a higher self-efficacy and consequently better
performance in mathematical concepts, where girls outpaced boys in selfefficacy in literacy and language development. One reason to suggest that
boys outperform girls in mathematical problem solving is due to their
superior spatial abilities, and further expanded on the gender inequalities
across educational fields by stating that boys are twice as likely as girls to
suffer from a reading disorder. (Wei, Lu, Zhao, Chen, Dong & Zhou, 2012,
p. 230).
It is appropriate to point out that limitations into gender and educational
outcomes are present. The studies mentioned above made no attempts at
observations or correlations between how these children are raised i.e.
parenting styles and how these variables affect social and academic
development of children. In 2012, a study looked at the relationships
among parenting styles and social competence of preschool children.
Participants of this research were all mothers of children in preschool.
Whilst these children are of a young age it is interesting to see how early
parental engagement sets up future skills. Some information gathered
prior to this study argued that gender affected parenting style from the
beginning (Altay & Gure, 2012, p.2712). Aggressive behaviour in children
had the strongest connection to fathers with an authoritarian parenting
style. The report found that gender had a significant effect on positive
interactions with peers and teachers (p<0.5) and that children of
permissive parents showed less prosocial behaviours than children of
authoritarian and authoritative parents. (Atlay et al., 2012, p. 2714).
It is clear from all of these studies that it is possible for a variety of factors
to have an effect on childrens self-efficacy. Biological differences clearly
2 | Page
Hypothesis
It was hypothesised that;
1. Girls have a higher academic writing and reading self-efficacy than
boys.
2. Children that have permissive parents are more likely to have a
lower self-efficacy than children of authoritarian and authoritative
parents.
3. High TROLL scores given by teacher assessment for students, will
give a similar high result in student self-efficacy evaluation.
Method
Participants
This study gathered information from 115 students across the state of
NSW. The participants for the study were chosen by classroom teachers
across schools, and were chosen based upon the cooperativeness with the
study and for their reliability in completing the study. The participants in
this study were children, parents and teachers, from both the private and
public sectors of schooling, ranging from kindergarten to year 6.
Of the 115 students who participated 45.2% were boys and 54.8% were
girls. A breakdown of participant year groups can be seen in the following
table.
School Year
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
kinder
24
20.9
20.9
20.9
Year 1
27
23.5
23.5
44.3
Year 2
20
17.4
17.4
61.7
Year 3
10
8.7
8.7
70.4
Year 4
10
8.7
8.7
79.1
Year 5
14
12.2
12.2
91.3
3 | Page
Year 6
Total
10
8.7
8.7
115
100.0
100.0
100.0
Materials
They were a number of materials used by pre-service teachers in the
conduction of this study, all of which were designed and remain the
property of Charles Sturt University.
Materials used include;
-
Procedure
As with most studies, ethical considerations must be taken into account to
ensure that no unnecessary distress is caused to participants. In this study
ethical approval was obtained by Charles Sturt University prior the
commencement of the study. Consent for the study was also sought by
the university from the individual school principals, the classroom
teachers involved, the parents of the selected children and also an
informal consent from the child prior to the self-efficacy assessment with
the child. It should be noted that consent from parents was in the form of
a written document to be kept on file.
4 | Page
With legal and ethical concerns addressed the study commenced by the
distribution of the Parental Authority Questionnaire to the parents of the
children taking part in the study. Parents were given a week to successful
complete this questionnaire and return it. Teacher TROLL assessment
forms were given to teachers during this time to complete, whilst preservice teachers conducted the Student self-efficacy questionnaire with
their particular child participant.
Once all completed forms were returned to pre-service teachers, the data
was handed back to Charles Sturt University from all campuses taking
place in the study, were it was compiled and entered into a data base.
This data was then represented in tables and graphs and made available
to university students involved with the study.
male
female
Gender
self-efficacy scores, the data does show that girls have a marginally higher
self-efficacy than boys. This data supports hypothesis 1.
Fig 1: Self Efficacy Data
With the expectation of children of permissive parents having a lower selfefficacy from the other parenting styles, the data does not support our
Parenting Styles
120
100
80
Mean
60
40
20
0
hypotheses.
