An investigation into the influence of parental expectations and support on their children’s learning – english motivation

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of expectations and support given by the parents on learning English motivation of grade 8 private school students.. The data regarding parental e

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT LAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS AND SUPPORT ON THEIR CHILDREN’S LEARNING – ENGLISH MOTIVATION

(Một nghiên cứu điều tra về tác động của sự mong đợi và hỗ trợ

của cha mẹ đến động lực học Tiếng Anh của trẻ)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

HANOI – 2017

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY- HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*****************

NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT LAN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS AND SUPPORT ON THEIR CHILDREN’S LEARNING – ENGLISH MOTIVATION

(Một nghiên cứu điều tra về tác động của sự mong đợi và hỗ trợ

của cha mẹ đến động lực học Tiếng Anh của trẻ)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 60140111

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

HANOI - 2017

Hanoi, 2017

Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Lan

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to send my thanks to many individuals for their invaluable help during the conduct of the research Without their help, the completion of this research project would not have been possible

First and foremost, I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my supervisor, Prof Dr Hoang Van Van for his remarkable supervision, enthusiastic guidance, invaluable support and critical feedback throughout the research

Besides my advisor, I wouldlike to thank all the Board and teachers from Doan Thi Diem – Ecopark private secondary school for their assistance in providing information and distributing questionnaires and interviews to parents and students at grade 8

Next, I wish to send my big thanks to the students at grade 8A and 8B and their parents for their cooperation and the valuable information they provided in my research questionnaire and interviews

Furthermore, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to my family and friends, especially my mother, for standing by me and for giving me their unconditional love, care, good assistance and patience

Finally, my sincere thanks also go to graders and readers for their valuable evaluation and feedback on this thesis

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of expectations and support given by the parents on learning English motivation of grade 8 private school students The purpose of this study was (a) to explore parental expectation and support to children‟s English learning, (b) to demonstrate the correlation between parental expectation and support and their children‟s English learning motivation Survey questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection Further interviews to both parents and children were also conducted to find out the reasons for the results obtained from the questionnaire The data regarding parental expectation and support, their influence on learning motivation was collected from a sample of 90 parents and their 90 students in 8th grade from Doan Thi Diem- Ecopark school in Hung Yen, Vietnam After the analysis of data, it was concluded that most of parents are well aware of their role for their children‟s English learning However, a noticeable thing is that parents do not directly join in their children‟s learning activities although their attitude is of responsible type Above all, the findings of the study revealed that parents‟ contribution to their children‟s education has a both positive and negative effect on learning motivation

CONTENTS

Declaration 10

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Contents iv

Table of contents vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims & Research Questions 3

2.1 Aims of the study 3

2.2 Research questions 3

3 Scope and significance 4

3.1 Scope of the study 4

3.2 Significance of the Study 4

4.Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1 Defining parental expectations 5

2 Defining parental support 7

3 Defining children‟s learning-English motivation 10

3.1 Definitions of motivation 10

3.2 Types of motivation 10

3.3 The Importance of motivation in second language learning 12

3.4 Relevant research 12

4 Parental expectations and support and children‟s learning motivation 13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 15

1 Method of the study 15

2 Context of the study 16

3 Participants 16

4 Data collection instrument 17

5 Data collection and analysis procedures 20

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 22

1 Parental expectations 22

1.1 Short-term expectations 22

1.2 Long-term expectations 24

2 Parental support 24

2.1 Learning processing investment 25

2.1.1 Material support from parents 25

2.1.2 Time support from parents 31

2.2 Learning processing management 33

2.2.1 The parental frequency of keeping in touch with school, English center and tutor 33

2.2.2 Rewards and punishments 36

3 The correlation between parental expectations and support and their children‟s learning-English motivation 39

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 44

1 Conclusion 44

2 Recommendations 45

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 III APPENDIX 3 V APPENDIX 4 VII APPENDIX 5 IX APPENDIX 6 X

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table 1: Short-term expectations from parents 22

Table 2: Long-term expectations from parents 24

Chart 1: parental support by investing in extra learning 26

Table 4: parental support by investing in learning equipment 28

Table 5: Time support from parents 31

Table 6: The parental frequency of keeping in touch with school, English center and tutor 34

Table 7: Rewards and punishments from parents 37

Table 8: The correlation between parental expectations and support and their children‟s learning-English motivation 40

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Education is essential for the development of society The more educated the people of a society are, the more civilized and well disciplined the society might be Mainly, family has responsibility to socialize children for making them productive members of society The more the parents involve in the process of imparting education to their children, the more the children might excel in their academic career and to become the productive and responsible members of society

It has been assumed that academic achievement of students may not only depend on the quality of schools and the teachers, rather the extent of parental involvement has vital role to play in academic achievement of their kids The focus

of this study is to examine a relationship (if any) between the extent of parental involvement in academic activities of their children and the level of their children‟s academic achievement The transition from middle school to secondary school may

be an overwhelming and stressful experience for young adolescents Developmentally, students are entering a period in their lives when their physical, cognitive, psychological, and social characteristics are beginning to evolve Secondary school students experience both a contextual change and a personal change during this transition It may often be a confusing time for students, their families, and the other adults in their lives who seek to support their healthy development and learning The secondary school learning environment may be more complex than elementary school and academic achievement expectations increase Children are more likely to have higher academic achievement levels and improved behavior when families are involved in their education (Bryan, 2005) Learning begins at home through interaction with one‟s family

