Date of Award

1-1-1982

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Counseling Psychology & Community Services

Abstract

There is a dearth of Adlerian-based parenting education materials available for use with parents who have less than seventh grade-level reading skills.Statement of the Problem. Most parents have received no formal training in either of two areas: how to be a parent or how to improve parenting skills. Parents have traditionally learned their skills by observation of their own or others' parents or parent surrogates, or by trial and error.The research problem was: Can audio-visual Adlerian based parenting education program materials change parental attitudes.Methods and Procedures. Parents who volunteered for a parenting education program were nonrandomly assigned to: experimental, no-contact control, or alternative treatment control groups.Subjects who attended less than fifty percent of meetings (experimental and alternative treatment control conditions) were excluded from further consideration. Subjects' pretest scores on each of five scales on Hereford's (1963) Parent-Attitude Survey (P-AS) were compared to classify each subject as "neutral," "conforming" (to the Adlerian-ideal attitude), or "nonconforming" (to the Adlerian-ideal attitude). Only those individuals whose score on a scale was extreme ("nonconforming") were included for final examination on the posttest using analysis of covariance.Additionally the program materials were examined by experts in Adlerian principles, or by specialists in the use of media in curriculum development and in reading and study skills. Each expert examined the program materials within his or her area of expertise. The experts found no negative aspect to the materials.Results and Conclusions. The subjects in the experimental, no-contact control and alternative treatment control conditions were found to differ on the basis of their pretest scores. Significant differences were not found between experimental and no-contact control conditions. The only significant difference occurred in the experimental versus alternative treatment control condition.While the empirical data were insufficient to reject the null hypothesis, the program materials were seen as filling a gap in the field of Adlerian-based parenting education.The investigator concluded that further evaluation of the program was needed, i.e., collecting more data; targeting parents with lower reading skills to participate in the program; and, balancing group leaders and group participants, by race, across treatment control conditions.The use of the P-AS to examine the null hypotheses may have been inappropriate. The investigator recommended that the P-AS be used in further evaluations and that an additional instrument should be developed from an Adlerian perspective.

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