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Article

Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs) in Children’s Learning: Construction and Validation

by
Yael Grinshtain
1,2,
Gal Harpaz
3 and
Yosi Yaffe
2,*
1
Department of Education, The Open University of Israel, Raanana 4353701, Israel
2
Department of Education, Tel-Hai College, Qiryat Shemona 1220800, Israel
3
Department of Education and Psychology, The Open University of Israel, Raanana 4353701, Israel
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(4), 363; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040363
Submission received: 1 March 2023 / Revised: 27 March 2023 / Accepted: 29 March 2023 / Published: 31 March 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cognitive and Emotional Aspects of Academic Performance)
Browse Figure
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
Parental involvement in the education and learning processes of children in general has become central in the last few decades. Following this involvement, the home arena is considered highly influential in providing a supportive environment for children’s learning processes. Help-giving orientations of parents to their children in relation to homework and learning assignments can be crucial for the children’s futures. According to the Help Relations theory regarding the two main orientations—dependent versus autonomy help (dependent help-giving rather than autonomy help), prevents opportunities to develop autonomous coping abilities in future. The Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale was designed to measure parental help to their children in learning at home. In Study 1, eleven experts evaluated orientations of parental help-giving that emerged from interviews. In Study 2 (n = 255), exploratory factor analyses (EFA) indicated four reliable factors: autonomic, dependent reminder, dependent partner, and dependent student. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in Study 3 in an independent sample of parents (n = 303) exhibited a good model-fit of the data and demonstrated measurement invariance across parental gender. The scale can be used to measure individual differences in orientations in help-seeking among mothers and fathers.

1. Introduction

1.1. Parental Involvement in the Home Arena

Parental involvement has been widely examined in recent decades, in both the school and the home arenas [1,2,3,4]. Epstein’s model suggests six dimensions of involvement [5,6], two of which focus on the home arena: parenting and learning at home. Parenting highlights the ways in which parents provide a supportive home environment to help their children’s learning, while learning at home focuses on how parents help their children with diverse learning assignments. Previous studies have indicated the importance of these dimensions for building parenting capacity; encouraging learning-at-home activities; and enhancing a strong relationship between the two parties: the home and the school arenas [7,8,9,10].
The dominance and significance of parental involvement in the home arena was particularly increased as a result of a rapid and unpredicted process—the COVID-19 pandemic—which broke out in 2020 and was characterized by lockdowns and quarantine [11]. Thus, the home arena became highly central in providing a supportive environment and in parents’ involvement in their children’s learning processes [12,13,14,15,16,17]. One of the main characteristics of the home arena is the help parents give their children in various areas of learning, such as homework [18,19,20] and studying for exams [21]. Yet, in general, while parental involvement is considered positive and beneficial, helping at home with homework does not necessarily ensure students’ academic success [22,23]. It seems that it is the quality and type of help offered which is beneficial, rather than the help itself, which is not enough on its own [20,24]. Thus, the orientations of help-giving are crucial for achieving motivation and success among students.

