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In Romania there are only a few parental education programs being carried out, but most of them are not properly/scientifically measured in terms of efficiency. For this reason, the purpose of the research was the implementation and scientific validation of a training program for developing the parental competence. The parental competence was defined as a system of knowledge, skills, capabilities, abilities and habits that would allow the parent to successfully fulfill the parental responsibilities and also prevent/deal with crisis situations in a manner that would contribute to the child's development (Glăveanu, 2009). The above-mentioned term became widely spread in Romania after 2010, when the Integrated National Strategy for Creating and Developing Parental Competence was published. The Strategy is supported by the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports and its deadline is in the summer of 2012.
The 298 parents who participated in the research were selected based on the criteria of average and low parental competence and their children had educational and social adaptation difficulties. The methods used during the research were the formative experiment and the questionnaire-based investigation. The participants were evaluated before and after the training with the Parental Competence Questionnaire (PCQ, developed by the author of the study). The PCQ had five dimensions comprised of a total of 81 items: knowing the specificities of the child between 6 and 11 years of age (alpha=0.69), affective support and stress management (alpha=0.74), disciplining (alpha=0.82), time management (alpha=0.77) and crisis management (alpha=0.77). Each of the PCQ dimensions (which were built in accordance to the conceptualized structure of the parental competence) had a training module dedicated to it.
PCQ was validated with the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ, built by Buri in 1991); significant correlations for the two questionnaires occurred (between 0.5 and 0.9).
The statistical results obtained by using PCQ six months after the training (Independent-Samples T Test=61.43; df=298; p<0.001) showed significant differences between the experimental group (M=315.81) and the control group (M=243.22); the PCQ results of the experimental group were also compared (Paired-Samples T Test=58.39; df=141; p<0.001) and showed statistically significant differences between the pre-training results (time 1=just before training, M=221.31) and the post-training ones (time 2=graduating training+6 months, M=315.81). Similarly, the scores of the control group at the two chosen moments (time 1: M=221.57 and time 2: M=243.22) indicated a timed evolution, but statistically insignificant of the parental competence (Paired-Samples T Test=34.19; df=155, p=0.07). These results proved the certain and significant influence that the training had over the development of the parental competence, in comparison to the case of the spontaneous growth – thus being confirmed the hypothesis of the study.
As a conclusion, the results proved the internal validation of the training program (according to Vaughn's criteria, 2005). It is yet to be proven the external validation regarding the impact of the training program on the child's overall development (Kirkpatrick, 2006; Vaughn, 2005) and this will be done by applying the training program on an expanded/national level.
Key words: adult education, child development, parental competence, parental training, training validation.