Extent of Parental Involvement in Improving the Students’ Levels in Special Education Programs in Kuwait

By Al-Shammari, Zaid Yawkey, Thomas D

This research study investigates the degree to which parental involvement impacts students’ levels in special education programs in Kuwait. More specifically, this research discusses several scientific methods for research included within the significance of the study and research questions for this study. Research methods and results using a participant sample indicated some interesting results. The study showed that parents of special needs children can be involved in classroom activities and school functions in many different ways. The results showed that over 70% of the participant sample were engaged in some forms of involvement with their special needs children. Through additional percentage, chi-square and factorial analyses additional results were indicated. Parental involvement in the special education programs is critical to the continued development of children with special needs Parental involvement is an effective means for augmenting and improving special education programs. Involvement can include both quality and quantity of psychological and physical activities that people use in their experiences (Chang, 2005). A growing body of research (e.g.,Gallagher,Rhodes,&Darling, 2004; Hallahan, & Kauffman, 2000; Comer & Hayes, 1997; Campbell, 1992) examined different participants related to students with special needs. The emerging research base examines several interesting factors: levels of involvement, student achievement, and special educational programs focusing on parental involvement.

Additionally, studies such as Gallagher, et al. (2004) have shown the impacts of parental involvement on students in both special and general education programs. For example, Gallagher, et al. examined uses of parent educators in children’s educational programs. The results indicated that parents who participated in the education process helped teachers to monitor and to manage the students’ educational process in the classroom as well as deal outside the classrooms in different settings. The outcomes of Gallagher et al.’s research showed that parents obtained beneficial ways of working and dealing effectively with special education students. This model gave parents an opportunity to learn about their children’s needs within the classroom as well as capitalize outside classrooms and in different contexts on their own knowledge and understandings of their children.

Helping parents understand their child’s disability is a very important factor for improving children’s’ education and life experiences. In these programs, parents and teachers, work in tandem, to encourage and develop students into productive citizens(see Fallen & Umansky , 1985). Therefore, increasing knowledge concerning students with special needs are societal and overall Governmental imperatives.

Not knowing and understanding issues and causes that lead to disabilities of young and older adults in contemporary societies creates greater problems in the long run (Gonzalez, Brusca-Vega, & Yawkey, 1997). To fix these same problems later in life with younger and older adults becomes more costly and expensive. For example, providing parental training on using and developing emotional and educational supports with parents having children with special needs facilitate teachers’ understandings of their students. In turn, these same understandings have the potential to increase students’ achievements in educational programs (GaIlagher,Rhodes*Darling,2004,Gouvias & Soroniatis, 2005)).

From an empirical research perspective, Campbell (1992) and Gargiulo (2003) from a more descriptive mode, indicated that students’ with special needs achieved positive educational outcomes resulting directly from their parents’ involvement in the educational programs. Comer and Hayes (1997) also noted positive relationships between parental involvement and their children’s academic achievement in school. Furthermore, AlShammari (2006) found through interviews with Kuwaiti special education teachers, that parental involvement is an important indicator for these teachers of parental interest and understandings of their children and to the approaches teachers use with then-children in their special education classrooms. Without parental involvement, there appears little chance for students to be successful academically and for society to mobilize all of its citizens to become productive contributors to their country (for parent training modes, see Chen & Yawkey, 2007).

Overall, students are positively affected by parental involvement in educational classroom settings. Berkowitz and Bier (2005) described three ways schools can engage parents. First, using parents as information recipients in which they receive important events in school. This mode includes school notices or the more contemporary ongoing newsletter. Second, making parents partners to be included in getting support from the school administrators. This innovative mode includes parents, for example as part of the schools committees and as parents of note with whom to discuss new school initiatives. And third, treating parents as clients with the school acting as the source for parents to be educated and trained on subjects related to their children’s formal education.