1.2. Help-Giving Orientations

The suggested development and validation of the Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale is based on the theoretical framework of Nadler [25,26], distinguishing between autonomy versus dependent helping relations. Autonomy help-giving means assistance in providing tools, guidance, and support in the independent coping of the recipient of the help. It strengthens the coping abilities of the recipient of the help in future challenges [25]. On the other hand, dependent help-giving means providing the final solution of the problem for the recipient of the help. This type of help does not contribute to the development of independent abilities and harms the recipient’s future ability to deal with challenges [26].
Previous studies have dealt with intergroup helping relationships in the educational context (for parents and teachers, see [27,28]; for students and teachers, see [29]; for parents and children, see [28]. While help-seeking has been broadly addressed (e.g., [30,31,32], less attention has been given, to the best of our knowledge, to the type of help that parents give their children in the educational context. An exploratory qualitative study conducted among Israeli teachers focused on the help with homework that parents give their children [33]. It was found that parents broadly used different types of dependent help-giving, rather than autonomy help. Providing long-term dependent help impairs the recipient’s learning and development process and prevents opportunities to develop autonomous coping abilities in future [25,29,34,35].
Past research indicates two main areas in the literature on providing help. The first is a body of research that investigates the relationship between family-centered help-giving practices and parent, family, and child behavior and functioning (e.g., a meta-analysis of 47 studies, [36]). This line of research focuses on studies dealing with systemic interventions for the benefit of families dealing with different types of distress, populations at risk, children with developmental delays, and more. The second main area in the literature on providing help is literature from the field of the social psychology of helping relations: in this field, measurement of help-giving focuses on laboratory studies and not self-report studies and, in recent years, has dealt extensively with helping relations between groups as power relations (e.g., [35,37]).
The present study focuses on parental help-giving; the research described above was not directly focused on parental help-giving to their child in the educational context. Thus, focusing on different parental help-giving orientations can deepen the understanding regarding learning processes among children as shaped by their parents in the home arena. The current research is aimed at mapping and conceptualizing the help-giving orientations of parents in their children’s learning activities at home in the broader context of interpersonal parental dimensions. Its specific objectives are to develop and validate the content and structure of a Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale (PHGOs), using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses. Thus, the main research questions are: (1) What are the different patterns of help that parents give their children in learning processes at home, and what are the characteristics of each pattern of help? (2) Is there a distinction between the different patterns of help, and how is this distinction reflected in the factorial structure of the questionnaire (i.e., in the questionnaire’s measurement scales)? Upon reaching a model structure that describes the data well (i.e., in terms of adequate model-fit), we also aim to test the PHGO scales against external parent-child relation variables and to discriminate their measurement from social desirability. For that purpose, a series of three studies was conducted. Each study was an independent and separate process [38], as further described and elaborated.

2. Method

The development and validation of the scale was conducted as a process of three separate studies (for the full description, see Table 1). Study 1 focused on the classification of the items in the scale by experts [39,40]. Study 2 and Study 3 focused on an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as is presented further.

Participants in Studies 2–3

The samples used in Study 2 (below, Sample 1) and Study 3 (below, Sample 2) were independent, as they were used for separate factorial analyses. Participants in both samples were Jewish, Hebrew-literate parents, who have at least one child in elementary school. The questionnaires were delivered in the Hebrew language and were translated by a professional translator to English for the purposes of international publication.
The sample was collected in January 2022, by I panel—the largest online panel in Israel, based on over 100,000 paid members from various socioeconomic clusters and backgrounds—which adheres to the international guidelines and standards of ESOMAR concerning credibility and control. Convenience sampling was used, including parents who were available and who volunteered to participate in the research study. All of the participants gave their informed consent after receiving from the researchers the full details of the study, including its purpose, the procedures, possible risks and benefits, and their ability to withdraw and refuse to participate any time with no penalty [41].

3. Study 1: Building the Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale

Four orientations of parental help-giving were measured in the current research. For each of the four orientations, 6–12 items were generated, based on theoretical knowledge [25,26], and thematic analysis of 24 interviews with parents and teachers was conducted. The analysis was conducted in an initial deductive step, followed by an inductive step. Based on the deductive analysis employing Nadler’s theory, two main patterns of help-giving were identified in the interviews—autonomy help and dependent help. Subsequently, on the basis of an inductive analysis based on the field and the interviews with teachers and parents, three patterns of dependent help-giving emerged, reflecting an extension of the existing theory: parent as a reminder, parent as a partner, and parent as a student (for the main dimensions of the thematic analysis, see Appendix A). This process yielded an initial pool of 42 items. A total of eleven experts from the fields of education and psychology, who are engaged in researching and teaching aspects related to parenting, were asked to give their opinion on the suitability of the items formulated for measuring the various help-giving orientations at home. The procedure was conducted in two rounds. In the first round, three experts classified each of the 42 items according to one of the four helping orientations. For the structure validation stage, items upon which at least two out of three experts agreed were re-formulated. At this stage, 12 items were discarded, six were rephrased, and four new items were generated, reducing the total amount to 34 items. In the second round, eight experts gave their opinion regarding the 34 items. Only items that achieved consent among at least five of the eight experts were re-formulated. At the end of this round, 11 items were discarded and four were rephrased, reducing the total number of items to 23, which was the final number of items in the questionnaire delivered to parents. The 23 items were presented on a 6-point scale which ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), aimed at providing more gradated choices [41].

