The study was aimed to investigate the relationship between the self-concept of the 1st and 2nd grade students of elementary school with their family background and with their parents’ parenting styles.
The Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, the Chinese Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, and a self-designed family background survey were used for collecting data. A total of 732 first and second grade students of elementary school and their parents in New Taipei City and Taipei City were recruited for this study.
Collected data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA and K-means clustering analysis.
The results were as follows:
1.With the average score of all study participants being 43.04 and the standard deviation being 2.170, the self-concept of the st and 2nd graders is considered moderate compared with the norm of the original Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale.
2.The results indicate that gender plays a rather significant role in this test which girls' overall self-concept is better than boys.
3.Parenting styles and family background showed no significant impact on the self-concept of the 1st and 2nd grade elementary school children.
The results of this study may be affected by the sampling errors and the choices of investigation tools. Limitations and the implications of this study were discussed. Further research is needed for exploring the relationship between the self-concept of the 1st and 2nd grade students of elementary school with their family background and with the parenting styles of their parents.