Parental involvement in a child‟s education along with environmental and economic factors may affect child development in areas such as cognition, language, and social skills Numerous studies in this area have demonstrated the importance of family interaction and involvement in the years prior to entering

school (Bergsten, 1998; Hill, 2001) Research findings have also shown that a continued effort of parental involvement throughout the child‟s education can improve academic achievement (Driessen, Fan, 2001; Hong & Ho, 2005) Academic failure has been linked with risk behaviors and negative outcomes such as; substance abuse, delinquency, and emotional and behavioral problems (Annunziata, Houge, Faw, & Liddle, 2006)

There is little research available on the relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement of secondary school students The majority

of the research in this area has been conducted solely with elementary school students (Baily, Silvern, Brabham, & Ross, 2004) This study may provides an indepth look at one aspect of parental involvement, involvement in academic activities of their children, and academic achievement of secondary school students The non-stop development of the present society requires each family unit to involve in their children learning more than ever Nonetheless, it is the busy life and financial burden that make parents always worried about how to ensure their families‟ living standards As a result, they do have less time to keep continual contact with school and teachers to follow or manage their children‟s learning This time limitation is also the reason why mothers and fathers cannot directly instruct or remind their kids during their learning process It is something of a paradox that parents often put high expectations into their children‟s education while they do not spend much time on guiding their children to learn One of the popular alternatives which parents apply to compensate for this trend is financial support and investment and then completely entrust schools, learning centers or even for tutors to care their kids‟ learning without knowing whether or not their support is effective enough Parental involvement in children‟s learning has been linked with academic achievement Despite the fact that family is not the only factor affecting to students‟ learning environment, it plays one of the most decisive roles in children‟s learning process Although there is a lot of research to investigate the relationship between parental involvement and their children‟s learning motivation, as reviewed above,

little research has been done in the area of parental involvement and secondary school students in Vietnam This research project sought to identify the different levels of parental expectations and support to their children‟s learning and how parental involvement affects learning motivation of secondary school students

2 Aims & Research Questions

2.1 Aims of the study

This study was conducted to investigate the following issues: (1) the types of expectations parents have regarding their children‟s English learning, (2) the ways parents support their children to motivate them for their better academic achievements, (3) the impact of parental involvement (expectations and support) on their children learning motivation

2.2 Research questions

Studying motivations and expectations in language learning from psychological perspectives is a well-established research theme in western ELT (e.g Gardner, 1985; Brophy, 1999; Dornyei, 2003, 2005) Researchers look for intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of learners of English as a second language, to understand their needs and reasons for studying the target language Expectations come from teachers, children themselves, peers, relatives, friends and their parents High expectation may lead to higher achievement (Rubie-Davies et al 2010)

social-There are very few published research papers in Vietnam on the motivation and expectations of secondary school English learners and their parents This leads

to the three major research questions of this research project:

1 What types of expectations do parents have regarding their children’s English learning?

2 How do parents support their children to motivate them for their better English learning?

3 What is the correlation between parental expectations and support and their children’s learning-English motivation?

3 Scope and significance

3.1 Scope of the study

Due to the time limitation, this study just focuses on a limited sample of 90 parents and their 90 children who are studying at a private secondary school in Hanoi

3.2 Significance of the Study

The study hopes to: (1) bring awareness in the community about the role of parental involvement to their children‟s motivation towards English learning, (2) increase the interest of the students through parents‟ involvement in their English learning, (3)strengthen the relationship between school and parents for better academic performance of the students

4 Organization of the study

The study consists of 5 chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction of the research

Chapter 2: Literature review (Other research on this topic is discussed)

Chapter 3: Methodology (the way the researcher collected the data as well as analysis them is showed)

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendations

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Parents play an extremely important part in children‟s upbringing because it has a sharp impact on their children‟s outcomes in schools They express passions and strong desires to help their children obtain success regardless of race, ethnicity,

or social status That is the reason why they always take their children‟s education into very careful consideration In other words, it can be said that parents are considered as an indispensable factor in the process of promoting and supporting a child‟s comprehensive development including physical, emotional, intellectual and social aspects from childhood to adulthood, in which intellectual development is one of the most outstanding Once again, this strongly supports for favorable parental concepts to the importance of education It is these views that create a set

of educational belief, attitude and expectations and support among parents to their children Boocock (1972) shared the point that parental expectations have major influences on children‟s academic performance Specifically, parents‟ expectations can be understood as a variety of parental behaviors that directly or indirectly influence children‟s learning motivation Following this, simultaneous parental assistance is also formed to strengthen children‟s positive attitude to learning, which helps them aware the importance of education and promote to learn better as well

