Appreciative Inquiry towards the Learning Outcome of the Children

Nike Kamarubiani and Ade Romi Rosmia

Nonformal Education Department, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229, Bandung, Indonesia

nike.kamarubiani@upi.edu, aderomirosmia@student.upi.edu

Keywords: Appreciative Inquiry, Children’s Learning Group, Parents’ Participation.

Abstract: Children and parenting education are generally conducted separately. On the other hand, parenting

education is basically undertaken to help the parents to facilitate children development optimally. Based on

that thought, the researchers intend to do optimization on children education through learning group that

involves parents’ participation during the process. The research method is quasi experiment with

quantitative approach through non-equivalent control group design. Children’s learning groups that become

the subjects are the groups that consist of 20 people of 6-12 years old divided to be two groups, which are 1)

experimental group that consists of 10 children accompanied by their parents, and 2) control group that

consists of 10 children without parents’ companion. The results of the study are the outcome of Children’s

Learning Group using appreciative inquiry method through 1) Social Construction revealing that

communication determined by parents and children is more intensive, 2) Image Theory stating that children

have image on their future with hope and dream, 3) Grounded Research as the first step to make the children

open to their parents, 4) Learning Initiative that make children start to be responsible for their tasks.

Children’s Learning Group that uses problem solving method produces the students able to express their

experiences, analyze and determine the solution towards the problems experienced, find out and arrange the

reasons taken in problem solving, and have courage to state their opinion in writing and orally, and respect

the other opinions.

1 INTRODUCTION

Basically, human will experience natural

developmental phases consisting of conception

phase, infancy, childhood, puberty, and adulthood.

There is interplay among those phases, the interplay

between among life spans -e.g. (Yusuf, 2009). the

earlier phase will influence the latter. Based on the

statement, an effort to understand the characteristics

of each developmental phase is necessary in order

each phase will can receive proper treatment in

school, society, or even family as the basic

institution of education. As stated in a hadits, “No

babe is born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his

parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a

Polytheist.”

Education as the process to transform values

plays an important role in optimizing the realization

of being Fitra. The effort to facilitate the child

developmental phase is part of educational effort to

help the child so that s(he) can be an individual who

has self-concept which is realized in the forms of

attitude and behaviour.

One of the women’s organization in Asia-Pacific

(Pan Pacific South East Asia Women’s Association,

PPSEAWA) in their 20th conference held in Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia concludes that “…around 40%-

50% of the future generation is predicted to be

broken home family due to divorce or the condition

of living with a single parent” (Yusuf, 2009). This

case may show that juvenile delinquency, violence,

and crime will be more flourish.

In this article, the young generation refers to the

one who is in the transition phase; i.e. from

childhood to adolescent. G. Stanley Hall known as

“Father of Adolescence” (in Yusuf, 2009) states that

if the environment where the teenager grows up is

conducive, the teenager will receive positive traits

that will help him/her develop his/her human being’s

value. Furthermore, Hall also states that the social

experience during the adolescent phase can control

the teenager to internalize the traits that s(he) has

received from the older generation.

Education is the process that can improve the

capacity and capability of human beings by honing

the skills they have. The skills should be enhanced

Kamarubiani, N. and Rosmia, A.

Appreciative Inquiry towards the Learning Outcome of the Children.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 1, pages 301-304

ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8

301

so that human can improve their life (Botte et al.,

1990).

Unfortunately, the meaning of education today

has been undermined. Education is defined as a

process that only takes place in schools. Parents send

their children to schools with the pragmatic

expectations that their children can get better job.

The education the parents understand here is only

about formal education; in fact, the education in

schools is limited to certain subjects that dictate the

children to “read texts”. Even though the curriculum

in Indonesia is designed to form individuals with

good personalities, the implementation of this

curriculum still needs improvement. In the real

world, the children are pushed to be able to survive

while the education in schools still focuses only on

basic knowledge.