4. Study 2

4.1. Methods

4.1.1. Participants

Sample 1 consisted of 255 parents (127 fathers and 128 mothers) whose ages ranged from 27 to 59 (Mage = 41.56, SD = 6.47). The majority of the sample’s parents were married (about 89.4%) and the rest were either single parents (about 2.7%) or divorced (about 7.5%). More than 80% of this sample’s parents reported at least 13 years of schooling.

4.1.2. Measures

The Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale (PHGOs) with 23 items.

4.2. Results

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In order to test the instrument’s factorial structure, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using the principal component method with Varimax rotations. The EFA was employed with an initial 23-item instrument in a sample of 255 parents, after verifying its adequacy for factor analysis using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sample size adequacy (KMO = 0.86) [42] and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (χ2(253) = 2525.32, p < 0.001). Both indications met the minimal standards for conducting a factor analysis [43]. The EFA yielded two comparable solutions (4-factor and 5-factor solutions), with their factors explaining a similar proportion of the models’ variance (of approximately 61.5%). The 5-factor solution was discarded, since its fifth factor contained just two items that explained a small proportion of model’s variance. Conversely, the 4-factor solution presented a more balanced factorial composition that better described the model’s conceptual dimensions, and was therefore favored. We also used a principal factoring EFA with oblique rotation, which did not significantly improve or change the four-factor solution; thus, the current orthogonal solution was preserved, as possible when two strategies yield similar factorial solutions [44].
As a rule [45], items loaded above 0.40 on a single factor were retained for further factor analysis with a separate sample. Accordingly, two items were excluded from the original model for small item-loading on a factor (“I sometimes feel very frustrated with the feedback my child gets on her/his assignments because I was involved in their preparation” (item 22); “My child doesn’t do homework and assignments at home unless I’m involved and take part in their preparation” (item 23). Three items were also excluded for simultaneous significant loading on more than one factor (“I often remind my child about the learning assignments s/he has to complete” (item 4); “I enter the feedback system to check what assignments/tasks my child was given and then draw her/his attention to it” (item 13); “I usually sit with my child while preparing learning assignments that need guidance or help from an adult” (item 14). The parsimonious 4-factor solution with 18 items is displayed in Table 2, after excluding five items from the original instrument using these statistical considerations and rerunning the factor analysis on the remaining items. Based on the items’ themes in each factor, the model’s four scales were conceptualized according to the salient type of parental help-giving orientation and named: Partner, Student, Autonomy, and Reminder.

5. Study 3

5.1. Methods

5.1.1. Participants and Procedure

Sample 2 consisted of 303 parents (148 fathers and 155 mothers), whose ages ranged from 28 to 59 (Mage = 40.06, SD = 5.89). Of the sample’s participants, the majority of parents were married (about 89%) and the rest were either single parents (about 4%) or divorced (about 7%). The distribution of the participants’ education was as follows: about 20% reported up to 12 years of schooling, 34% reported 13–15 years of schooling, and the rest reported above 15 years of schooling. Participants simultaneously completed the 18-item PHGOs and the validity indexes detailed below (i.e., the PCRI scales and the Social Desirability scale).

5.1.2. Measures (PHGOs and Validity Indexes)

Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs). The 18-item PHGOs with four hypothesized factors.
Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI). The instrument assesses parents’ attitudes toward parenting and toward their children, originally designed as a complementary clinical evaluation for families [46]. The full instrument consists of 78 items, divided by factor analysis and expert ratings into 7 content scales. For the purpose of validating the PHGOs scales, we used 4 of the PCRI scales: parental satisfaction (e.g., “I regret having children”; α = 0.85), communication (e.g., “My child tells me all about his or her friends”; α = 0.81), involvement (e.g., “I feel very close to my child”; α = 0.80), and limit-setting (e.g., “I have trouble disciplining my child”; α = 0.77).
The Marlowe Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). A scale that measures the level of social desirability bias, which refers to the need to respond in culturally sanctioned ways [47] was used. The Marlowe Crowne Social Desirability Scale is a 33-item model, with true/false choices dichotomously scored, with a 1 indicating a socially desirable response, which is a “true” for the 18 socially desirable items (e.g., “Before voting, I thoroughly investigate the qualifications of all the candidates”) and a “false” for the 15 socially undesirable items (“It is sometimes hard for me to go on with my work if I am not encouraged”). A = 0.75.

5.2. Results

5.2.1. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

In this section, the 4-factor solution with 18 items was tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to ascertain a model-fit in a larger sample of parents (n = 303). The AMOS 16 program was used to conduct the CFA analyses and to test the scales’ measurement invariance. Upon testing the items’ fit, three items were discarded at this stage (Autonomy–A9; Partner–A18; Reminder–A16), as their 15 loadings on the hypothesized factors were poor and attenuated the model’s overall fit. Also, we avoided a possible distortion of the real structure of the data by allowing errors to correlate [48]. Figure 1 describes the final 4-scale model with 15 items of the Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale, along with its fit-indices elaborated below.
As Figure 1 indicates, all of the observed variables in the 4-factor model are loaded significantly (at <0.01%) on their hypothesized latent factors, with their loading sizes ranging from 0.49 to 0.89. Further, despite the significant chi-square value and the borderline RMSEA value, in general, the model exhibits acceptable fit indices, with its CFI, TLI, and NFI values all exceeding the threshold of 0.90, and the SRMR index reaching below the value of 0.80 [49,50,51].

5.2.2. Measurement Invariance across Parental Gender

The model in Figure 1 was tested for measurement invariance for mothers and fathers. Measurement invariance across gender was examined by dividing the full sample into two subgroups of 148 fathers and 155 mothers. On scaling the participants’ years of schooling into ordinal 4-point scales, there were no statistically significant differences between the two parental gender groups in level of education (χ2(3) = 2.35, p = 0.53). We did record, however, significant differences in their mean age (Mean difference = 3.02; t(301) = 4.59, p < 0.001). Yet, since the instrument’s scales were principally not correlated with the parental age, we retained the sample sizes as is, while not matching the groups by this variable prior to testing the model’s measurement invariance. Table 3 presents the fit indices for the configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, generally exhibiting an adequate fit for all three invariance models with regard to the PHGOs measurements across gender. Specifically, under the model’s multi-group analysis, all model-fit indices do not fall below the 0.90 threshold, indicating a good model-fit at three invariance levels (that is, three levels of model constraint). Also, the chi-square values of the differences between the models were statistically insignificant for the metric and the scalar invariance models, both indicating a measurement indifference between mothers and fathers. Consistently, the model-fit change in the CFI and the RMSEA indices between the invariance models were all <0.01, indicating no significant decrease as a result of the imposition of equality constraints between models [52]. Taken together, we concluded that the findings support measurement invariance of the PHGOs across gender at the three levels of invariance.

5.2.3. Concurrent Validity and General Psychometric Properties

The final scores of the instrument’s scales are displayed in Table 4, along with the scales’ internal consistence reliability index and their association with numerous related parental constructs. Apart from the borderline Alpha coefficient recorded in the Autonomy scale, the three other scales exhibited adequate reliability indices, especially given the scales’ small number of items. To further establish the instrument’s construct validity, we tested the PHGO scales against the parents’ concurrent reports of their parent-child relationship in the family using the four PCRI scales: parental satisfaction, communication, involvement, and limit-setting. As mentioned earlier, the PCRI is a family diagnostical tool originally designed for clinical purposes, which can also be used in other contexts, including research settings [46,53]. Consistent with our expectations, we obtained positive significant correlations of small to moderate sizes between the PHGOs’ autonomy and reminder scales and all four PCRI scales. A moderate negative significant correlation between the PHGOs’ student scale and the four PCRI scales was also found. Apart from the partner scale, which was not correlated with the PCRI scales, these findings reinforce the validity of the current scale as a measure of parent-child relations.

5.2.4. Examining the Relationship between the PHGOs and Social Desirability

Ultimately, since parents’ self-reports of their help-giving orientations toward their children’s educational assignments at home might be affected by their social desirability motivations, it is essential to determine whether the PHGOs are vulnerable to the effects of the latter variable. To that end, we tested the parents’ scores on the PHGO scales against their corresponding reports on a social desirability scale. Social desirability refers to one’s tendency to distort self-presentation according to socially desirable standards and is normally used in test development to measure the association between a tested scale and social desirability responses as part of validation procedures [54]. The correlations recorded in the current sample between the PHGOs’ “autonomy”, “reminder”, “partner”, and “student” scales and the social desirability scale were 0.11 (p = 0.052), 0.03 (p = 0.56), 0.05 (p = 0.43), and −0.09 (p = 0.11), respectively, principally affirming that the PHGOs’ measurements are not affected by social desirability.

6. General Discussion

The present research reported the development and validation of the Parental Help-Giving Orientations scale (PHGOs), a new scale aimed at assessing patterns of parental help-giving in regard to their children’s learning in the home arena. The resulted scale consisted of 15 items that composed one factor of autonomy help-giving and three factors of dependent help-giving: parent as a reminder, partner, and student. The meanings of the developed scale can be discussed both theoretically and methodology.
Theoretically, the importance of learning at home and the role of parents in this learning has been extensively studied and its contributions have been presented in numerous studies [18,20]. The current study enhances the importance of the meaning and role of parents in helping with homework and learning at home processes [17,21]. Particularly, the study highlights the phenomena of dependent help-giving that is expressed in the conduct of the parents in various ways, from a relatively limited level of creating dependence, such as the parent as a reminder, to involvement that creates great dependency, such as the parent as a student who performs the tasks for the child.
These help-giving orientations are liable to be more significant against the background of the COVID-19 crisis, which has made the home arena not only more central to distance learning processes, but sometimes almost the only arena for learning processes [13,14]. Therefore, it is important, even in the post-COVID period, to illustrate the different meanings of the help provided by parents, while emphasizing the implications of this help for both parents and their children in the short and long term.
Receiving autonomous help has clear advantages in these two channels. Autonomy help grows and helps develop the child’s ability to cope with similar problems and challenges in the future, while, at the same time, it strengthens their sense of self-efficacy and self-worth, as a result of increasing independence and the ability to cope personally and successfully with the challenges [28,35,55]. On the other hand, receiving dependent help from the parent, in which the child actually does not cope with the challenge on his/her own, is less likely to help over time in developing future coping abilities [32] and, in addition, impairs the development of a sense of self-efficacy and self-worth, and does not encourage independence [26,34].
When it comes to the educational field, the child’s ability to cope with tasks on his/her own is important and constitutes a basis for the learning processes at school. Also, with regard to the relationship between the helper and the recipient, in the current study, which focused on the parent-child relationship, there is significance in establishing a dependency relationship between parent and child, over time, in fostering the child’s expectations of receiving this type of assistance, and in the implications of this assistance relationship for the future of the relationship in adolescence and adulthood. A follow-up study that focuses on the parent-child relationship in the context of homework and learning at home will be able to examine these ideas.
Methodologically, several strengths can be mentioned regarding the process of the scale development and validation and its results. First, the items of the scale were formulated based on a thematic analysis of interviews and relied on eleven experts who separately evaluated each item as it related to its theoretical meaning. Second, the scale was tested in two separate, large, independent samples, allowing us to identify and confirm its structure using EFA and CFA in two statistically consecutive stages. In this regard, the hypothesized four-dimensional construct of parental help-giving orientation (that is, autonomy, dependent reminder, dependent partner, and dependent student) found support in the data in the form of good model-fit and gender measurement equivalence. Finally, the construct measured by the scale was tested against five fundamental variables of parent-child relationship, establishing the scale’s validity as a measure of parent-child relations in the home arena. Moreover, examining the relationship between PHGOs and social desirability, the scale confirmed that the PHGOs’ measurements are not affected by social desirability.