Mainly basing on the theoretical approach, the researcher will bring together various concepts from several scholars, which address the relationship between parental expectation and children‟s academic performance As a result of summarizing these viewpoints, influences of parental expectations and support on children‟s learning motivation, especially in learning a second language like English are also expected to be discussed in details

1 Defining parental expectations

According to Oxford Advanced Learners dictionary, expectation refers to “a

strong belief about the way something should happen or how somebody should

behave” Meanwhile, from the perspective of psychology, expectation is a

changeable mental status, which can be considered as a predictable recognition

based on people‟s reactions to external contexts or the need for inner strength arising from their own or others‟ prediction of behavioral outcomes (Zhu, 1989)

The term parental expectation has already appeared in much literature

Parental expectations mainly consist of the attitudes a parent has about their

children‟s academic success and educational outcomes (Cook, 2009) As mentioned

above, Boocock (1972) notes that parental expectations affect children‟s academic performances In order to further clarify the definition, Seginer (1983) points that it typically referred to parents‟ desires or wishes regarding their children‟s future attainments in schooling

Other researchers distinguish between realistic and idealistic expectations regarding the possibility of their realization (e.g Stern, 2007) A realistic expectation typically refers to parental prediction of children‟s academic performance based on school feedback, such as information that parents gain from their children‟s school report Meanwhile, idealistic expectations are the wishes, dreams, desires, and hopeful anticipations or parental beliefs about their children‟s academic future (Seginer, 1983)

Even though “parental expectation” may be defined variously by different researchers, this study characterizes parental expectations which have been seen in terms of short-term (Entwisle and Hayduk, 1978) and long-term expectations (Clare

et al., 1998) Therefore, a short-term expectation refers to parents‟ academic or social developmental goals for their children in the immediate or near future, while

a long-term expectation accounts for the future or long-lasting anticipation of children‟s educational attainment (Cook, 2009)

This study will be analyzing parental expectations basing on the theory of short-term and long-term by Cook (2009) because of the following reasons:

Firstly, it is suitable for the Vietnamese society The social development of a

developing country like Vietnam requires individuals to possess not only a broad knowledge, high educational background, but good skills of foreign languages To adapt to this, it is compulsory for people to improve themselves better if they want

to have a good stable job, and the ability to survive in a competitive world Of course, every parent is definitely aware of this trend They all expect their children

to have a bright education attainment in the further future

Secondly, it is suitable for Vietnamese parents‟ psychological development

We must admit that English has been the most popular language widely used all over the world Being aware of this, fathers and mothers have tendency to provide children with a chance of learning English as soon as possible It is clear that there

is no reason for parents to do that, but their expectation to children Traditionally, Vietnamese parents regard children as their property and pride as well That‟s why they always have a desire that their children will be good in the immediate or near future

2 Defining parental support

When parents put their expectations and beliefs on their children, it is definitely easy to understand for them to give the best support to their children so that they can reach the learning goal and target

Parental support is a multidimensional construct (Fan, 2001) Research studies have presented some theoretical frameworks for parental support (Gonzalez-Pienda et al., 2002; Fan, 2001) Researchers have supported that some dimensions

of parental support may have more visible effects on students‟ academic achievement than others Gonzalez-Pienda et al (2002) stated that parental support criteria were developed according to six dimensions that are strongly associated to students‟ behavior at school and the attitude towards learning

“The six dimensions are (a) parents‟ expectations about their children‟s achievement, (b) parents‟ expectations about their children‟s capacity to achieve important goals, (c) parents‟ behaviors that reveal interest in their children‟s school work, (d) parents‟ degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their children‟s level

of school achievement, (e) parents‟ level and type of help provided when their children do homework, and (f) parents‟ reinforcement behaviors of their children‟s achievements Research studies have pointed out that some dimensions of parental

involvement may have more noticeable effects on students‟ academic achievement than others” (p.259)

Generally, parents are not directly involved in the teaching-learning activities

in school Then, they are only expected to provide the financial and other material support for the children‟s schooling In spite of not directly guide children at school, parents are considered as “a teacher” who provides a lot of help when their children

do the homework Homework can be defined as “task that are assigned to students

by teachers and are meant to be performed during nonschool hours” (Eilam, 2001,

p 692) A student is supposed to complete his/her homework at home, parents or other family members may be involved in the process of helping or guiding the child They either help the child in doing the home task assigned by the teacher or facilitate him/her in relation to difficulties in syllabus Research studies indicated that parental support in doing home tasks has significant effects in students‟ motivation (Singh, 2002) Agreeing with this view, Ronald Ferguson, in his

“research-based tips for high-achievement parenting”, suggest that parents promote reading at home, discuss reading materials with their children in ways that encourage children to enjoy learning, and seek opportunities at home to discuss and apply what children are learning in school, among other activities Ferguson further recommends that parents set clear and firm rules about homework, television watching, and other daily activities, and that they actively seek out-of-school opportunities and extracurricular activities that reinforce school lessons, encourage exploration and creativity, and develop children‟s special talents (Ferguson, 2007a)

In other words, parents who are actively involved in their children‟s education and provide a stimulating learning environment at home can help their children develop feelings of competence, control, curiosity, and positive attitudes about academics

