Childhood education organizations must offer parent education programs in order to help parents with young children effectively perform their parenting roles based on effective communication with their children. This study examines the effect of paren...
Childhood education organizations must offer parent education programs in order to help parents with young children effectively perform their parenting roles based on effective communication with their children. This study examines the effect of parent education programs on the improvement of the latter's communication skills with their children.
For the pre- and post-tests, the study introduced the communication skill scale developed by Mildard and Bienvenu (1974) and adapted by Shin Du-gyun (1988). Meanwhile, the data analysis involved the use of the SPSS 14.0 program in conjunction with the paired t-test for the pre- and post-test results.
The study results and inherent limitations are summarized as follows.
Parent education programs for the improvement of communication represent an effective means to improve communication between parent and child. Items for which higher or lower pre-test scores were recorded at the start of the parent education programs did not result in any significant improvements in communication skills. However, those items which the average pre-test score was about 3.5 resulted in a significant improvement in communication skills.
As the parent education program developed as part of this study was carried in a short term manner that involved short sessions, their actual effect on improving parent-child communication was limited. Despite this point, the significance of the items which showed an effect during short-term parent education programs should not be underscored, as this finding implies that salient communication areas have already to some extent been prepared. Furthermore, the results of the study also imply that it is necessary to through the pre-test separate the items in accordance with the preparedness of parents and implement parent education programs designed to improve communication that reflect the pre-test results.