TPC Journal V8, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 4 331 parenting beliefs are predictive of authoritative parenting. Hypothesis #3: Authoritative parenting is significantly positively related to student achievement. Hypothesis #4: Parenting beliefs are significantly related to student achievement–related variables. Method Participants This study included parents living in the southeastern United States ( N = 49) who self-reported having children enrolled in elementary, middle, or high school. Of the participants, 96% ( n = 47) were mothers, while 4% ( n = 2) were fathers. Regarding race and ethnicity, 45% ( n = 22) identified as White, 41% ( n = 20) identified as American Indian, 8% ( n = 4) identified as African American, and 6% ( n = 3) identified as Hispanic/Latino. The mean age of the participants’ children was 11 years old; ages ranged from 5 to 18. All grade levels (K–12) across elementary ( n = 28), middle ( n = 6), and high school ( n = 15) were represented, with second grade represented most frequently. G*Power 3.1, developed by Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, and Bucher (2007), was utilized during an a priori power analysis. The author conducted the power analysis to ascertain the minimum number of participants needed to reach statistical significance, should it exist among the variables under investigation. With statistical power set at .80 and alpha level set at .05, the analysis produced a minimum sample size of 40. This sample size was large enough to detect a medium effect size (f 2 = .35). As a result, the sample size was sufficient to explain the relationships between the predictor and criterion variables. Instruments The parents who participated in this study completed a demographic questionnaire and two surveys. The demographic questionnaire, developed by the first author, captured race/ethnicity and gender of the parent in addition to the level of involvement in their child’s schooling. Student achievement–related questions also were asked to capture the age of the participant’s child, grade level, GPA, homework completion percentage, and number of discipline referrals and suspensions. Participants responded to questions such as, “What percentage of your child’s homework is completed on a weekly basis?” Other surveys utilized in this study include the following. Parental Authority Questionnaire–Revised (PAQ-R; Reitman, Rhode, Hupp, & Altobello, 2002). The PAQ-R is a 30-item self-report measure of parenting style. The PAQ-R is a revision of the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAR; Buri, 1991) and is grounded in the work of Baumrind (1971). Three subscales, Authoritarian, Authoritative, and Permissive, comprising 10 items each, assess the degree to which parents exhibit control, demand maturity, and are responsive and communicative with their child. Participants indicate their level of agreement with statements such as, “I tell my children what they should do, but I explain why I want them to do it” using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Findings from a study conducted by Reitman et al. (2002) suggested that the PAQ-R is a reliable measure of authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting styles when considering respondents’ demographic characteristics such as socioeconomic status or race. The Authoritarian ( r = .87), Authoritative, ( r = .61), and Permissive ( r = .67) subscales of the PAQ-R have good test- retest reliability at one month. The Authoritarian ( r = .25) and Authoritative ( r = .34) subscales were positively correlated with the Communication subscale of the Parent-Child Relationship Inventory (Gerard, 1994), suggesting convergent validity. Across three distinct samples of parents, coefficient