On a Likert continua arranged from least impact to greatest impact, the third mode of working with parents as sources for education and training is the most productive on children’s achievement (see details in Berkowitz & Bier, 2005).

It is clear parents play a critical role in the education of their children. This fact also seems to generalize to many cultures and communities. For instance, Al-Shammari (2005) described the importance of the family’s role in supporting their children with special needs in two countries: the United States, in which there are positive results of parental involvement in special education programs, and Kuwait, where most of the special education teachers agreed that parental involvement helps in improving special education programs.

However, a closer look at parents’ involvement in Kuwait may provide a number of valuable answers. First, this research may offer emotional support for parents of children with special needs and provide parents with knowledge of how they can help thenchildren with special needs. Second, this investigation may facilitate the achievement and development of students with special needs in their special education programs. By understandings and knowledge of special education children and how to assist their development, increasing their children’s achievement potential is possible. Third, parental involvement may be enhanced. And fourth, the results of this research may prove to have positive developments with special education programs in the State of Kuwait.

In this research study, several research questions were selected to examine the parental involvement in special education programs in Kuwait. These questions are as follows:

1. Do parents become involved in special education programs?

2. What strategies do teachers use to attract parents to participate in their children’s special education programs?

3. Does the administration office in special education programs support teachers to plan and achieve strategies for parental participation?

4. Do parents motivate their children in continuing special education programs?

5. Is a student’s achievement level improved through parental involvement in special education schools?

Methods

There are three major definitions specific to this research study: (1) Students with special needs in this research study is defined as students who have one or more disabilities in different specific developmental areas, including those who are gifted and talented (Hallahan & Kauffman, 2000). (2) Special education is a term that is described differently by many associations related to special education. This research study is based upon the definition of special education supported by IDEA as follows. Special education is “specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability, including instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings, and instruction in physical education” (IDEA, p. 12). (3) Parent educator as defined by Gallagher, Rhodes, and Darling (2004) and as used in this study is a parent or group of parents who have children with special needs participating in a special education program.

Participants

Three hundred and fifty randomly selected parents were the sample used in this research study. This sample includes parents of students with special needs in different special education programs in Kuwait. The researchers made sure that this sample of parents was interested to participate in this study through several procedures discussed in the later method of data collection.

The lead researcher asked parents to read and answer survey questions. The length of the “parent read” was strictly controlled. The reading and responding per parent took no more than 30 minutes. Distributing and collecting the surveys took a few days, as each day was set aside for another specific school. The researcher collected a total of 173 of the 350 surveys that were distributed to parents who have children with special needs, a return rate of 49%. Survey Instrument

The research survey consists of two domains. The first domain asked 11 questions related to parents’ demographic information. The second domain consisted of opinions of parents’of special needs students.This section consisted of 24 questions related to several important concepts in the research study. The researchers used four different responses in the second domain, based on using a Likerttype response option. The parent responses were scored from 1 to4(l=Strongly Disagree, 2= Somewhat Disagree, 3= Somewhat Agree, 4= Strongly Agree).

There were several procedures used in the survey development. These procedures include reviewing instruments of other research studies, such as Al-Shammari(2005). In addition., the critical standards and criteria designed for special education and related with parental involvement were abstracted from the Council of Exceptional Children (CEC).

Back to Back Translations: From/to Arabic and English Languages

The lead researcher created the survey in the Arabic language, since the formal language used in Kuwait is Arabic. Then the lead researcher translated the Arabic version of the survey into the English language. The lead researcher then gave the English language translation to two faculty members at Gulf University of Science and Technology (GUST) who are experts in both English and Arabic languages.

First the faculty member independently translated the information from the English to Arabic languages. Then the survey was given to the second faculty member and the translation was repeated. The lead researcher and two-faculty member’s in-group settings checked then crosschecked both back to back translations and made revisions for both languages’ survey visions. The two faculty and the lead researcher where in 100%agreement with all Arabic and English language adjustments in both languages ‘s versions.

