The Relationship of Children's Perceptions of Parents to Self Concept and School Achievement

74 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980.Selected scales from the Schaefer Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI) measuring children's perceptions of parental acceptance, parental firmness, and perceived autonomy from parents were administered to 155 children in grades five and eight. Scores on these scales were compared across grade levels and were correlated with children's scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale. Additional correlations were calculated between scores on the CRPBI and sex, family size, ordinal position in family, number of parents in the home and parent education.In this study perceived relationships with parents appeared to be highly predictive of both achievement and self concept, overshadowing demographic variables at both grade levels, although parent education was also predictive of achievement. Perceived firmness correlated strongly with achievement; perceived acceptance correlated strongly with self concept; and perceived autonomy correlated even more strongly with both.Older children perceived significantly greater autonomy from fathers and less maternal acceptance than younger children. The same trends were suggested for perceived autonomy from mothers and paternal acceptance as well. The only parent variable to remain fairly constant across grade levels was perceived firmness. In some cases the respective correlations of perceived maternal and paternal relationships with self concept and achievement also changed across grade levels.In this study, although perceptions about parents changed, the respective correlations with self concept and achievement did not. If perceived acceptance was important to self concept in fifth grade, it was also important to self concept in eighth grade, even though children tended to perceive less parental acceptance at that grade level.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD