Contribution of family involvement implemented in preschool institutions to parental lifelong learning skills

The aim of this study is to determine contribution of family involvement implemented in preschool institutions to lifelong learning skills of parents. In this direction, the study is implemented by using exploratory mixed research design in which qualitative and quantitative methods are used together. Data of the study is collected from parents of preschool children going to four different independent kindergartens in Bartın city center in 2016-2017 educational years. Mothers and fathers of 542 students going to these kindergartens constituted the population of the study and all parents were sent a questionnaire form. 427 parent questionnaires were returned. Quantitative data of the study was collected via Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ) developed by the researcher and in analysis of data SPSS-22.0 package program was used. Mann Whitney U-Test from non-parametric tests was used because there are two independent categories to determine whether parental opinions related to parent involvement implementations present significant difference depending on demographical characteristics or not and because groups do not show normal distribution. Kruskal Wallis H-Test from non-parametric tests was used because there are three and more independent categories to determine whether opinions of parents on family involvement implementations show significant difference depending on their following/participating and because groups do not show normal distribution. After comparisons, as a result of obtaining a significant difference, source of difference was detected using Mann Whitney U-Test. Qualitative data of the study was obtained from 15 voluntary mothers and fathers whose children go to a preschool institution and who participated to in-class family involvement implementations. Qualitative data was collected using "Family Interview Form (FIF)" with face-to-face interview method and data was analyzed using descriptive analysis method. When research findings are investigated in terms of demographical variables; it was found that in implementations participation of mothers is more, parents are usually between 36-40 ages, university graduate parents and parents working as a public officer are more than others. As a result of analysis, it was found that family involvement implementations applied in preschool educational institutions do not create a significant difference in terms of lifelong learning processes of parents depending on being a mother or father, ages, educational levels and their occupations. In addition, it was found that parents participate more to family involvement implementations including parent-teacher meetings, individual interviews with teacher, telephone interviews and message (sms or WhatsApp) and their participation is less to following school web-site, participation to parental education seminars and interviewing with school directors. Parents who participated in-class family involvement implementations stated that, as a result of these participations, they learned they should follow what their children learned at school, they should read books and magazines to be a model for their children and they should see their children as individuals and they realized that they get pleasure from learning new things together with their children, they learned that it is beneficial and necessary to participate in activities like playing, drawing or music with their children. Results of the study revealed that parents who participated in in-class family involvement implementations make research about their subject, obtain new information about new ways and methods and make effort to transfer their information taking age and developmental level of children into account. It was found that family participation studies make important contributions to lifelong learning processes of parents and in accordance with findings, suggestions were made for the studies in future.