As mentioned above, if a student has a belief that a goal is unattainable, then there is really no need to attempt to achieve that goal Extrinsic motivation causes students to perceive more goal as unattainable, whereas intrinsically motivated

student will see very few goals as unattainable because that student believes that anything is possible with effort This is where parental involvement becomes crucial Even if parents are unable to assist their children with a specific subject area

or skill, they can still play a vital role by encouraging students‟ feeling of competence and control and positive attitudes towards academics, according to a review of the research literature on families and school motivation by Grolnick, Friendly, and Bellas (2009) Encouragement rather than reward will cue a child into intrinsic motivation Moreover, encouragement can be a form of reward because it displays one of the most basic forms of reward: attention Children, of course, need more than pets on the back and positive saying to encourage them and many other forms of encouragement exist “Curiosity killed a cat” is a clich? That could not be farther from the truth because curiosity is one of the strongest motivators with regards to the constant need for satisfaction This need will intrinsically motivate children to discover and understand new concepts that otherwise would remain foreign territory The most difficult aspect of helping a child is having the patience

to allow discovery Telling a child the answer helps them complete the assignment, but severely decreases their understanding (Sansone, 1989)

One problem is that, beside the positive aspect, researchers find out that there are many factors which can hinder parents from providing these kinds of supports Some parents may be grappling with outside stressors, time and resources constraints, or unfamiliarity with what role they might play Therefore, parents‟ involvement and capabilities differ based on their unique contexts (Grolnick, Friendly, & Bellas, 2009) But while resources can limit parents‟ ability to become involved, that should not be taken to mean that their desire to do so is also limited; research has found that although parents with scarcer resources may be less active

in school activities, they can still be entirely aware and supportive of their children‟s academic progress (Grolnick, Friendly, & Bellas, 2009)

3 Defining children’s learning-English motivation

3.1 Definitions of motivation

There are many different definitions of motivation, especially in language learning Harmer (1991, p.3) explains the meaning of motivation as the “internal drive” that pushes somebody to do something If we think that our goal is worth doing and attractive for us, then we try to reach that goal; this is called “the action driven by motivation” Lightbown and Spada (1999, p 56) note that motivation in second language learning is quite complicate to study which can be explained in terms of two factors: learner‟s communicative needs and their attitudes towards the second language community

In addition, Parsons, Hinson and Brown (2001, p 28) define motivation as

an important component or factor in the learning process Learning and motivation have the same importance in order to achieve something Learning makes us gain new knowledge and skills and motivation pushes us or encourage us to go through the learning process

Gardner (1982), in his socio-educational model, notes that motivation is perceived to be composed of three elements These are effort, desire and affect Effort refers to the time spent studying the language and the drive of the learner Desire indicates how much the learner wants to become proficient in the language, and affect means the learner‟s emotional reactions related to language study

Aree Punmanee (1991) views motivation as the process aroused by stimulus

to achieve desired purposes, behaviors or conditions Motivation is the continuous process based on a person‟s desire

3.2 Types of motivation

Harmer (1991, p 3) uses the word „goal‟ to categorize the motivation in second language learning into two types:

1 Short-term goal means when students wish to succeed in doing something in the

near future, for example, students who want to pass their examination or to get good grade or high scores

2 Long-term goal refers to a wish of students or learners who want to get a better

job in the future or to be able to communicate with people who use the language that they study or the target language

Krashen (1988, p.22) mentioned the following factors which are rather related to motivation that will attempt to relate the second language ability to these two functions

1 Integrative motivation, defined as the desire to be a part of recognized or

important members of the community or that society that speak the second language It is based on interest in learning the second language because of their need to learn about, associate or socialize with the people who use it or because of purpose or intention to participate or integrate in the second language using the same language in that community; but sometimes it involves emotion or affective factors a great deal (Saville-Troike, 2006,p 86)

2 Instrumental motivation involves the concepts of purely practical value in

learning the second language in order to increase learners‟ careers or business opportunities, giving them more prestige and power, accessing scientific and technical information, or just passing a course of their study in school (Saville-Troike, 2006, p 86).Furthermore, motivation is further classified into two main categories as the following:

Extrinsic motivation refers to a desire to get a reward and avoid punishment

It emphasizes external need to persuade the learner to take part in learning activity (Arnold,2000, p 14), such as homework, grade, or doing something to please teachers Both integrative and instrumental motivations are also grouped under the branch of the extrinsic motivation (Harmer, 1991, p 4) Extrinsic motivation is based on external outcomes such as rewards and punishment This motivation could bring a negative impact to the students, because with extrinsic motivation, students

do not learn with their strong intention but they study it because they are pushed by the interest in the rewards or the punishment When a student is learning because he

is promised rewards or because he wants the rewards, he will be highly motivated to

come to classes and learn and achieve the goal that is set for him But when these rewards are taken away, or sometimes even if they do not see any punishment, the student will not be interested in coming to class and learn the language any longer

