Abstract:
The objectives of this research were to study life assets, and to find out the correlation between life assets and parenting style of 376 academically talented students in a residential school, who were studying in Mutthayom 4-6. This study was based on qualitative and quantitative methodology. The research instruments involved the Life Assets Questionnaire (Youth Version) and the parenting style questionnaire, which was used to analyze the life assets scores, to find out the correlation between life assets variables and parenting style by the use of Chi-square, and to analyze the correlation between life assets taking effect to the parenting style and life assets scores by the use of Multiple Linear Regression Analysis. The results showed as follows: 1) Overall life assets passed the criteria while the sample's life assets in each power passed the criteria in 4 powers, which included the power of family, power of self, power of intelligence, power of peer and activity while the power of community failed. 2) According to the correlation analysis for the parenting style, it was found that the parenting style was correlated to the life assets in respect with the power of family at a significance level of 0.01. 3) From the Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, it was found that the supportive and reasoning parenting styles resulted to the good and excellent levels of life assets scores in respect of the power of family at 94.74% and 94.19% respectively. 4) From the Multiple Linear Regression Analysis, it was found that the supportive and reasoning parenting styles were positively correlated to the life assets scores in the power of family and the power of community at a significance level of 0.01. According to the qualitative study, although the students have stayed in the residential school where they were far from home and family, if they have experienced supportive and reasoning parenting styles, they will have the life base. Talks with their parents via telephone, chat, and video call could fulfill the students' life assets. These results may be further used as the guideline of promoting life assets that are relevant to the needs of other academically talented students.