7. Conclusions

Help-giving orientations of parents to their children in the home arena can be viewed as part of the general phenomena of parental involvement. Following the two main orientations—autonomy and dependent help—a scale of 15 items was developed in the current study. The scale demonstrates the measurement of autonomy help by three items, and dependent help by 12 items, which include three sub-types: Parent as a reminder, parent as a partner, and parent as a student. Emphasizing diverse types of dependent help demonstrates the elaboration of the general dependent help orientation and can be used in future studies as further described. The final scale (see Appendix B) is based on well-designed constructs and content that were both theoretically and methodology established and demonstrated. The practical implications of the newly developed and validated scale can be relevant for educators, clinicians, parents, and students. The scale can be used among families with children at risk of academic failure, or among families from diverse cultural backgrounds. It can also estimate the influence of the help-giving orientations for predicting short- and long-term learning behaviors in both K-12 and higher educational systems.

8. Limitations of the Study

Several limitations can be described regarding the current study. First, the data collection was carried out in Israel, which is characterized as a particular culture. Broader attention is required, both for different sectors within Israeli society and the distinctions between them, and for references to cultures in different countries around the world. Second, in the present study, a preliminary examination was conducted of the factorial structure of the questionnaire and the psychometric characteristics of its scales against the hypothetical dimensions included in the theoretical structure of the field of parental help-giving to their child in the educational tasks at home. Further validation of the questionnaire requires further examination of the quality of the model reflected in the factorial structure of the tool through a separate sample of parents.

9. Future Directions

Several steps will be beneficial for further establishing the scale’s construct validity. First, other similar or diverse constructs should be examined. For example, over-parenting, or “helicopter parents”, can be regarded as additional alternative tools that differ from the scale in the current research. Second, the scale could be examined in different cultures and populations. In Israel, for example, the scale could be validated in Arab and Jewish ethnicities. From an international perspective, the scale could be examined in different countries, establishing cross-cultural patterns of parental help-giving with respect to children’s learning assignments in the home arena. Finally, as help-giving can influence both children and parents, it could be used to predict variables whose influence could be measured in both the school and the home arena. Considering the situation that COVID created, and the increasing phenomenon of learning at home, the meaning and the influence of diverse help-giving orientations is particularly relevant.
The instrument in its final form can be used for future research in at least three main research directions; first, to understand the relationship between the type of help the parent gives the child and the child’s academic achievement and functioning in the specific field in which help is provided, as well as in other areas of learning. This direction can be examined both through academic achievement and through teachers’ reports on the degree of independence, sense of competence, and commitment to student learning. A second research direction can focus on parent-child relationships dealing with other aspects; for example, the assessment of the child’s abilities by the parent, the relationship between the type of help the parent provides and the child’s unique characteristics and special needs, and other parental characteristics. Finally, as the help-giving orientations can be based on the motives for responsibility that are complex and can be both intrinsic and extrinsic [28], future studies can deepen the connections between the parents’ motives and the help-giving orientations.
The research can highlight the importance of the quality of help that parents give their children. While this research focuses on parental conduct and patterns, creating a body of knowledge will lay the foundations for future research examining the implications of these variables for the students, their achievements, and ways of learning, as a result of different help-giving orientations.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, Y.G. and G.H.; methodology, Y.G., G.H. and Y.Y.; software, Y.Y.; validation, Y.Y.; formal analysis, Y.Y.; investigation, Y.G. and G.H.; resources, Y.G. and G.H.; data curation, Y.Y.; writing—original draft preparation, Y.G. and G.H.; writing—review and editing, Y.G., G.H. and Y.Y.; visualization, Y.G.; supervision, Y.G.; project administration, Y.G., G.H. and Y.Y.; funding acquisition, Y.G. and G.H. All authors have read and agree to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by The Open University of Israel’s Research Fund (grant no. 41415).

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Open University of Israel (ref. 3356).

Informed Consent Statement

Written informed consent has been obtained from the patient(s) to publish this paper.

Data Availability Statement

Upon reasonable request.