Fig.2 Parenting Style Data
6 | Page
The study revealed data that highly supported this hypotheses (p<0.5).
There was a direct correlation between student self-efficacy and the
TROLL evaluation given by the teacher. It was found that higher TROLL
scores were matched by higher student self efficacy scores.
ways, such as that of Wei et al., (2012), whose report showed that boys
had greater self-efficacy in the field of mathematics, but that girls
achieved higher scores in language development. That is, girls selfefficacy is higher in stereotypical girl domains and likewise for boys
(McDevitt, Ormrod, Cupit, Chandler & Aloa, 2012). Students will also tend
to show more self-efficacy towards an area that they feel likely to succeed
in (Pajares et al., 1999, p.390). The data that was collected during this
study asked both male and female student their self-efficacy towards
many different academic areas. As the data was compiled as a whole it is
difficult to evaluate the influence of gender created self-efficacy in specific
academic areas. This is a critical limitation to this hypotheses. The
information gathered from this provides good insight for teachers, to
construct balanced lesson plans which incorporate aspects that influence
self-efficacy in both boys and girls, to ensure that no particular group is at
risk of their self-efficacy being undermined and also and more importantly
to encourage self-efficacy and thus produce greater academic confidence.
Hypothesis 2 was found to be false. The data showed that there was no
correlation whatsoever between a child with permissive parents having a
lower self-efficacy. This was true for both boys and girls. The findings in
this report to dont resemble the data of prior studies. It is stated in Child
Development and Education that uninvolved or permissive parenting with
no or little expectations results in the child having a similar disposition to
meet expectations. Hibbard and Waltons study showed a similar position
that children of permissive parents were less persistent with tasks and
had lower school achievement (Hibbard et al,. 2014, p.270). These traits
are particularly problematic in the classroom where expectations are
encouraged to be met (McDevitt, et.al, 2012). The likelihood of
expectations not being met is also related to the childs ability over the
executive function; general cognitive abilities important for reasoning,
planning and problem-solving. In other studies a decline in executive
function correlated to permissive or neglectful parenting. This is mainly
8 | Page
limitation was the likely presence of bias. As teachers were given the job
of selecting a student, as mentioned previously in the report, most were
chosen because of their high level of academic competence and reliability
to complete task asked of them by pre-service teachers during the selfefficacy interviews. To minimise the effect of this limitation the selection of
participants could be determined by quota form, from varying levels of
academic competence as indicated by classroom teachers. The wide and
varying ages present within this study is also another limitation. Most data
appeared to show no correlations, when most common opinion, as seen
through other research indicated that that should not have been the
result. This was most likely due to the large range of ages 6-12.
Conducting research with select age brackets under consideration may
assist in creating data that is more concise and informative. Most of the
previous literature focussed with much smaller age brackets i.e.
preschool.
References
-
Altay, F. and Gure, A. "Relationship among the parenting styles and the
social competence and prosocial behaviors of the children who are
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Blair, C., Raver, C.C & Berry, D.J. Two Approaches to Estimating the Effect
of Parenting on the Development of Executive Function in Early Childhood
Developmental Psychology, 50/2 (2013): 554-565.
Dickinson, D. K., McCabe, A., & Sprague, K. (2003). Teacher rating of oral
language and literacy (TROLL): Individualizing early literacy instruction
with a standards-based rating tool. The Reading Teacher, 554-564.
Skaalvik, S, and Skaalvik E.M "Gender Differences in Math and Verbal SelfConcept, Performance Expectations, and Motivation." Sex Roles 50.3/4
(2004): 241-252.
Wei, W., Lu, H., Zhao, H., Chen, C., Dong, Q and Zhou, X. Gender
Differences in Childrens Arithmetic Performance are Accounted for by
Gender Differences in Language Abilities. Psychological Science 23/3
(2012): 320-330.
Appendix A
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3 A teacher checklist that is used to screen your childs oral language use
4 Your child being asked to rate how good they are at performing literacy
and numeracy tasks.
