THE EFFECT OF PARENTS ON STUDENTS’ SUCCESS
EMRAH OSMA
Kocaeli University
English Language Teaching, Faculty of Education
emrahosma@windowslive.com
Introduction
This paper answers a lot of questions like: Do parents as a part of society affect students’ success? What is the effects of parents on their children’ success? Which type of parents’ attitue most effective on students for increasing their success? How much does it affect? The effects of them are in god way or not? Are their effects necessary for sudents’ success?
LITERATURE REWIEW
The effects of parents on students
The first research in this area dates back to the early 1900’s. The news is good for schools where parent involvement is high, and the benefits for children are encouraging. When parents are involved in children’s schools and education, children have higher grades and standardized test scores, improved behavior at home and school, and better social skills and adaptation to school (Parent Involvement in Schools , Kimberly, L Keith)
As McNeal (1999) pointed out, this tight analytic focus may come at cost McNeal argued that the conceptual ties between most forms of parental involvement and children’s learning are weak compared to the ties between parental involvement and children’s behavior. Involvement may be expected to influence children’s outcomes via three mechanisms:
• Parental involvement socializes. When, for example, parents supervise their children’s homework they convey the importance of schooling.
• Second, parental involvement generates social control. Parents who attend PTA meetings and volunteer in school develop relationships with their children’s teachers and the parents of their children’s classmates. These relationships make it easier for parents to monitor children’s behavior and teachers’ practices.
• Parental involvement gives parents access to insider information.
Methodology
This research examines us the relationship between the effect of families on students success during learning language or using language, relations between students and theie family and education level of parent. Some question types like poen ended quesitons and information about learning background are used to show clearly result. In the light of the questionnaire, students’ academic grades were rewieved. In fact, the result of this research or information set of the relations between families’ attitue and students’ success also give some clues to families , educators and students.
Participants and Settings
The research was carried out at English Teaching department of Kocaeli University. The participants of the study consisted of 30 students studying at this university. These participants are in their second years. Their ages changes from 19 to 25.All the participants directly participated in the research.
Instruments
In this paper, questions are asked as suitable for extent of research. The questionnaire consists of 10 questions about the effect of parents on students success in their language development or strategy development. It is based on their previous experiments or the previous effect of their families on their success. The questionnaires are open ended questions.The first and second questions are general questions about families’ effect on children’s behaviour and learning. It covers all questions in the questionnaire. The third one is deal with the family as an example. The forth, seventh and nineth questions are deal with being helper of families. The fifth one is deal with families’ interest on changes about language learning. Tha sixth and tenth ones are deal with being guider or adviser.
Research Methods
It is started with asking to participants whether they are willing to participate to a questionnaire or not. A sheet of the questionnaire was handed out after some information was given them about research. Participants’ name or individualistic informations did not wanted from them.
Results / Findings
An example of the questionnaires about families’ attitue on learning language
evet hayır
Ailenizin;
1) Davranışlarınızda ve öğrenmelerinizde etkileri oldu mu? 20 10
2) İngilizcenin geleceğiniz üzerinde etkileri hakkında konuştular mı?. 24 6
3) Ailenizin herhangi bir ferdi sizin dil seçiminizde örnek teşkil ediyor mu? ( yurt dışında yaşadılar ya da dil ile bir meslekleri var) 4 26
4) İngilizceyi ilk ailenizden mi öğrendiniz? aileniz ingilizcenin nasıl öğrenileceği üzerine yardımda bulundu mu? 3 27
5) Aileniz İngilizce öğrenimi üzerindeki değişimlerden haberdar olup buna göre size olan tutumlarına yön verdi mi?. 2 28
6) Aileniz size dili öğrenme üzerine tavsiyeler, örnekler ya da yeni öğrenme stratejileri sundu mu? 9 21
7) Siz İngilizce öğrenirken aileniz bu süreçte size destek oldu mu? 10 20
8) Aile üyelerinin dil üzerindeki fikirlerini benimsemenizde ikna edici bir tutum sergilediler? 3 27
9) İngilizceyi daha iyi öğrenmeniz için uygun ortam sağladılar mı?( İngilizce yayınlar ya da ingilizce romanlar) 19 11
10) İngilizceyi yazarak öğrenmekten ziyade konuşarak öğrenmeye mi tavsiye ettiler ? 16 14
The tablo gives the strategies which family members use them in chosing English as a languge learning. As it’s seen in the results on the chart ,the strategy which family members use at the very high rate emphasizes the importance of English to the students for their future. The strategy which is used at the very low rate gives information to the students about how English should be learnt at the younger ages. Numbers of the participants (16) and against (14) for the question “İngilizceyi yazarak öğrenmekten ziyade konuşarak öğrenmeye tavsiye ettiler mi ?” are quite distant from each others. On the other hand,difference between numbers of the participants(2) and against (28) for the question “ Aileniz İngilizce öğrenimi üzerindeki değişimlerden haberdar olup buna göre size olan tutumlarına yön mü verdi ?” is at the very high rate.
Conclusion/Discussion
In general, when the questionnaire is rewieved , students at high rate (67%) think that their families affect their behaviour and learning. Too many parent (80%) spoke with their children about their future. 26 students who took place in that survey emphasized that they didn’t started to learn English firstly from their parents and they were not informed how they should learn English by their family members. Only 9 students from 30 stated that their parents follow new improvements in technology about language learning. 9 students showed that their families encouraged them to make changes in language learning strategies they used and played a convincing role in getting certain ideas about language learning.
20 students emphasized that their families did not have any affect on using strategy or giving any advise while learning language. İdeas about learning language by writing or speaking are really near each other(16-14) also 19 students emphasize that their parents supply an comfortable environment and relax studying area and supply materials for their effective learning but only 3 students’ families get their children accept their idea on language .
In short , students’ parents have had affects students language learning sometimes directly sometimes indirectly and this situation causes students’ success generally positively but the right one is that families’ attitues are effective on students success.
References
http://childparenting.about.com/cs/parentinvolvement/a/parentschool.htm
Kimberly,L Keith, Parent Involvement in Schools )
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/spq/7/3/178/
