Developing a Scale to Measure Parents’ Reward and Praise Behaviors for Parental Involvement

Volume 5 Issue 3(October 2023)
Özgür Bolat
Pages: 270-280 Download Count : 222 View Count: 296 DOI Number 10.55236/tuara.1344360 Facebook Share on Google+ Save to Zotero Save to Mendeley

Abstract:


Parental involvement in the educational process is crucial for creating an effective learning environment because parents' attitudes directly influence the child's behavior in classrooms. Two important parental behaviors that impact a child's behavior are rewards and praise. While rewards and praise are viewed positively by the behaviorist approach, they are generally perceived negatively by Self-Determination Theory. It is vital for school leaders, researchers, and teachers to explore parents' rewards and praise behaviors, investigate their effects on students, and organize parental involvement programs based on these behaviors. However, there are no reliable and valid scales in the literature that measure parents' reward and praise behaviors. Thus, this scale-development research, conducted with a descriptive survey model, aims to develop two distinct, valid, and reliable scales to measure parents' reward and praise behaviors. According to Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis results, two separate scales have been developed. The first scale is named "Parental Reward Behavior Scale", and the second one is called "Parental Praise Behavior Scale". The Parental Reward Behavior Scale consists of two sub-dimensions. These factors are named "reward as a control tool" and "reward as a motivation tool". The Parental Praise Behavior Scale consists of a single factor. Confirmatory Factor Analysis has verified the structures of the scale. The Criticism Scale and Disrespect Scale have been used for concurrent validity. A positive relationship has been found between both scales and the developed scale. This finding indicates that reward and praise are negative parental behaviors, confirming the theories of the socio-cognitive school rather than the behavioral school. In conclusion, both the Parental Reward Behavior Scale and the Parental Praise Behavior Scale have been introduced to the literature as valid and reliable measurement tools for teachers, researchers and school leaders

Keywords

  • Parental Involvement
  • Reward
  • Praise
  • Scale Development
  • School Leadership
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