INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Vol. 5. No. 6. November, 2013

C. Kilic. Parents opinions of the pre-school education concerning pre-school education institutions. International Journal
of Academic Research Part B; 2013; 5(6), 37-40. DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-6/B.7

PARENTS OPINIONS OF THE PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

CONCERNING PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
Cigdem Kilic
Abant Izzet Baysal University, Faculty of Education, Bolu (TURKEY)
cgdmklc@gmail.com
DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2013/5-6/B.7
ABSTRACT
This research aims to analyze the opinions of the parents concerning pre-school education whose children
are currently being educated in center-based institutions. In the research, individual survey was conducted in 4
different pre-school education institution during 2012-13 education year, in the province of Bolu for the parents
whose children were currently being educated in those four different education centers and the outcome was
analysed via quantitative research model. The workgroup of the research is made up of 211 parents having
children in 3 independent kindergartens managed by Ministry of National Education and a primary school in Bolu.
Percent (%) and the frequency (f) of the data collected were analyzed. The relationship between independent
variables and some questions were analyzed using ANOVA test. Post-hoc Scheffe test was applied to determine
in which subgroups of the independent variables those correlations existed. According to research findings, in
general, parents of the children who are currently in pre-school education do have positive opinions about preschool institutions.
Key words: Early Childhood Education, Parents in Early Childhood Education, Turkish Early Childhood
Education
1. INTRODUCTION
The importance and value of education in the early years of life have been acknowledged for more than
2.000 years ago. Relatively recent factors such as rising cost of living, emergence of single-parent household and
the call by many proffesionals who advocated for the rights of children no doubt stressed the need for preschool
education (Rahman, et. al., 2012). A lot of scientits pay their attention to the education field today. Attention is
mostly concentrated in the early childhood and preschool education system as the first step of the general
education system.
Preschool education is the foundation of childrens education. It is a vital aspect of a childs learning and
development. Early childhood is the most important stage in the development of an individual. At this stage, the
attitude and aptitude is developed, that will influence their later life.
In 20th century, as a result of industrial society, in many developed countries, due to mothers early
involvement in business life, pre-school education has been perceived -in a sense- as a compulsory care
institution for a long time(Kildan,2012). However, in time, by the effect of the results of scientific research,
currently a common sense have been created given the fact that childrens experience during their first few years
of their lives has a critical role in development.
According to Gulay and Akman (2009), while analyzing the studies of both the short and long run impacts
of pre-school period in human life, it came out to be clear that by personal care and education, the development
of the child can be supported at the highest level and the progress in various areas of one's life will be positively
effected.
All the public and private institutions providing services in the field of pre-school education in Turkey, is
centralized under Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Basic Education Department and Family
and Social Policies Ministry Children Services General Management Department(Tekin, 2012). Besides the
widely applied centered education institutions in the country, the pre-school education is also implemented in
other different ways. These are:

Institution-based education
Family-centered education
Institution-family and public-based education
Mother-father-childeducation programs through distance education (Oktay, 1999; Oktay, 2007).

Besides the above mentioned, it is necessary to mention that there is also the pre-school educational
activities implemented over internet in Turkey.
In Turkey, the enrollment rate in pre-school education is still not at the desired level. In the academic year
2012-13, the enrollment rate in 3-5 age was 26.63%, 37.36% at the age of 4-5, and 39.72% at the age 5. (Ministry

