Published Article

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the socio-economic status of parents on the development of creative and critical thinking skills among preschoolers in early childhood Centres in Rivers State. The analytic correlational survey design was adopted for the study. It was guided by four research questions and four hypotheses. The population of this study comprised of all the 496,787 parents of preschoolers in the early childhood centres in Rivers State. A total of 1250 parents were used for the study. A validated instrument titled “Parental Socio-economic Status on Preschoolers' Creative and Critical Skills Development Questionnaire (PSSPCCSDQ)” was used for the study. The reliability of the instruments was established using test re-test model to obtain an index of 0.78. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using Pearson's product moment correlation at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study established that there was significant relationship between parental socio-economic status in terms of occupation, academic qualification, income, parents' educational support on the development of creative and critical skills among preschoolers in early childhood centres in Rivers State. It was recommended amongst others that Parents should strive to acquire good and quality education for themselves as this will afford them a decent occupation and socio-economic status, thus putting them in right position to providing the necessary support needed for the education of their children.