Children as the asset have right to be treated very

well. To draw an analogy of how precious children

are, there are many terms that have been used,

starting from “bak kertas putih yang bersih, tinggal

menunggu pena menorehkan corak diatasnya”

(children are analogous to blank white paper in

which people can write down something on it to

form what the paper will be. The other term

describing children is “seperti tanah lempung yang

siap dibentuk oleh seniman” (children are analogous

as clay that an artist is ready to shape. There are

many terms which are used, however, what people

should understand here is that parents are the ones

who will playing a role as the pen or artist.

Why should be the parents? This is a rhetorical

question. A child is born to a father and mother

which in turn these people will be called as parents.

From the pre-conception phase, conception phase, to

the baby comes into the world, parents will be the

closet people to the child. The possibility for parents

to influence their child is quite big. As an Indonesian

proverb says, “buah jatuh tidak jauh dari

pohonnya” (connately meaning that children will

probably receive what their parents have, e.g. talent).

The proverb emphasises the importance of parents to

guide the children.

Unfortunately, there are still many parents who

do not understand that they themselves are the most

important one in the child developmental phase.

Many parents think that education is the most

important and responsible one in the child

developmental phase, especially formal education.

This notion has been held by parents for long time.

Thus, when their children make mistakes, the

parents will blame the school. Indeed, with its

capacity, it would be impossible for the school to

pay attention to the child developmental phase fully

because there are many children who need to be

taken care of.

Education, basically, is something that people,

without considering age or socioeconomic status,

must and can receive (Yunus, 2005). However, in

the real world, for some certain reasons the society

ignores education. This case results from the

society’s view where they still put the other aspects,

other than education, first. The society often

consider education as school. Indeed, if the

definition of education is studied deeper, education

is defined as a process to improve knowledge, skills,

and attitudes using approaches, methods, and certain

ways. On the other hand, school is defined as an

institution where the educational process takes

places. This definition confirms that education and

school are not the same.

The view forms the society’s paradigm that

school is an institution who bears responsibility for

the process of forming children behavior and

attitude. Thus, when children make mistake, the

society tends to construct stigma related to the

school. School is of course the institution which

bears responsibility for the educational process, but

it has limitations in terms of time and space. Indeed,

if we are thinking of how the educational process

goes, school is only a formal institution while

society, especially family is the informal educational

institution which provides more times for children to

learn.

Many references show that parents are the main

actors who are involved in the educational process

of their children (Lareau, 1989). Therefore, the

values that children hold will be influenced by the

education the parents give. Nevertheless, many

parents still do not understand and realize that their

children’s behaviour, attitude, and knowledge are

influenced by theirs. Therefore, an effort to make

parents understand and realize about this is needed.

The reason to make parents understand and realize

about their roles is because the children’s optimal

developmental process is not only the responsibility

of school, but also society, family, especially parents

Parents’ incomprehension of their own role and

function relates to education and experience they

have. Hence, the process to make the parents realize

of their role and functions is necessary. The process

to make the parents realize of their role and

functions can be realized through the educational

events for the parents as the main educator.

Generally, the process of parental education

more focuses on problem-solving effort by bringing

up ideas to show the issue. the effects of deficit

paradigm in people’s life are (Sudjana, 2010):

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 Causing pain because people are forced to

remember the mistakes they made in the past;

 Increasing defensive behavior such as

accusing;

 Making people less confident to do positive

things because the people’s weakness is the

one that will be focused on;

 Creating new vision is not common because

people tend to emphasize the reality without

reflecting their goals;

 Solving problems is not conducted in a serious

way. People tend to make new problems.

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a method offering

individual or organizational development using

constructive paradigm. This method has much

success in developing some organizations the thesis

that is revealed using AI through the story of

company described by Whitney and Trosten is as

follow (Whitney and Trosten, 2007):

AI changes organization to be free and vivid

place, the members are so excited. They have

positive power, creativity, and they are so incredible

2) AI enhances the organization’s skill in a change.

Today, there are many institutions which have

parental education. There is no informal or non-

formal way available. The trend of parental

education has also reached formal education.