Conflicts of Interest

The author declared no potential conflict of interests with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Appendix A. The Themes, Segments, and Statements’ Examples

Themes
(Deductive Analysis)		Sub-Themes
(Inductive Analysis)		SegmentsExamples of Statements
Autonomy
help		Providing assistance, giving
directions, transferring
responsibility to the child,
providing tools		“I really like to show him how to do things on his own, to provide academic skills that will help him in general, not specifically. But I’m not a professional at it” (Omer, parent)
“Homework today, the way it’s delivered, can’t really change students’ thinking. This does not encourage them to be autonomous learners, to manage their time and priorities, and to be able to apply the learning process in their real life” (Rona, teacher)
Dependent helpParent as
reminder		Checking, reminding, asking
regularly, following
the instructions		“I remind him all the time because I think it’s important. I see that it helps him” (Majed, parent)
“A student comes to tell me that his parents work late, and sometimes he forgets to do his homework. This is important for the child” (Shula, Teacher)
Parent as
partner		Doing homework together,
sitting with the children,
sharing time, being with
the child		“They don’t sit alone. Usually, they need us with them. It’s like a contract between us—‘If I come, you’ll come’” (Zohar, Parent)
“Sometimes a student tells me, ‘I didn’t do my homework because no one was available (or at home) to do it with me’” (Rowan, teacher)
Parent as
student		Doing homework for
child, taking responsibility
instead of the child,
improving the child’s
work		“They (the teachers) give difficult assignments, beyond his ability. It’s easier for me to do that and show him what I’ve done” (Nurit, parent)
“I know when a parent did their homework. When I talk to the child, he tells me: ‘We didn’t have time,’ or ‘My parents were in a hurry’” (Hagit, teacher)

Appendix B. The 15 Items of Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs)

Item No.The ItemThe Help-Giving Orientation
1I do the homework instead of my child.Student
2When my child has difficulty with learning assignments, I answer the questions instead.Student
3I’m actively involved in preparing learning assignments together with my child.Partner
4I usually sit with my child when s/he is doing homework.Partner
5When my child has homework, we sit down together to prepare it, and go over the material taught in class.Partner
6My child prefers to do homework in my presence, so I can be involved in preparing it.Partner
7When my child has a big project, I try and do it myself.Student
8I check on WhatsApp and in emails for messages about homework and make sure that my child indeed did the homework.Reminder
9When I sit down with my child who has homework to do, ultimately, it’s me who does most of the work.Student
10If my child has difficulty solving a question or exercise, I try to give them tools that can help them cope better alone.Autonomy
11I help/assist my child in guiding and developing skills, as long as s/he copes independently with the educational tasks.Autonomy
12In areas where I’m stronger, I answer the questions instead of my child.Student
13I don’t prepare assignments and tasks instead of my child, but I do make sure they are done on time.Reminder
14It’s important for me that my child works independently, so if necessary, I provide explanations that will lead her/him towards handling tasks independently.Autonomy
15I make sure that my child does everything they must do academically, even if it means repeatedly asking my child about the subject.Reminder

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Education 13 00363 g001 550
Figure 1. Description of the 4-factor model of the PHGOs: Latent factors, indicator variables, and factor loadings; Estimates are significant at 0.1%. Model-fit indices: χ2 = 173.88, p = 0.001, χ2/df = 2.07; normed fit index [NFI] = 0.910; Tucker–Lewis fit index [TLI] = 0.938; comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.950, root mean square of error approximation [RMSEA] = 0.060; standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.059.
Figure 1. Description of the 4-factor model of the PHGOs: Latent factors, indicator variables, and factor loadings; Estimates are significant at 0.1%. Model-fit indices: χ2 = 173.88, p = 0.001, χ2/df = 2.07; normed fit index [NFI] = 0.910; Tucker–Lewis fit index [TLI] = 0.938; comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.950, root mean square of error approximation [RMSEA] = 0.060; standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.059.
Education 13 00363 g001
Table
Table 1. The research model.
Table 1. The research model.
DescriptionAnalysisRelevant VariablesParticipants
Study 1
Development and content validation of questionnaire by experts

Content analysis
Help-giving
orientations

Eleven experts in the education and/or
psychology disciplines
Study 2
Identification of the factorial structure of the parental help-giving orientations scale (PHGOs)
Exploratory factor analyses (EFA)
Help-giving
orientations

