ABSTRACT

 This study investigated the extent to which working mother-child interaction patterns correlate with emotional development of nursery school children in Federal and State Universities in South East, Nigeria. The purpose of the study was to determine the extent specific patterns adopted by working mothers namely (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and disengaged) correlate with emotional development of the nursery school child. Six research questions and six null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlation research design. The sample for the study consisted of 634 respondents drawn through multistage sampling technique from a population of 1586 working mothers who have their children in nursery schools in the federal and state universities in South East Nigeria. Two instruments namely: Patterns of Mother-Child Interaction Questionnaire (PMCIQ) and Nursery School Child Emotional Development Questionnaire (NSCEDQ) were developed by researcher and validated by three experts: one from Psychology, one from Guidance and Counselling and one expert from Measurement and Evaluation. The internal consistency of the instruments were determined through use of Cronbach Alpha method and reliability indices of 0.82 and 0.79 were obtained for PMCIQ and NSCEDQ, respectively. The data obtained through the administration of the instruments were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient to answer research questions. Linear regression was used to test null hypotheses one to four, while multiple regressions were used to test null hypotheses five at 0.05 level of significance. Scheffe test was also done for a step-wise comparison of the means for hypothesis six. The study revealed the following findings: Working mother-child’s interaction patterns such as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and disengaged, jointly had a very high percentage contribution of 99.9% in the observed variance in emotional development of Nursery School Children. However, authoritative working mother-child’s interaction pattern had the highest percentage contribution of 33.93%; followed by permissive interaction pattern with 23.70%, authoritarian interaction pattern with 22.24% and lastly disengaged working mother-child’s interaction pattern which predicted 20.13% of the emotional development of Nursery School Children. Gender of the Nursery School Children to a significantly positive but to a low extent correlated with mother-child interaction patterns and emotional development of Nursery School Children. Gender of the Nursery School Children predicted 21.6% of the variance observed in the correlation between mother-child interaction patterns and emotional development of Nursery School. Among the educational implications was that the study could provide supportive frameworks from which one can explore the relationship existing among working mother-child’s interaction patterns such as authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and disengaged and emotional development of Nursery School Children. It was thus recommended among others that working mother in universities should be exposed to seminars and conferences on working mother-child’s interaction patterns as correlates of emotional development of Nursery School Children. Additionally, mothers should spend quality time with the children pattern in weekends as tight job schedules, fatigue from work and house chores did not always allow mothers sufficient time in week days to interact with their nursery school children.