A Research on Parents’ Educational Beliefs, Students Cram Schools Attending, and Academic Achievement in Chiayi City

• Main Authors: Shih-Yu, Fang, 方仕育
• Other Authors: Sheng-Yao, Cheng
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/82075701685099530897

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 教育研究所 === 99 === The present study aims to investigate parents’ educational beliefs, students’ cram schools attending, and students’ academic achievement. Three components of parents’ educational beliefs were explored, including parent’s involvement in education, parental expectancy, and parental company. In addition, parents’ attitudes toward cram school education were also examined. Based on the results of the study, the researcher provided some suggestions for educational practitioners as well as for future studies. The current questionnaire, The Questionnaire of Parents’ Educational Beliefs, Students Cram Schools Attending, and Students’ Academic Achievement, was developed by the researcher and was used for data collection. Parents from 10 public elementary schools in Chiayi City were invited to answer the questionnaires. A total of 563 returned questionnaires were valid. The data were analyzed through SPSS software and interpreted by means of t-test, one-way ANOVA, Chi-square tests, and Stepwise Multiple Regression. Besides the questionnaire, interviews with parents were also conducted to further investigate the factors that influenced students cram schools attending. The results of the study are summarized as follows: 1. Parents believe that parental company is important for their children. 2. Fathers as well as other care givers have higher parental expectancy than mothers do. 3. Children’s opportunities for attending cram schools are influenced by their parent’s social economic status. Children from lower social economic status families have fewer opportunities to attend cram schools. 4. Parents with lower social economic status demand for the functions of care giving and lessons tutoring provided by cram schools. 5. Children from higher social economic status families participate in more kinds of cram schools. 6. Based on the theory of household education resources, children’s opportunities for attending cram schools are affected by the number of siblings they have. 7. Children’s opportunities for attending cram schools are also affected by their birth order. Children with latter birth order have fewer opportunities to attend cram schools. 8. Parental expectancy affects parent’s selection of cram schools, especially cram schools for lessons tutoring. 9. Parents who think highly of accompanying their children do not have their children attend many different kinds of cram schools at the same time. 10. Students who only attend cram schools do not academically outperform those who don’t. 11. Parents with higher social economic status are more likely to send their children to attend different kinds of cram schools, and their children also have better academic achievement at school. That is to say, parents’ social economic status will influence their children’s academic achievement by means of cram schools attending. 12. Parents’ educational beliefs have nothing to do with students’ academic achievement for Chinese, math, and science. However, parental expectancy is a predictable factor for students’ academic achievement in social studies. Based on the results of this study, the following suggestions are provided: 1. Parental expectancy is an important factor that influences students’ opportunities for cram schools attending, especially cram schools for lessons tutoring. However, cram schools attending does not improve students’ academic achievement in general. Thus, parents should recognize their children’s talents and help them to develop their abilities. 2. To prevent students’ bias in learning, educational practitioners should work hard to develop their expertise in teaching, cultivate students’ interests in learning, and avoid students’ overreliance on cram schools attending. 3. When holding parent-teacher meetings, the school authorities should provide parents with correct concept of education, and dilute their misconception of scores. 4. To raise the fertility rates, our government should provide sufficient welfare for parents. With the help of care giving institutions, the government will be able to meet the needs of child-bearing, child-raising, and care giving for parents.