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of Education, 2013). In Turkey, the compulsory education period has been increased to 12 years during 2012-13
education year. Children completing 66 months are starting primary school where younger ones are educated in
pre-school education centers (Ministry of Education, 2012).
Although the pre-school education is given by public and private institutions in a planned manner, the
families play a key role in this process. Families should cooperate with schools in order to assure that the family
would know his child better, the family would learn more about the program and the continuity of the education at
home would be guaranteed (Oktay and Unutkan, 2003).
Many families having preschool age children live the experience of the school environment and the
experience of being a parent for the first time with pre-school education institution. This first time experience
brings some problems with it, like curiosity, confusion, anxiety and learning need. Although there are managers
and other administrative staff in schools, usually parents are in one to one communication merely with teachers.
Therefore, the active person involved in this process is the teacher (Bilgin, 2010).
The main point to facilitate co-operation in the educational process is the presence of mutual trust
environment. For this, it is important that the families would be approached in an honest, respectful, sincere,
neutral manner. Families should react in the same manner and should be involved in their child's education. In
order to maintain a healthy cooperation between families and school, it is crucial that families are willing to
cooperate, are allocating enough time, are supporting teacher and are aware of their own roles (Dinc,2012).
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
This is a dimensional quantitative research aiming to analyze the opinions of parents of children in preschool education concerning the pre-school education institutions. In the research, individual survey was
conducted for the parents whose children were currently being educated in education centers and the outcome
was analysed via quantitative research model. The general population of the study is made up of 211 parents
whose children are in 3 different kindergarten and a primary school in Bolu province during 2012-13 education
year.
In this research, parent participation survey was used as the data collection tool prepared by Burcu
Sultan Abbak(2008). The reliability of the aforementioned questionnaire was found to be 94. Considering the
evaluation criteria of the Kalaycis (2006) alpha coefficient, the reliability of the questionnaire has appeared to be
"highly reliable".
The questionnaire dedicated to examine parents opinions concerning pre-school education institutions is
made up of two main parts:1.Personal information and the information to assess the opinions of the parents.
There are 38 questions in total in the questionnaire, 8 of which is in Part 1 and 30 in Part 2. In the questionnaire,
parents participation levels were analyzed by quattro Likert-type scale of grading.
The questionnaires were distributed to the participants directly by the researcher. During the research,
more than the number of sample questionnaires were distributed, and semi-filled ones or inappropriate filled ones
conflicting with the statements were excluded from the survey.
In this research, data collected from 211 subjects were coded and analyzed by the statistical software
named as SPSS 16.0 for windows (Statistical Package Program for Social Sciences). Percentage (%) and the
frequency (F) of the data were analyzed. The relationship between independent variables and some questions
were analyzed using ANOVA test. Post-hoc Scheffe test was applied to determine in which subgroups of the
independent variables those correlations existed.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Looking into demographic characteristics of the parents of children in pre-school education, 60% of
respondents were mothers. The substantial majority of parents (64%) are in the age range of 26-35 years where
33.6% of the parents in the age range of 36-45. The rate of young mothers in 20-25 age range is quite small
(2.5%). This shows that the majority of the group is made up of early middle aged mothers.
Concerning the education level of the parents, a significant portion of the group (78.6%) came out to have
high school or undergraduate education, likely a large portion of the participants (66%) were currently employed.
This indicates that pre-school education is merely preferred by higher-level educated and employed parents. The
higher education level of parents effects the childrens attitude, perception, thinking, feeling, emotions and
thoughts positively(Olaleye, et.al.,2009).. The children of higher level educated parents benefiting from pre-school
education is an important element contributing this statement.
Parents' opinions concerning pre-school education were analyzed under three main topics. The first topic
is the "parents' opinions concerning pre-school education". According to the survey, the great majority of the
participants were trusting the pre-school education system (88.6%) due to the fact that pre-school education
provides all the necessary skills and habits required for pre-school age kids (77.7%) and also teachers were
treating all the children equally (87.2%). Such a positive opinion of the parents of pre-school education could be
explained by the fact that their expectations overlap with the provided education.
The second topic is the attention of the parents for their childrens education. Working families quite often
lack time and energy to interest their childrens education and sometimes face a limited array of options for high
quality child-care both before their children start school and during the early school years[9]. According to the
survey, a significant majority of the parents agreed about the importance of school visits (83.4%) where the
majority stated that due to busy working life, they could not be able to participate parent-teacher meetings
(63.5%). Considering this, parents-teacher meetings should be scheduled after office hours. On the other hand,