Validity and Reliability Tests

There were two types of procedural tests used to measure the validity and reliability in this research study. First, the lead researcher selected three different faculty members and individually gave them a copy of the survey.

Two of these faculty members are experts in Special Education at Kuwait University. The faculty member is a specialist in statistical analysis and a faculty member at GUST. The independent feedback from the three faculty members was incorporated into the survey. second, the lead researcher tested the survey’s reliability by using Cronbach’s (2004) Alpha Test of Reliability to determine the reliability coefficient value of the total score in this research study. The result of this test indicated the following outcome as .871.

Results

The researchers analyzed the data by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 15.0) to examine parents’ responsesinthe 173 of 350 collected surveys with response rate 49.4%. There were two main processes examined in the following paragraphs: Parents’ demographic characteristics and, parents’ responses and factor analyses.

Parents’ Demographic Characteristics

The various variables of interest demographically include: age and education, parents’ experiences and others. Each of the results of these variables follows:

Age and Education. The researchers summarized the results of parents’ ages. The majority of parents were between 41 -50 years with a percentage 84.3%. Parents in the age range of 31-40 years comprised 40.7% of the collected sample. The minority ages was ranged from 20-30 years at 5.2%, and at 51 yeas of age there was 10.5%. Based on results of parents’ gender show that 50 % of the sample was male parents and other 50% were female parents.

The results of analyzing the variable of parents’ highest education degrees showed interesting results. There were 70.9% of parents with an education degree of high school (or below). Also, these analyses showed that 25.6% of the parents had a bachelor’s degree. Finally, there were 3.5% of parents who had achieved post baccalaureate degrees Doctor of Philosophy and Master’s degrees, respectively.

Parents Experiences and Special Needs. The parents’ employment or job experiences were analyzed. The results show that 20.3%of parents had less than two years of job experiences; 5.2 % of parents (the minority) have experience between two to five years; 7.6% of parents had six to 10 years of experience; and finally, 66.9% of parents (the majority) had more than 10 years of employment experiences.

Table 1 below shows both the total numbers of children with or without special needs in each family. The majority in the family of both children with or without special needs was 20.3% of parents who have four children as a total as in each family. Also, the minority was 2.3% of parents who have only one child. Other numbers and percentages are described in the following Table 1.

The same Table 1 below shows the total numbers of children with special needs in each family. There were 62.3% of parents (majority) who have only one child with special needs in a family. Also, there were 23.8% of parents who have two children with special needs and 8.7% of parents who have three children with special needs. The minority percentage with special needs was 5.2% of parents having four children with special needs in the family unit.

Table 2 below shows the type of disability and their percentages. The results show 37% of parents have children with mental retardation. Also, results demonstrate that 1.7% of parents have children with autism. Other types of disabilities are described in the Table 2 that follows.

Students’ educational levels at special education schools in which children with special needs were enrolled in itare reported. The majority of parents who have children with special needs, 54.3%, were in the elementary school level. Other children’s educational levels were in the middle school level, 34.7 %, and high school level at 8.7%. Also, the minority was 2.3% of parents who have children with special needs in the kindergarten level.

Table 1

Total Numbers of Children* and Children** with Special Needs in Each Family and Percentages

Table 2

Types of Disability and Percentages

Special Education Parent Involvement. Parents were involved in their children’s special education programs. The findings show that 35.8% (majority) of the parents on the Likert inventory indicated that they agreed that they had a good quality level of understanding before their involvement in their children’s special education programs. Interestingly, these results show that 16.8%(minority) of parents strongly agreed that they had a very high level of understanding before their involvement in the program. Also,22% of parents indicated disagreement, and 25.4% of the parents marked strongly disagree concerning their understandings about special education programs prior to their involvement in these programs. This level of agreement ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree may reflect their levels of participation and involvement in their children’s special education programs. With this assumption, 70.5% of parents involved in their children’s special education programs, and 29.5% of parents were not involved, either physically or conceptually with their children’s programs.