Intrinsic motivation refers to learning itself having its own reward (Arnold,

2000, p.14) It means the learners are willingly and voluntarily (not compulsorily) try to learn what they think it is worth or important for them When students have intrinsic motivation, they have the internal desire to learn and they do not have the need for external outcomes There are no negative impacts in having intrinsic motivation In addition, intrinsic motivation pushes the student to learn without rewards, because the need is innate or come from inside or depends on their own will Lightbown and Spada (1999, p 56-57) mentioned that teachers do not have many effects on students‟ intrinsic motivation since the students are from different backgrounds and the only way to motivate students is by making the classroom a supportive environment

3.3 The Importance of motivation in second language learning

Motivation has an important role in success and failure in learning a second language Spolsky (1990, p 157) stated that motivated students are likely to learn more and learn more quickly than students who are less motivated In a particular learning situation, students who are less motivated are likely to lose their attention, misbehave and cause discipline problems On the contrary, students who are more highly motivated will participate actively and pay more attention to a certain learning task or activity

3.4 Relevant research

Hedge (2000) conducted a study that investigated the motivation of 20 Japanese students who were studying English The findings indicated that the most common reasons for studying English as a second language were for communication with people overseas, finding employment in a high profile career, processing international information, and understanding other cultures These findings were related with the work of Gardner and Lambert (1972) which

suggested that a person‟s need for studying a second language is for the ability to socialize with the learning language community or integrative motivation and the ability to gain knowledge applied from that learning language or instrumental motivation

Siriluck Wechsumangkalo and Sirithip Prasertrattanadecho (2004) conducted

a study which indicated clearly that high English proficiency subjects are more integratively motivated than low English proficiency subjects However, there was

no significant difference in the level of instrumental motivation between two groups

of subjects Moreover, the study showed that high English proficiency subjects are more motivated than low English proficiency subjects with low English achievement

In summary, there is some research mentioning parental role to children‟s academic achievement However, the study which focuses on the relationship between parental expectations and support and children‟s learning motivation is rare That‟s why I make an effort to conduct this study

4 Parental expectations and support and children’s learning motivation

The role of parental expectations in affecting children academic attainment has received much attention for over 59 years (Yamamoto and Holloway, 2010) Parental expectations are recognized for their great impact on academic performance for students of all ages, including kindergarten learners (Galper et al., 1997), primary children (Baker and Entwisle, 1987; Alexander et al., 1996; Entwisle and Hayduk, 1988), secondary students (Davis-kean, 2005), and high school students (Ainley et al., 1991) It can be said that, parental expectations have big impact on general learning and on learning a second language learning in particular

In terms of general learning, parental expectations also strongly influence

children‟s motivation The level of parental expectations for children‟s educational achievement strongly predicts their level of academic attainment (Entwisle and Hayduk, 1978; Davis-Kean, 2005) For example, parents who hold high

expectations for their children learning, believe in their children‟s competence, expose them to new experiences, and encourage curiosity, persistence, and problem-solving can help their children develop an intrinsic motivation to learn In other words, the higher the parental expectation are, the more the demands they place on their children; possibly also the more help parents offer their children, the higher their children achieve their academic goals By contrast, parents who are controlling use rewards and punishments for academic performance, or display negativity or anger about academics can discourage children from developing intrinsic motivation (Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 1994)

In terms of second language learning, obviously, parents play important

parts in setting the foundation for children‟s language learning Parental expectations, along with parental factors (their incomes, educational attainment and occupations) are associated with their children‟s language learning development at school (Fernandez and Nielsen, 1986) Besides general influences, parental expectations have significant impacts on children‟s language learning, for their development of both their mother tongue and a second language

In summary, this chapter makes an attempt to review main aspects of the research that are parental expectations and support and children‟s learning motivation In other words, their definition, concepts, and classification are listed The relevant research mentioning parental role to children‟s academic achievement

is also discussed Some brief views of the relationship between parental expectation and support and children‟s learning motivation are also mentioned in the last part, which can be a foundation for the researcher to design the questions in the questionnaire

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

1 Method of the study

Because my intention was to explore parental effects on children‟s learning only, the design of the study needed to be captured a small picture Accordingly, I decided to conduct a questionnaire survey study Like someone‟s definition,

“Survey is a method of gathering information from a sample of individuals.”

Due to the purpose and the limited length of the thesis, I chose two methods

of approach to collect data, which are questionnaire and interviews In fact, using a questionnaire is the most possible method which should be employed in this study Questionnaire tends to be suited to involving a large number of subjects, as they allow a structured approach, but the result is that they can generate a large volume

of numerical data Therefore, the data in this study would be analyzed quantitatively Questionnaire has the possible advantage that they can be administered without the absence of the researcher, particularly when they consist largely of closed questions These have the further administrative advantage that the answers to a questionnaire are often comparatively straightforward to analyse (Cohen et al., 2007; Gillham, 2007) The results are more comprehensive and representative than data obtained from studying individuals Moreover, the research aim in the present context is to explore the parental impact to students‟ learning motivation, so questionnaire would be an appropriate method in order to allow a considerable number of students and their parents to voice their opinions

