PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE IMPACT OF SYSTEMATIC TRAINING FOR EFFECTIVE PARENTING GROUPS UPON CHILDREN\u27S BEHAVIOR, ACHIEVEMENT AND SELF-RATINGS AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of parental participation in a Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP) course upon the classroom behavior and reading achievement of those parents\u27 Title 1 children. Parental perception of child behavior, and children\u27s perception of their own self-concept and locus of control were also examined. Parents of Title 1 children in a Northeastern United States elementary school volunteered to participate in the study when it was offered to all Title 1 parents. Their children are assigned to Title 1 for reading tutorials on the basis of teacher recommendations and scoring at least a half grade level on a measure of reading achievement. Eleven parents of 10 children volunteered for the intervention group and 11 parents of 11 children were assigned to the control group. The dependent variables were measured in the following manner: classroom behavior was assessed by administering the Devereux Elementary School Behavior Rating Scale to the children\u27s classroom teachers; academic achievement was assessed using the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests; children\u27s self-concept was measured by children\u27s responses to the McDaniel-Piers Young Children\u27s Self-Concept Scale; children\u27s locus of control was measured by children\u27s responses to the Pre-Primary Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Scale; changes in the children\u27s behavior at home were measured by administering the Adlerian Parental Assessment of Child Behavior Scale to parents. The same measures were administered to teachers, children and parents for the intervention and for the control groups. All of the measures were administered pre- and post-treatment in February and ten weeks later in April except for the reading tests which were administered in September and again in May. A t-test of the differences between means of the pre-test and of the post-test scores between intervention and control groups was performed as well as the differences between pre- and post-test means within each group. Analysis of the data showed that there were no statistically significant differences for any of the variables. In addition, intervention group parents responded to a post-test questionnaire and to an eight-week follow-up interview. All parents reported perceiving changes in their own and in their children\u27s behavior at home and some of them perceived changes in their children\u27s behavior at school. Suggestions were made for further research: (a) adding follow-up measures, (b) initially selecting a larger population from which to seek volunteers for parent education, (c) using other measures for assessing teachers\u27 and parents\u27 perception of child behavior, and other means of assessing reading achievement