Information you provide will be kept confidential and personal identifying details
are not required for this activity. If you consent to participate in this project and
give permission for your child to participate please sign the attached consent
form. In order to include your responses in the data analysis it is important that
you answer every question.
On the basis of these brief observations, it is not possible for pre-service
teachers to provide individual feedback on your or your childs results. Further,
the pre-service teacher collecting the data (insert name)
________________________________________ is in their first year of study and is
gaining valuable experience in interviewing families and children. If you have
concerns about your childs learning or development, we strongly encourage you
12 | P a g e
to make an appointment with your childs class teacher to discuss your concerns.
Once again thank you for your participation in this project.
Consent
I understand that I am free to withdraw my participation or my childs
participation in this project at any time, and that if I or my child does withdraw
that we will not be subjected to any penalty or discriminatory treatment. The
purpose of the data collection and potential risks of this research, have been
explained to me. I have been given the opportunity to ask questions about the
research and received satisfactory answers.
Date
Please note that this research has been approved by the Charles Sturt University
Faculty of Education Human Ethics Committee (Approval
number 300/2015/20).
Permission for the conduct of this data gathering has been sought from
your School Principal by the PEU prior to the commencement of your
second semester placement, and should be confirmed youre your
Professional Associate prior to commencing data collection.
Where conducted within NSW Department of Education and
Communities Schools the data gathering falls within the
SERAP exemption category of
under the collection of
information by students for Higher School Certificate (HSC) courses, and
13 | P a g e
SA
SD
2.
SA
SD
3.
SA
SD
4.
Once family rules have been made, I discuss the reasons for
the rules with my children
SA
SD
5.
SA
SD
6.
SA
SD
7.
SA
SD
8.
SA
SD
9.
SA
SD
10.
10
SA
SD
11.
11
SA
SD
12.
12
SA
SD
13.
13
SA
SD
14 | P a g e
14.
14
SA
SD
15.
15
SA
SD
16.
16
SA
SD
17.
17
SA
SD
18.
18
SA
SD
19.
19
SA
SD
20.
20
SA
SD
21.
21
SA
SD
22.
22
SA
SD
23.
23
SA
SD
24.
24
SA
SD
25.
25
SA
SD
26.
26
SA
SD
27.
27
SA
SD
28.
28
SA
SD
29.
29
SA
SD
30.
30
SA
SD
A=4
N=3
D = 2 SD = 1
15 | P a g e
5
Scale
Ave
Aan
P
Items
4
5
2
3
1
6
SECTION TWO:
Total
8
7
10
11
9
13
15
12
14
20
16
17
22
18
19
23
25
21
27
26
24
30
29
28
Yes( a little)
4
Can read alone?
Yes (a lot)
4
Yes( a little)
3
Yes( a little)
No (not much)
No (dont like
numbers/cant do
numbers/hate
numbers)
1
No (dont know
things/dont like
school/Whats
know
a lot?)
1
No (dont like
reading/cant read)
1
No (dont like
writing/cant write)
1
No (dont like
spelling/cant spell/
whats spelling?)
1
16 | P a g e
Good at adding?
Yes (a lot)
Yes( a little)
No (cant add up /
dont like numbers/
Whats adding?)
1
LANGUAGE USE
1. How would you describe this childs willingness to start a conversation with
adults and peers and continue trying to communicate when he/she is not understood
on the first attempt? Select the statement that best describes how hard the child
works to be understood by others.
Child
almost
never
begins a conversation
with
peers
or
the
teacher and never keeps
trying if unsuccessful
at first.
1
Child
sometimes
begins conversation
with either peers or
the
teacher.
If
initial efforts fail
he/she often gives
up quickly.
2
Child
begins
conversations
with
both
peers
and
teachers on occasions.
If
initial
efforts
fail,
he/she
will
sometimes keep trying.
3
Child
begins
conversations with both
peers and
teachers. If initial
efforts fail, he/ she
will work hard to be
understood.
4
2. How well does the child communicate personal experiences in a clear and
logical way? Assign the score that best describes this child when he/she is
attempting to tell an adult about events that happened at home or some other place
where you were not present.
Child
is
very
tentative, only offers
a few words, requires
you to ask questions.
