A study of parenting sense of competence and parental stress in Selangor

• Main Author: Cheng, Jing Wei
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: L Education (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6083/1/2005741_Cheng_Jing_Wei.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/6083/
• Institution: Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman

Although parenting could be rewarding and fulfilling, it could be challenging and demanding at times, especially for those new parents who are not prepared for parenthood. Consequently, it will decrease parenting competence and increase parental stress. Hence, for fast adaptation into parental roles, the parenting sense of competence plays the key factor. However, there are still limited research that discussed about the relationship between parenting competence and parental stress among parents of young children in local context. Therefore, the present study strives to investigate the significant relationship between parenting sense of competence and parental stress of parents with young children in Klang Valley, Selangor. The Bandura’s SelfEfficacy Theory had been applied in this study to investigate the correlation between parenting competence and parental stress among parents of young children. It is quantitative correlational research and there are two questionnaires had been used which are Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC) by Gibaud-Wallston and Wandersman (1978) and Parental Stress Scale (PSS) by Berry and Jones (1995). There were 62 parents of young children ranged in age from zero to six years old involved in this study and convenient sampling had been used in collecting the data. Descriptive analysis had been used in analysing the profile of the respondents and inferential analysis is performed using Pearson correlation coefficient to test the hypotheses. Based on present findings, it indicated there is a significant negative relationship between parenting sense of competence in efficacy (r=-.641; p=<.001) and parental stress. This study is found limited in the sample size, language of questionnaires, sampling method and lack resources in quantitative research. As for recommendations, this study suggests increasing the sample size, use cluster sampling, back translation, and mixed method approach.