In addition, this research is also conducted by using further interviews to both parents and their children for the purpose of explaining the reasons and detailed information collected from the questionnaires more clearly Obviously, although questionnaire is a suitable method to collect data in this research, there are still some aspects which cannot be demonstrated via statements only For instance, the reasons why parents expect their children to learn English better need to be demonstrated However, questionnaires in this study are used solely to find out what

parental expectations are, not to examine the reasons Then, further interviews will

be the most effective method to help the researcher

The process of conducting questionnaires and further interviews will be discussed more specifically in the part 4 and 5 of this chapter

2 Context of the study

This study was taken place at Doan Thi Diem-Ecopark school in Hung Yen,

a province on the suburb of Hanoi capital, which is one of the high-ranking private schools in Vietnam As a private school, parents wishing their children to join this school need to have financial ability to afford the tuition and other payments for extraordinary activities The current tuition in this school is 4.2 million VND per month However, students are taken part in the most advanced learning curriculums with the aim of developing comprehensively In particular, English curriculum is designed in the most suitable way to students‟ level, which requires students to have certain level of English to follow effectively Of course, to help students obtain those objectives, only school involvement is not enough Parents are considered as one of the most important roles in supporting their children‟s learning

3 Participants

The researcher chose 2 categories of participants Specifically, parents and students at grade 8 of Doan Thi Diem-Ecopark school to be the participants of the study on the basis of their agreement to participate As mentioned above, survey questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection After reviewing the literature, a questionnaire was designed A total number of closed ended questions were included in the questionnaires about parental expectation and support as well as students‟ learning motivation under their parents‟ assistance Then, they were distributed to the 90students studying in the 8th class of Doan Thi Diem-Ecopark School Simultaneously, the rest of questionnaires were distributed to those students‟90 parents The students in this study are all at grade 8 According to the school timetable, they need to study 13 subjects, in which English accounts for 7 periods per week Because of the relatively busy curriculum, extra-curricular

activities in English are just organized occasionally In addition, at the age ranging

from 36 – 40, parents in this study mainly work in the fields of office and business

The researcher chose the students at grade 8 as participants of the study but not the other grades of the secondary school as well as their own 90 parents because

of three reasons Firstly, it is related to the purpose of the study This study makes

an effort to explore the influence of parental expectations and support on children‟s English learning motivation so that recommendations to help parents support their children will be raised Then it is easier to get the assistance from the students and parents during the process of implementing this research Secondly, grade 8 is the suitable time for both parents and children to have the beginning orientation and make a decision regarding types of: (1) high school that children should pursue; (2) subjects that children should focus on It is not too early like grade 6, 7, and not too late like grade 9 Moreover, the age of grade 8 is on the way of personal development; then they need to get parental involvement Finally, as mentioned, parents of grade-8 students are just at the age of about 40 This category of age shows that parents in this study are not too young or old; as a result, their concepts

of English role in the life will not be outdated

4 Data collection instrument

As mentioned before, to collect data for the study, questionnaires and interviews were used It seemed appropriate for the researcher to design the questionnaires and further interviews in Vietnamese originally The reason for that

is to make it easier for parents and students to understand the questionnaires and express their views in the interviews more clearly and adequately Although parents

in this study are not too old, the researcher does not make sure whether their English level is good In terms of children, despite realizing that they have been learning English for some years, it is not enough for them to express their ideas in English Thus, to meet the expectation of gaining clear opinions from the respondents, questionnaires and interviews in Vietnamese are the most suitable However, in the process of analyzing and reporting the results, the researcher tried

to translate all data into English to ensure the understanding and reliability of this study

There were 2 questionnaires used in this study: one was to find out the parental expectation (see Appendix 3 – in Vietnamese, 4 – in English) and the other was to demonstrate the children‟s English learning motivation (see Appendix 1 – in Vietnamese, 2 – in English) In terms of structure, both questionnaires consist of 2parts.The first part comprises parents and students‟ general information and the second part comprises 5-option, forced-choice Likert-type items asking students to select whether they strongly agreed, agreed, neutral, disagreed, or strongly disagreed (which are abbreviated by SA, A, N, D, and SD respectively) with each statement To be more specific, Appendix 1 – 2 shows the questionnaire comprising

of 30questions related to the topic of parental expectation and support, which were used for parents In details, this part was divided into smaller parts Questions from

1 to 10 were designed to find out what parental expectations are, in which the result

of analyzing is shown in Table 1 and Table 2 The rest were constructed to demonstrate how parents support their children‟s learning in terms of English Table

4, 5, 6, 7 and Chart 1 present the data analysis of the later part Similarly, Appendix

3 – 4shows the questionnaire including the 20 questions which measure the level of students‟ learning English motivation The special thing of this part is that it was designed to explore students‟ motivation basing on their interaction to parental expectations and support The result of analyzing data in this part is also revealed in Table 8

Further interviews with 5 parents and 5 students randomly selected from the respondents were also conducted to have a more comprehensive look at how the level of parental expectation and support affect their children‟s learning motivation

in English The questions for the interviews were also written in Vietnamese and translate into English afterwards (See Appendix 5, 6) Before implementing the interviews, the researcher presented the objectives and told the respondents to speak

in Vietnamese to make sure that they could express their thought in the clearest

way Regarding the content, the interview questions for parents are general at first But later, the researcher mainly focuses on finding the reasons for the choices that parents made in the questionnaire For example, after asking the parental

interviewees question 1:“What do you expect from your children’s learning

English?” the researcher would ask “Why do you have such expectations?

