A comparison of parental and teacher perceptions of children's action in relation to family psychological functioning

Abstract

This study was designed to look for possible relationships between parental perception of the family's psychological functioning and the elementary school- child's action in the classroom as evaluated by the teachers and in the home environment as evaluated by their mothers. Significant differences were to be observed between the mothers' and the teachers' evaluations of the children. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the more the mother and the teacher agreed on the child's behavioral patterns, and the less problem behaviors, more abilities were reported by both parties, the higher perceived family's psychological functioning would be reported. The participants of this study were the teachers and the parents of 193 first and second grade students aged between 7 to 8. The schools they attended were located.in higher SES neighborhoods. The families and the teachers were contacted by the researcher who worked as a school counselor in these schools. The mothers were given the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCLl4 - 18) to evaluate the ability areas and problem behavior of this age group children. A Teachers Report Form (TRF / 5-18) was given to the teachers to evaluate the school life and the problem behavior of the same children. A Family Structure Assessment Device (A YDA) was administered to the family members to assess the family system. For the analysis of the data t-tests for paired samples and the Pearson Correlation Coefficient were used. The results supported most of the hypotheses and revealed that there was a significant discrepancy between the Children Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Teacher Report Form (TRF) scores reported by teachers and mothers. Those children who had higher CBCL scores and TRF scores had families with low A YDA scores. On the other hand, those children who had families with high A YDA scores had a high discrepancy between their CBCL and TRF scores. As a conclusion, although the high perceived family system has a significant positive impact on the action of children at home and in the classroom, such an effect of perceived family system on the discrepancy between CBCL and TRF was not found in this study.