Influence of Parental Educational Background on the Family Values held by Undergraduate Students in a South African University

Abstract

This paper reports the study that investigated how parental educational background would influence the family values held by undergraduate students in a South African university. The study which was a part of a larger study conducted among undergraduate students adopted a cross-sectional survey design. Multiple  sampling techniques were used in selecting 210 participants for the purpose of answering the research question. Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Research Ethic Committee of the university where it was carried out, and the consent of participants was requested and secured before the administration of validated research instrument. Data was analysed with chi square test statistics using version 17 of SPSS. Results showed that fathers’ educational background did not significantly influence family values among undergraduate students. However, mothers’ educational background significantly influenced family values held by undergraduate students. More undergraduate students whose mothers had high educational status were seen to have held high family values as well. Based on these findings, it was concluded that parental educational background does influence the family values held by undergraduate students, although it might be needful to carry out more research in this area in order to actually ascertain how the educational background of mothers actually influenced family values held by  undergraduate students. It might also be needful to enlarge the sample size in order to ascertain the generalizability of the result findings reported in this paper.

Keywords: Family values, influence, parental educational background, undergraduate students.