Haddy, 2001).
I.
Introduction
Virtually all research on parenting education has been conducted within the context of modern Western culture (Bennett and Grimley, 2001). Researching parenting education is difficult since researchers “tend to measure what is easily measurable rather than what we really need to know,” Moran and Ghate (2005, p. 331). They go on to say of researchers of parenting education:
“They choose qualitative methods because these are generally less challenging to implement than rigorous quantitative designs, rather than because the issues lend themselves best to qualitative methods. They sample parents, rather than children, because children are harder to reach. They sample mothers because fathers are harder to reach, and they use either pre- existing tools that may not always fit the purposes fully, or untested new instruments rather than invest time and money in developing reliable and valid tools” (Moran and Ghate, 2005, p. 331).
Evaluation is also made difficult because programmes vary greatly in terms of their focus, delivery methods, content and intensity (Zepeda, Varela and Morales, 2004). There is wide variation within individual programmes themselves because of differences in facilitator expertise, “program intensity and duration and the participants’ predisposition to change” (Dembo, Sweitzer and Lauritzen, cited in Zepeda and Morales, 2001, p. 6).
The situation is further compounded by the bias against publishing results that are negative or inconclusive (Stoiber and Kratochwil cited in Moran and Ghate, 2005, p. 331) although much of value could be learned from failures.
All these complications make evaluating and interpreting outcomes from parenting education programmes in a systematic way very difficult.
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II.
Is parenting education effective?
Most research examples of effective programmes focus on short-term outcomes for specific programmes usually in the American context (Fowler, 2002; Moran and Ghate, 2005). Formal programmes are evaluated often by examining changes in parents’ and children’s observable behaviour.
The programmes being evaluated might be universal and international while others might have been designed as a one-off to test a research hypothesis, perhaps with a specific target group. (See for example Huebner, 2002; Gibbs et al., 2003; Sanders and Ralph, 2004; Bateson, Delaney and Pybus, 2008; Stewart-Brown, 2008; and Fergusson, Stanley and Horwood 2009.) It is not uncommon for there to be an association between the researcher undertaking the evaluation and the programme being evaluated (see for example Bateson et al., 2008; Olchowski, Foster and Webster-Stratton, 2007; Sanders, Markie-Dadds and Turner, 2003).
Despite the wide variation between programmes (Barlow and Stewart-Brown, 2000), there is not enough evidence to show that one approach is superior to another (Dretzke, Davenport, Frew, Barlow, Stewart-Brown, Bayliss and Taylor, 2009). However, according to Linke (2004) and Clayton (2007) research has been consistent in showing that parents who take part in any type of parenting educational programme will demonstrate improved parenting behaviours compared with those who have not participated in any at all. However:
It is probably fair to say that whilst we now have a reasonable idea of some of the approaches that ‘work’ or at least look ‘promising’, we do not always know exactly why they work, or why some services work for some parents but not others, or how long-lasting the effects are” (Moran and Ghate , 2005, p. 335).
Zepeda et al. (2004) point out that one reason parenting education programmes might result in benefits for people is that a ‘selection bias’ is at work. That is, programmes tend to attract parents predisposed to change. Parents who are not are more likely not to complete or attend few sessions. Thus, selection bias results in more positive attitudinal or behavioural change. It may simply be that sitting in a parenting group presents parents with the opportunity to take time to focus and reflect on their parenting.
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The issue of what parenting education induces change long-term has not been clearly answered by research. There are some studies which do suggest long-term change can be gained from parenting education (Barlow and Stewart-Brown, 2001; Zeedyk et al., 2008) but Zepeda et al. (2004) state that few studies have demonstrated “sustained positive results” but this is because the majority have not measured results over time.
Complicating the measurement of sustained change is the acknowledgement that long-term changes in the way people parent will be occurring anyway since parenting is part of the "curriculum of modern life" (Kegan, 1994, p. 5). Brooks (2006, p. 53) cites Galinsky as describing the experience of taking care of a “small, dependent, growing person” through to teenage-hood is a transforming process in itself. Miller and Sambell (2003) note while raising children to teenage-hood, parents became more self-reflective about their own behaviour. Also, parents (particularly from the ‘hard- to-reach’) may be involved in other types of family support interventions.
III.
Recruitment and retention of parents
A common theme in all parenting education literature is that not only is it difficult to recruit participants but once enrolled, people often attend inconsistently or indeed ‘drop out’ entirely. Berlin, O’Neal and Brooks-Gunn (1998) stress the importance of engaging participants over a long enough time to ensure there are positive outcomes. Also, often it is those parents from low socio economic groups and with children with more complex problems who are least likely to enrol in parenting programmes (Brown, 2000; Snow et al., 2002; Sanders and Ralph, 2004; Barlow, Parsons and Stewart-Brown, 2005; Moran and Ghate, 2005). It is also very difficult to attract fathers to participate in parenting education programmes with most attended by mothers (Philliber, Brooks, Lehrer, Oakley and Waggoner, 2003.