Meanwhile, interview questions for students are a little different from those for parents The questions are designed as open-formed ones so that students can show

their feelings and opinions in an easy and natural way For instance, “Do parents

allow you to learn extra English at a teacher’s house, at an English center, or hire

an English tutor for you? Is your English mark in class higher after learning there?”

In term of piloting, the questionnaires used for this survey directly delivered to

a sample of 20students and their 20 parents to get an insight into the possible issues such as comprehension of questionnaire items or response The researcher personally delivered the questionnaires to the students and parents The respondents were asked to do the trial questionnaire by attempting to answer the questions and

by writing comments on any problems they had, or any issues that occurred to them The presence of the researcher enabled the respondents to ask questions about the questionnaire or the task while they were doing it The purpose was to determine whether (a) the question items in the questionnaire were understood as intended, and (b) they were understood in the same way by all respondents It also aimed to pre-test the questions and items and to determine what was and was not working in the questionnaire In the current study, there were no problems for parents to understand the questionnaire However, for children, they misunderstood a term in

the questionnaire, which is “reference books.”However, this term cannot be

interpreted in another better word, then before officially distributing the questionnaire to children, the researcher explained the meaning of this term to make sure all of them were not confused any more

5 Data collection and analysis procedures

Copies of the final questionnaire were distributed to 90 students and 90 parents with the guide of the researcher The researcher spent two days delivering and collecting questionnaires from the students At first, the researcher delivered about 90 questionnaires to the students of 3 classes during their break time Although each class has about 30 students, the researcher did not issue all of 90 questionnaires to three classes because not all students in each class were willing to

do the survey Some students were busy doing their assignments or others went out for some personal reasons Moreover, due to the limitation of the break time or the noise from the outside of the class at break time, students could not do the survey carefully Therefore, the researcher decided to ask English teachers in the school for assistance and got the enthusiastic help from them I delivered questionnaires to students in an English period when all students were present All the students were willing to respond After that, the researcher proceeded to conduct further interviews to 5 students randomly

Distributing questionnaire to parents was a really big issue because their houses were at different regions outside school The research decided to have students give the questionnaires to their parents although some risky matters could

be predicted For example, students might forget or parents were not willing to join However, this problem was rapidly solved when an English teacher informed me of the event of “parental meeting” at the end of the first semester in December 2017 Taking advantage of this chance, the researcher asked the teachers – in – charge from 3 classes for help After getting the agreements, questionnaires were distributed smoothly All the parents from the two classes were willing to complete the questionnaires Once again, the researcher proceeded to conduct further interviews to 5 parents randomly

Then, the researcher collected all the distributed questionnaires They were analyzed carefully Because the data from the questionnaire was not complex, the researcher first calculated all the questionnaire items For the questionnaire of

finding out parental expectations and support, the researcher used Microsoft Excel

to change the numbers in each item into percentages All percentages were reported

as valid percentages with missing data excluded The tables showing in Chapter

4Findings and Discussion were created in Microsoft Word with the unit of percent

For the questionnaire of demonstrating children‟s English learning motivation, the data was analyzed using the SPSS program A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the level of children‟s learning motivation Such scale was used in the questionnaire to specify the level of the agreement or disagreement based on the following criteria:

3.68 – 5.00 High degree of Motivation

2.34 – 3.67 Moderate degree of Motivation

1.00 – 2.33 Low degree of Motivation

In summary, this chapter has shown the methodology applied in this research

by means of a questionnaire with elaborating questions for 90 students at grade 8 from Doan Thi Diem – Ecopark School and their 90 parents In the chapter, the process from collecting to analyzing data them is discussed All participants‟ confusions were clarified and their suggestion was also taken into consideration to make an amendment to the questionnaire The questionnaire‟s format and content were explained carefully in this chapter The results collected were then transferred into numerical forms and presented in tables This presentation of the methodology would help make the easier way for studying the next chapter

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, we will present the data which are analyzed carefully to find out levels of parental expectation and their support to their children‟s learning After that, children‟s learning-English motivation will be also demonstrated under the impact of expectation and support that they receive from their parents

1 Parental expectations

Nowadays, all parents have big expectation to their children‟s learning It is completely understandable when, in Vietnamese society, the concept of “If the children surpass their father, the home is blessed” has existed for a very long time

In other words, this concept reflects the fact that one of the factors making parents happy is children‟s success For fathers and mothers‟ thinking, academic achievement at school is the first token to show their children‟s success Therefore, the majority of parental expectation to their schooling kids is mainly for their academic accomplishment Nevertheless, parental expectation focuses not only on their children‟s learning results at school (short-term expectation), but on the success in life in the future such as participating in higher education, getting a good job, and so on (long-term expectation)