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the majority of the participants disagree with the statement of "I can not deal well with my childs education
because I have personal problems in my daily life. (66.8%). This is important to underline the parents opinion
due to the fact that because of heavy workload, parents sometimes might not be visiting school, however, they
could somehow compensate the gap at home.
The last topic is about the relationship between the parents and the teachers/school staff. According to the
survey, the vast majority of parents stated that their children had a good relationship with his teacher (64.9%), the
teacher's opinion about his children was important for them (72.5%), and the teacher was respectful for their
family values and beliefs(88.2%). An important part of the parents stated that teachers were often or always
informing them about the children's learning process (67.2%), although some parents stated that such information
sharing was not always but occasionally (28%). Almost all the parents stated that during the info sharing process
they did have no problem in understanding what the teacher explained (89.1%), while 10% of them disagreed with
thisstatement.
The vast majority of parents stated that teachers and administrators did care about their children (84.4%)
and they did have no hesitation to discuss about issues with the teachers and/or administrators (89.6%). Lastly,
again a significant majority of the parents gave importance for teacherss requests and did not find unnecessary
(80.1%). On the other hand, 1/5 (19.9%) of the parents did not gave importance for teacherss requests and did
find unnecessary. This shows that the school staff does not inform the parents adequately considering parents
education levels.
Some items in the survey were analyzed to determine the correlation with the education variable, if any.
According to the results, the parents, regardless of their level of education, give importance for school visits, trust
pre-school education system, able to understand of the information given by the teacher and think that the school
is enough to provide all the skills and habits a child may require. Despite different educational levels of parents,
the education has come out to be at the desired level since most of the parents have stated a common positive
opinion. There is a significant correlation between the education variable and the trust of parents to
teachers/administrators (F =2.837, P <.05) and hesitation factor for info-sharing process (F = 8.479, P <.05). Posthoc Scheffe test was applied to determine in which subgroups of the education variable the correlation existed.
Table 1. Subgroups differentiating according to education level variable
during the info-sharing process bw. parents and teachers
Education Level
Elementary

Secondary
High School
Undergraduate
Graduate

Mean Difference

Std. Error

Sig.

.24074
-.26226
*
-.37037
-.37037

.14085
.10407
.10197
.28170

.572
.179
.012
.785

As a result of the conducted Post-hoc Scheffe test, there was a significant statistical correlation in favor of
elementary group bw. elementary and undergraduate groups (P<.05). This indicates that during info-sharing
process, the elementary group fail to express themselves well to the teachers compared with undergraduate
group. During parent-teacher meetings, teachers and administrators should take into account this issue and may
need to communicate with parents accordingly. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference
between other sub-groups (P>.05).
Table 2. Subgroups of trust to teachers and administrators differentiating according to education level variable
Education Level
Undergraduate

Mean Difference
Elementary
Secondary
High School
Graduate

.12133
.19540
.18207
.19540

Std.
Error
.08216
.09658
.05877
.21901

Sig.
.703
.396
.041
.939

As can be seen, there was a significant statistical correlation in favor of undergraduate group bw. high
school and undergraduate groups (P<.05). This indicates that undergraduates show higher trust to teachers and
administrators more than high school group. In other words, as the education level increases, together with the
increased level of awareness and conciousness for pre-school education, the trust to teachers and administrators
increases which is the most desirable outcome. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant difference
between the other sub-groups (P>.05).
4. CONCLUSIONS
Parents should be considered as the main factor in promoting the pre-school education and making it
useful. They are the people to contribute to the next generations happiness more than anyone else. School plays
a key role to provide opportunities for new requirements of the children to compensate what family can not. The
positive development of a school-family relationship ensures the happiness of both parties. By the help of good
relationship in between school and family, the development of the child is being supported and it serves for the

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ultimate purpose of the school(Comert and Erdem,2011). Following results were obtained in a research
conducted according to above statement:
Pre-school education is merely preferred by higher level educated and employed parents.
Given the fact that there are different education level of parents, parents do give importance to
engage with their children's education, do think that pre-school institutions is proper to make
children gain all the necessary skills and habits and do rely on pre-school education system in
Turkey.
Parents inattendance to teacher-parent meetings mostly because of parents working lives is a
major problem. However, this does not lead to a decrease in parents' interest concerning their
children's education.
Parents relationship with school administrators and teachers is in a positive manner and satisfactory level.
Parents feel themselves valued and important in their children's school, are sufficiently informed about their
children's education and pay attention to what the school and the teacher is asking or requesting.
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