Children’s learning group provides some facilities

for the children developmental phase. In the process,

this learning group is guided by a tutor by

classifying children based on their age. This

classification is conducted to optimize the children

education. Children education and parental

education generally are conducted in a separate way.

Whereas the principle of parental education is to

help parents facilitate the optimal development of

the children (Lareau, 1989).

2 METHODS

The used research method is quasi-experimental

method with quantitative approach. Quasi-

experimental method is used since the researchers

are not able to do full control towards the variable

and experimental condition. The design employed in

quasi-experimental study is non-equivalent control

group. In the implementation, control or

experimental group is given the pre-test and post-test

(Sugiyono, 2011).

3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The method of AI is conducted through some stages.

1) Discove ry Making questions for the appreciative

interview, conducting the interview, telling different

stories, 2). Dream Conducting dialogue about

dream, clarifying dreams, arranging dreams and

documenting dream 3). Design Selecting the

relevant supporting elements and strategy 4).

Destiny Overviewing, communicating, and marking

the achievements, listing potential attitude.

Those stages produce six kinds of freedom: a)

freedom to be recognized in a relationship, freedom

to be able to communicate with many parties,

especially with parents, b) Freedom to be listened, c)

Freedom to have dreams, d) Freedom to select when

contributing to something, e) Freedom to act with

some supports, f) Freedom to be positive.

The target after receiving the AI method is

viewed from the change 1) Social constructionism

views the intensive communication between parents

and children 2) Image / image theory states that

children have image relating to their future and

dreams, 3) Grounded Research refers to the first step

to make children want to communicate with the

parents, 4). Initiative to learn, children realizes that

they have responsibility for their job.

Problem solving refers to an effort to describe

experience or problem that people conduct to draw

attention or get sympathy from the others (Berny,

2012)

The implementations of problem solving method

toward the target using an approach are as follow: 1)

Focusing on problems, 2) Looking for the

alternative, 3) Arranging some efforts to solve the

problems, 4) Realizing the efforts to solve the

problems, 5) Valuing the effort in solving the

problems (Lareau, 1989).

The use of Problem Solving method results in:

1). The participants can use their experience as the

material, 2). The participants attempt to analyze and

determine their attitude to face the problems, 3). The

participants learn to look for and make some reasons

of the attitude and solutions to solve the critical

problems, 4). The participants are ready to give their

opinion in the form of written or oral texts, they also

appreciate the other’s opinion.

Testing Appreciative Inquiry can give feedback

for the development of body of knowledge about the

freedom to think and have the future view and the

positive change (Whitney and Trosten, 2007). On

the other hand, the implementation of Problem

solving method, refers to a process using strategies,

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ways, or certain techniques to face new situation so

that the situation can be handled well.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The development of learning method for children is

one of children’s character and personal

development processes. Appreciative Inquiry

method emphasizes positive values, thus children

will have confidence and plan to create their future.

Meanwhile, the use of problem solving method

carries the children on encountering their troubles so

that they are able to handle them individually or

together.

REFERENCES

Berny, G., 2012. Problem Solving and Decision Making

for Improvement, Gramedia. Jakarta.

Botte, M. J., Davis J. L., Rose B. A., 1990. Complications

of smooth A learning curve, Clin Orthop.

Lareau, A., 1989. Home Advantage, Falmer Press.

London.

Sudjana, 2010. Metode & Teknik Pembelajaran

Partisipatif, Falah Production. Bandung.

Sugiyono, 2011. Metode Penelitian Pendidikan

Pendekatan Kuantitatif, Kualitatif, dan R&D,

Alfabeta. Bandung.

Whitney, D., Trosten, B. A., 2007. The Power of

Appreciative Inquiry: 4 Prinsip Perubahan Positif

dalam Organisasi, B-First. Yogyakarta.

Yunus, F. M., 2005. Pendidikan Berbasis Realitas

Sosial: Paulo Freire, Y. B. Mangunwijaya, Logung

Pustaka. Jogjakarta.

Yusuf, S., 2009. Psikologi Perkembangan Anak dan

Remaja, PT Remadja. Bandung.

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