The Effects of Family Fun Time Activities on Parental Involvement
Sophia Douglas
SOCL 345
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to see the effect of family involvement on a young child’s life. There is little research done on this, so it is important to continue to add to the preexisting research that is out there. The participants that were studied in this were children ages three to five at two different preschools, Head Start and Andy Taylor Center. The data that was collected came from 50 surveys that were sent out with Family Fun Time Activities. These surveys were then filled out by parents and sent back to the Social Research and Program Evaluation team at Longwood University. Common themes were noticed throughout these surveys: such as easy to follow directions, family involvement, growth, and simplicity.
Introduction
The research problem is the low family involvement in young childrens’ lives. Family Fun Time Activities are activities that were created to help children learn more and help families spend more time together. There are very few studies that have been conducted on the effects of family involvement, the ones that have conducted research on have either focused mainly on boys, those in higher education, Caucasians, and those is the middle economic class. The need for broader studies focusing on family involvement will help sociologists understand if children benefit and learn from those around them. This is important because it can help researchers better understand why humans are the way we are when knowing where we come from and grew up. The purpose of this study is to see the effect of family involvement on a young child’s life in education.
Literature Review
Studies have shown that the effects of family involvement is critical for those who are young, but also elderly. In a study done on Chinese Americans, ages 55 and older, it was seen that family involvement was critical to end-of-life care. Data was collected from 260 families. It was also seen that family involvement had a positive effect on family relationships. The findings of this study provide evidence of how family relationships affect older Chinese Americans towards family involvement and underline the need for family-centered end-of-life interventions.
Family involvement in this study is viewed as a helpful improvement factor for children in residential treatment centers. This study looked at the differences between in-person and telephone intervention contacts based on proximity of family resident programs. Family contacts were associated with greater improvements in youth functioning.
Involving families in school efforts to prevent and manage bullying behavior has been found to be a successful factor. Parents influence their children’s involvement in bullying situations by modeling positive social behavior. The findings in this research study show that a parental intervention can have a positive impact on parent-child communication.
Parental involvement during emerging adulthood in different genders. A study done in Southern Europe, between Spain and Portugal, collected data from 491 Portuguese and 552 Spanish emerging adults between the ages of 18 and 29. The results of this study showed that women perceived higher levels of parental involvement in both countries, and men perceived more behavioral control than women in Portugal. Gender perceived parental involvement is associated with less behavioral control in Spain, for both genders, and for women in Portugal.
Over the years, parents have been getting more and more involved with their children education This study found that investigating family involvement in their members’ undergraduate studies attending state funded and private universities in Cyprus. Data was collected from online logs that were completed by administrative personnel. The findings for this study showed changes about parental involvement and the age of members in undergrad education.
Children in Therapeutic Residential Care are not often sustained in parental involvement during aftercare due the lack of interpersonal strengths and family involvement. Few studies have examined strengths with successful family involvement. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of interpersonal strengths and family involvement made in TRC transitions. The study’s results showed that family involvement is an indicator for post-treatment success.
The participation of community-based family interventions are linked to enhanced caregiver and child outcomes. More research is needed to examine the developmental impacts of interventions serving young children and their families. This study showed potential relations among perceived characteristics of early childhood systems.
This study describes how and why a family successfully intervened in family-based financial exploitation. This case was chosen due to the reliance on family members with minimal private sector support, no report to authorities, and successful outcomes for the victim, perpetrator, and family system.
Methodology
A survey questionnaire was created by the 50 members of the Social Research and Program Evaluation team at Longwood University. The survey asked both open and closed ended questions. Items on the survey were designed to evaluate SMART objectives of the five activities that were completed the previous week by Head Start and Andy Taylor Center families. Items were included that also addressed demographic information, enjoyment of activities, family involvement, and completion of activities. Hard copies of the survey questionnaire were delivered to Head Start and the Andy Taylor Center.
The non-probability sample for this study was based on 100 children (ages three to five). Seventy-nine children attend Head Start in three counties. Head Start is a federally subsidized preschool for families with economic need. Twenty-one children attend the Andy Taylor Center which is located on a college campus, and families apply and pay for their children to attend. Attached to the questionnaire was a children’s book to incentivize families to return the survey. Guardians of the children were asked to complete the survey and return it to the preschool the next day. Teachers sent a reminder home with children to return any outstanding questionnaires. This resulted in 20 questionnaires being returned. Overall, there was a 40% response rate.
Quantitative analysis of the returned surveys is based on the closed-ended questions. For this study the dependent variable is parent involvement. The item from the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was “How involved was your family?” The answer choices for this item were zero through ten, zero being not involved at all and ten being involved totally. For this study the independent variable is family fun time activities. The item from the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was “Did the parents complete the survey?” The answer choices for this item were yes, no, and started but did not complete. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze these variables.
Qualitative analysis of the returned surveys was based on open-ended questions. The open-ended questions on the survey were “What did your family enjoy most about these activities? Why? (Please write in your response. Use the back sheet of paper if you run out of room), What did your child learn from these activities?, and What recommendations would you suggest to make these activities better?” To answer the research question, how do simple family fun time activities affect family involvement, inductive open coding was used to determine reoccurring themes in the respondent’s responses.
Findings
The dependent variable for this project is parent involvement, coded on a zero to ten scale. Based on 16 surveys the mean response is 9.14. The standard deviation is 1.23 for this set of data, this is how dispersed the data entries are.
The independent variable for this project is the completion of the activity, coded on activity completion. Based on 16 surveys the mean response is 1.14. By reading the graph, 14.3% started the activity, but did not complete it, and 85.7% of families fully completed the activity.
The theme of growth is seen throughout most of the 16 surveys. In survey two, the parent talks about how their child learned to cut, glue, and trace better. This survey answer shows the theme of growth due to the idea of how the child now being able to have new skills they did not have before. Another survey, survey five, stated how their child learned colors, shapes, creativity, and numbers. This shows growth as well because of the new developmental skills that have been introduced to the child.
Simplicity is seen throughout a majority of these 16 surveys. Survey one states how the instructions were easy to follow. Survey three states how the family enjoyed the activities were simple. This is an example of the second theme due to how the families enjoyed the activities not being overcomplicated and overbearing.
Family time is the final theme that I saw being discussed the most throughout the 16 surveys. Survey fours stated how they enjoyed spending time together while doing the activities, talking, and learning together as well. Another survey, number nine, states how the parent enjoyed doing the activities together was their favorite part. These two surveys show how important it was to the families that spending time together was their favorite part of the activities, instead of doing the actual activities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the main point of this study was to determine is family involvement would increase a child’s learning ability. From studying the returned surveys, it was found that children did indeed do better when family was involved and doing these activities with them instead of the child doing the activity alone. Children learned more from the activities when the parents were involved and helping, rather than sitting there and observing their child doing the activity. This is important due to the impact it will have on the rest of their education if childrens’ parents are more active in their schoolwork when the child needs assistance.
Work Cited
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