Table 3

Relative Distribution of Parents’ Opinions Toward Their Involvement in Special Education Programs and Numerical Order for Twenty Four Questions

Finally, the follow-ups by parents to their children in the special education programs are shown. Follow-ups in this situation mean the number of times the parents were involved with their children’s special education programs based on parent’s presence or school requests for their involvement in these special education programs. The results show that 45.1% of parents involved in the study were involved in their children’s special education programs based on requests by the school and presence in their children’s classrooms. Using these indicators, 23.1 % of parents were involved in their children’ special education programs in both daily and monthly involvements. Finally, the results show that 8.7% of parents in the sample were involved in their children’s programs on a weekly basis.

Parents’ Responses and Factor Analyses

The researchers found that parents’ responses were in general agreement to the questions on the second section with the twenty- four questions. These results show, in general, that parent’s level of agreement ranged from 64.7% to 95% for involvement in their children’s special education programs. The general mean of parents’ responses was 3.23, with a standard deviation of 0.39. This is a significantly important rate of 80.8% for involvement with their children’s special education programs. Stated differently, most of the parents who have children with special needs in this research study became involved in many different ways in these special education programs as depicted in Table 3.

In Table 3, and simply “eye-balling” these data, the researcher’s notes that these data resultants are scattered and in a statistical sense, dispersed or dissipated. Thus, it was necessary to combine questions’ responses into groupings using factor analytic procedures. Said differently, using factor analysis procedures provides comprehensible information using principle components method. Using factor analysis, the analyses ended with six major factors that explained 62% of the total variance being used in the data factor analysis as shown in Table 4 that follows.

Analyses: Percentages and Factor Analyses

The results of the analyses using percentages and factor analyses are used. They address directly the research questions as outlined and enumerated in the introductory portion of this research study.

The first research question showed interesting results. Parental involvement of 122 out of 350 parents who responded to the surveys shows forms of parent involvement. Total parental involvement in the special education programs was estimated at 70.5 % with a 95% confidence interval ranging between 63% and 77%. Table 4

Total Variance

The second research question dealt with involvement of parents in their children’s special education programs with percentage results. These results show engaged parents’ involvement in their children’s special education programs. Overall, 76% of parents indicated that they were engaged and involved (at varying levels and degrees) in their children’s special education programs.

The third research question focused on various approaches special education teachers use to engage parents with special education. Said differently, do special education teachers plan, prepare, and achieve plans for parental involvement in special education programs? Seventy-nine percent of parents agreed that special education teachers with whom they worked did plan and achieve plans for parent involvement in their classrooms. For support, the general mean of parents’ responses was 3.16 with standard deviation of 0.64.

The fourth question, generally speaking, focused on parent and children’s support to progress in their program. Of special import, was parental support necessary for their children with special needs to continue their education in these special education programs. The results show parent agreement based on results of mean score of 3.23 (on 4 point Likert system)(or 81% agreement) showed that parent’s great desire to continue their children’s special education in these programs.

Parent Characteristics. In the Demographic section of the survey, the 10 questions to which parents answered provided data for example: about ages of their children in the special education programs, types of disability, their child’s perceived progress in the program, and other items of interest. This was an attempt to examine the effectiveness of these special education programs across these selected demographic variables.

In addition, the dependent variable of school involvement has two phases, involvement (scored 1), and no involvement (scored O). The independent variables were the ten questions to which the parent’s responded in the Demographic section. Using a Chi-Square analysis, results of these analyses showed that the most important variables were the age; type of disability, and following the child’s progress in school. From the Chi-Square test the resultant data statistics resulted in a Chi-Square of 30.1 with DF =11 and a significant P- value of 0.002. Also, the correct classification for the model was 76.7%. By using the ROC Curve, the area under this curve was highly significant (0.739) as shown in Table 5. Means of parent involvement using selected demographic characteristics are shown below in Table 5.