2 I want my child to learn English well to

improve his/her reading comprehension of

texts from 8 English course book

14.44 32.22 10 30 13.34

3 Learning English in class well helps my

child to enter an English gifted class at high

school

25.56 30 6.67 26.67 15.56

4 I want my child to learn English better than

the others in class, which makes me proud with

my friends and the society

31.11 21.11 7.78 24.44 15.56

The table 1 revealed that 100% of the respondents hoped their children to be able to get the good result in English The number of parents who expected their

children to read the texts from 8 English course book fluently is nearly equal to that

of parents opposing, at the rate of 46.66% and 43.34% respectively More than half

of respondents (55.56%) wanted their children to learn in a gifted English class at high school as compared to 42.23% of them who did not have such a desire Figures contained in the above table also showed that over 50% of parents strongly agreed

or agreed that they expected their children to learn English well, just with the aim of being proud with friends and the society

Based on the data from the table, we can see that getting a good result in English is the most common short-term parental expectation It is completely understandable when parents consider children as their asset Things parents expect from children are the success in life However, to a child, the most essential and important duty is studying For parents in general, then, success at school is exactly

a token of success in life As a consequence, parents all look forward to a good learning result in English from their children The second short-term parental expectation arising from the data is joining a gifted English class at high school The current situation shows that the competition to have a seat in an English class at

a famous gifted school is more and more difficult, which requires students need to

be well-prepared for both knowledge and skills Because of the fact that, at the period of grade 8, students still learn passively, parents keep the role of reminding and urging them to learn A noticeable thing was also revealed from the data that the reason for expecting children to learn better in the short time comes from parents‟ self-esteem There is an increasing trend among parents when they make a comparison between their children and others‟ If their children are better at learning, then that will be an evidence to show their pride in general and their self-esteem in particular In that case, they can show their kids‟ achievement off and feel proud of their children and themselves This is easily explained as a result of the psychological parental development

Long-term expectations

Table 2: Long-term expectations from parents

5 I expect my child to learn English well to

have early access to foreign knowledge 37.78 17.78 4.44 25.56 14.44

6 I expect my child to be able to communicate

with native speakers well 45.56 31.11 1.11 15.56 6.66

7 Learning English well is the only chance

that helps my child study abroad 25.56 18.89 16.67 34.44 4.44

8 Learning English well is the only good door

for my child to get higher education and have a

good job

The table 2 shows the long-term expectation from parents to their children‟s English learning The long-term parental expectations are clearly shown by 4 items: expectation of approaching to foreign knowledge, expectation for good communication with native speakers, expectation for studying overseas, expectation for higher education and good job Specifically, as can be seen from the table, 100%

of the respondents advocated that English is the key to succeed in higher education and have a good job in the future It is not difficult to understand because, according

to fathers and mothers, having a good job will guarantee children a brighter future

in their life Beside that, 76.67% of the parents expected their children to be able to communicate with foreigners fluently while 22.22% of the parents opposed this view The proportion of parents who want their children to access to foreign knowledge as soon as possible and have a seat at a school outside the country accounts for 55.56% and 44.45% respectively It can be said that more and more parents want to send their children to study in a foreign country

2 Parental support

As analyzed above, it can be obviously undeniable that any parents have extremely high expectation to their children‟s future The problem is whether or not their children meet their expectation at present and in the future It probably depends on several factors, but in this study, we just would like to have a

comprehensive look from parents‟ position to find out what they have done to help children live up to their expectation

In any family, parents play an unavoidably important role in educating their children In spite of the fact that each of the families has a particular method of education, they all have the same objective that their kids will grow up under the great intelligence and a good moral background, which help those kids become good factors contributing to the development of family in particular and society in general To achieve this mission, parents try their best to assist and invest to their children‟s learning under various aspects This chapter will make an attempt to

discuss parental concerns and support in terms of Learning processing investment and Learning processing management

2.1 Learning processing investment

2.1.1Material support from parents

Beside the development of economy, education also witnesses continuous changes This, of course, forces parents to change their educational concepts They realize that to help their children gain the foreseeable academic and life success, studying in an advanced and pleasant school environment is really essential Hence, parents are always ready to have financial investment with the want that their children can receive the best educational condition, which makes the way for current good learning and getting higher education or a good job in the future

Support by investing in extra learning

Chart 1: parental support by investing in extra learning

As can be seen from the chart, the majority of parents make a registration for their children to learn at an English center (76 out of 90) 69 parents have children

to learn at an English teacher‟s house Tutoring also experiences the same situation when nearly 60 parents are ready to hire an English tutor to assist their children in learning English The surprising thing is that among the number of parents mentioned in the data, there are nearly 40 parents investing in all extra learning methods It demonstrates a trend that a majority of parents are aware of the importance of finding a good school environment for their children as well as try to create the best learning condition so that children can have enough opportunity to enhance their ability of learning English in the most effective way Definitely, the amount of financial investment is not small However, most parents are not reluctant to use this amount of money When being asked the cost of learning English outside the school, a mother replied (See Appendix 5, 6):

Nowadays, if there is no extra learning English, how can he keep up with his friends in the class? How can he look for a good job in this society in the future? In addition, I see other

Extra learning at an English center

Extra learning at teachers' house

Tutoring