Has
difficulty
responding to questions
you ask.
Child
offers
some
information,
but
information needed to
really understand the
event is missing (e.g.,
where
or
when
it
happened,
who
was
present, the sequence
of what happened).
2
Child
offers
information
and
sometimes includes the
necessary
information
to really understand
the event.
Child
freely
offers
information and tells
experiences in a way
that is nearly always
complete,
well
sequenced,
and
comprehensible.
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3. How would you describe this childs pattern of asking questions about topics
that interest him/her (e.g., why things happen, why people act the way they do)?
Assign the score that best describes the childs approach to displaying curiosity
by asking adults questions.
To your knowledge, the
child has never asked
an adult a question
reflecting
curiosity
about
why
things
happen or why people
do things.
1
On several occasions
the child has asked
interesting questions.
On occasion these have
lead to an interesting
conversation.
3
Child
often
asks
adults
questions
reflecting curiosity.
These often lead to
interesting, extended
conversations.
4
18 | P a g e
Robert Barwick
EPT125 Report
4. How would you describe this childs use of talk while pretending? Consider the
childs use of talk with peers to start pretending and to carry it out. Assign
the score that best applies.
Child rarely or never
engages
in
pretend
play or else never
talks
while
pretending.
Child
engages
in
pretending often and
conversations
are
sometimes important to
the play. On occasion
child engages in some
back-and- forth pretend
dialogue with another
child.
Child
occasionally
produces
or
identifies
rhymes
when given help.
2
Child
spontaneously
produces rhymes and can
some- times tell when
word pairs rhyme.
Child
spontaneously
rhymes words of more
than one syllable and
always
identifies
whether words rhyme.
6. How often does (CHILD) use a varied vocabulary or try out new words (e.g. heard
in stories or from teacher?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
7. When (CHILD) speaks to adults other than you or the teaching assistant is he/she
understandable?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
8. How often does (CHILD) express curiosity about how and why things happen?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
LANGUAGE SUBTOTAL:
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Robert Barwick
EPT125 Report
READING
9. How often does (CHILD) like to hear books read in the full group?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
10. How often does (CHILD) attend to stories read in full or small groups and react in a way
that indicates comprehension?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
Pretends to
read 2
12. How often does (CHILD) remember the story line or characters in books that he/she heard
before either at home or in class?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
13. How often does (CHILD) look at or read books alone or with
friends?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
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Robert Barwick
EPT125 Report
Most
of
them
(up
to
20). .....................................................................................
........................................... 03
All
of
them. ....................................................................................
....................................................................... 04
15. Does (CHILD) recognise his/her own first name in print?
NO
1
YES
2
No
1
One or two
2
A few (up to 4 or 5)
3
Several (6 or
more) 4
A few (up to 4 or 5)
3
Several (6 or
more) 4
One or two
2
17.
18. Does (CHILD) have a beginning understanding of the relationship between sounds
and letters (e.g. the letter B makes a Buh sound)?
No
1
One or two
2
A few (up to 4 or 5)
3
Several (6 or
more) 4
19. Can (CHILD) sound out words that he/she has not read before?
No
1
Once or twice
2
Many words
4
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Robert Barwick
EPT125 Report
WRITING
Many conventional
letters
3
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN 4
22. Can (CHILD) write his/her first name, even if some of the letters are
backwards?
NEVER
1
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN 4
One or two
2
A few (up to 4
or 5)
3
Several (6 or
more) 4
RARELY
2
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN
4
SOMETIMES
3
OFTEN 4
RARELY
2
WRITING SUBTOTAL:
(out
of
22 | P a g e
Robert Barwick
EPT125 Report
(out
32)
(out
42)
(out
98)
of
of
of
Appendix B
Name of Online
Search
Key Words Used
Number of Hits
Citation
Primo
Search(CSU
Library)
Gender
differences in
writing selfefficacy
763
Primo Search
(CSU Library)
Google Scholar
Influence of
parenting style
and gender
120
Gender
differences
arithmetic
performance
105,500
Hibbard, David
R. ; Walton, Gail E
( 2014)
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EPT125 Report
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