The relationships between child-rearing beliefs and preschoolers’ mathematical readiness in Singapore

• Main Author: Goh, Wan Ping
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/60016
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The main goal of the current study is to gain a better understanding of the nature of parents’ child-rearing beliefs and their implications on children’s readiness for school mathematics in Singapore. The current study first investigated the association between parents’ child-rearing authoritative and guan beliefs. Further, the study examined how these two dimensions of child-rearing belief are individually related to preschoolers’ readiness for school mathematics. One hundred and thirteen preschoolers (39-74 months) were recruited and administered a mathematical achievement test to measure their mathematical readiness, while their parents were given a parenting questionnaire to measure their child-rearing beliefs. Correlational analyses revealed that parents’ authoritative beliefs and guan beliefs were significantly and positively related with each other. Nonetheless, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that only guan beliefs predicted preschoolers’ mathematical readiness. No significant relationship was found between authoritative beliefs and preschoolers’ mathematical readiness. Together, the current study illustrated the influence of parents’ child-rearing beliefs on mathematical readiness in an Asian context. Keywords: child-rearing beliefs, parenting, guan, authoritative, school readiness, mathematics, preschoolers