255 parents (Sample 1)
Study 3
Testing of the PHGOs model-fit, gender measurement invariance, and concurrent validity against related parenting variables; Testing the scales’
susceptibility to social desirability
Confirmatory (CFA) factor analysesGender,
parent-children
relations, social
desirability		303 parents
(Sample 2)
Table
Table 2. Factor loadings with Varimax rotation for the 18 items with four-factor solution.
Table 2. Factor loadings with Varimax rotation for the 18 items with four-factor solution.
Item Number and ContentFactor 1
Partner		Factor 2
Student		Factor 3
Autonomy		Factor 4
Reminder
6. When my child has homework, we sit down together to prepare it, and go over the material taught in class. 0.874
5. I usually sit with my child when s/he is doing homework. 0.866
3. I’m actively involved in preparing learning assignments together with my child. 0.745
7. My child prefers to do homework in my presence, so I can be involved in preparing it. 0.735
18. I believe that preparing learning assignments together is a form of quality time shared by me and my child.0.599
11. When I sit down with my child who has homework to do, ultimately, it’s me who does most of the work. 0.858
2. When my child has difficulty with learning assignments, I answer the questions instead. 0.788
8. When my child has a big project, I try and do it myself. 0.746
1. I do the homework instead of my child. 0.746
17. In areas where I’m stronger, I answer the questions instead of my child. 0.693
12. If my child has difficulty solving a question or exercise, I try to give them tools that can help them cope better alone. 0.782
9. It’s important for me to strengthen in my child the academic skills that will help them tackle learning assignments or homework alone. 0.754
20. It’s important for me that my child work independently, so if necessary, I provide explanations that will lead her/him towards handling tasks independently. 0.745
15. I help/assist my child in guiding and developing skills, as long as s/he copes independently with the educational tasks. 0.697
10. I check on WhatsApp and in emails for messages about homework and make sure that my child indeed did the homework 0.683
19. I don’t prepare assignments and tasks instead of my child, but I do make sure they are done on time. 0.639
16. I ask friends/other parents from the class about tasks that had to be done at home and compare their child’s performance with mine. 0.591
21. I make sure that my child does everything they must do academically, even if it means repeatedly asking my child about the subject. 0.556
% Variance18.99%18.45%14.77%9.36%
Eigenvalue3.423.322.561.69
Table
Table 3. Model-fit indices of measurement invariance for the PHGOs across gender.
Table 3. Model-fit indices of measurement invariance for the PHGOs across gender.
Modelχ2 (df)χ2 /dfRMSEA (90% CI)TLICFIComparison Δ χ2ΔCFI
M1: Configural invariance
279.81 * (168)1.670.05 (0.04–0.06)0.9240.939---
M2: Metric invariance
293.47 * (179)1.640.05 (0.04–0.06)0.9270.937M1, M213.660.002
M3: Scalar invariance316.83 * (194)1.630.05 (0.04–0.06)0.9270.933M3, M223.370.004
Note: χ2 Chi-square, df degrees of freedom, RMSEA root mean square error of approximation; TLI Tucker–Lewis fit index, CFI comparative fit index.* p < 0.001.
Table
Table 4. Means (SD), reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha), and the correlations between the PHGO scales and external variables.
Table 4. Means (SD), reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha), and the correlations between the PHGO scales and external variables.
POHGs
PCRIAutonomyReminder PartnerStudent
Satisfaction0.36 **0.25 **0.08−0.30 **
Involvement0.40 **0.25 **0.11−0.34 **
Communication 0.36 **0.19 **0.06−0.35 **
Limit-Setting0.36 **0.17 *−0.14 *−0.40 **
Mean4.874.393.781.93
SD0.820.971.180.85
Cronbach’s Alpha0.650.780.870.83
* p ≤ 0.05, ** p ≤ 0.001.
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Grinshtain, Y.; Harpaz, G.; Yaffe, Y. Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs) in Children’s Learning: Construction and Validation. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 363. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040363

AMA Style

Grinshtain Y, Harpaz G, Yaffe Y. Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs) in Children’s Learning: Construction and Validation. Education Sciences. 2023; 13(4):363. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040363

Chicago/Turabian Style

Grinshtain, Yael, Gal Harpaz, and Yosi Yaffe. 2023. "Parental Help-Giving Orientations Scale (PHGOs) in Children’s Learning: Construction and Validation" Education Sciences 13, no. 4: 363. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040363

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