Table 5

Means of Parent’s Involvement Based on Selected Characteristics

The fifth question examined the improvement of children with special needs through their parents’ involvement in their special education programs. These results indicated that the majority of parents felt that their children improved their education and learning in these special education programs. The mean parent response was 3.23 (on a four point Likert scale), with a standard deviation of 0.83. Further, based on parent opinions ,81% of these parents felt that their children had improved in learning and development given parent involvement in these programs.

Recommendations

Based on the results found in this study several recommendations are made to the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education (KMOE), school administrators as well as universities training pre-service teacher educators. First, school members (e .g., faculty, administrators) of special education programs affiliated with KMOE should be aware of the mean age of parents in this sample. These parents had a mean age of 41 and were family and employment experienced. The characteristics of these family and employment experienced parents as a discrete 41 age group on the average tended to show lower levels of involvement in their children’s special education programs compared to parents less mature with less work experiences.

Second, establishing institutions need definitely to help improve, update and improve parents’ understandings of the various disabilities and their characteristics of these disabilities shown by these students with special needs. In direct relation to his research study, parents of children with special needs need to be trained in the key achievement indicators and learning benchmarks that demonstrate improvements of these students. Parents with children of disabilities need to know clearly the steps in improvements that are possible and can be made with their children.

Third, KMOE should require all majors in university colleges to offer courses related to students with special education needs and provide programs to educate parents in the Kuwaiti society. Fourth, KMOE’s administrators and teachers should plan important strategies, activities, and projects that entice parents to increase their involvement in their children’ special education programs. The benefits for parent involvement with children of special needs impact families, society and the country. Sixth, applying, adapting and testing out an appropriate teacher-parent model as experienced in education programs in United States is really critical to the special education endeavor of KMOE in the State of Kuwait as well as ministries/departments in other countries. Lastly, future researchers should continue investigating other factors such as the media roles in educating society regarding these children with special needs in Kuwait.

Conclusions

Clearly, students with special needs can be impacted greatly by their informed parents who become involved with them in their special education programs. Also, most of parents of these students with special needs actively participate in school meetings and follow their children’s progress in the special education programs. In other words, these parents do participate and become involved themselves in their children’s special education programs. Parents agree that their children benefit through these special education programs. These children’s achievement and learning levels increase based on parental involvement, school improvement plans, and special education teachers’ rich strategies for engaging parents in meetings, activities, projects, and decisions. However, all administrators, teachers, and others in special education programs must concentrate as parents across the age spectrum as well. This study’s research showed the benefits of particular parents with special needs children who did become involved and participated in these special programs.

The research results showed that parents who are in specific age groups might be less likely to participate and involve themselves in their children’s special education programs. This result suggests a need to develop additional strategies for engaging younger as well as more mature parents in these special education programs to fosterparental involvement in special education schools.

The results so that 70.5% of parents do participate in different ways in the meetings and activities offered by these special education schools. These results support the idea the Kuwaiti parents can positively take part in and impact their children’s’ education by their involvement. Similar findings are in accordance with research in other countries such as the United States of America.

Lastly, parents agreed that special education schools used strategies for their involvement. It would be useful to catalog these strategies by type or kind and those that tend to significantly increase parent involvement. Here, it would be important to study the efficacy of these positive strategies and avoid those that do not increase parental involvement. All parents wish their children to succeed in school and life. This study shows how important the parent’s roles can be in their children’s special schools and educational programs.

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Zaid Al-Shammari, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education, C&I- SPEDU, Coordinator of Education, Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST). Thomas D. Yawkey , Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Curriculum and Instruction, The Pennsylvania State University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr.ZaidAl-Shammari,Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST), PO Box 7207, Hawally, 320 93 Kuwait. Email: AlShammari.Z@gust.edu Jew

Copyright Journal of Instructional Psychology Jun 2008

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