The Need Assessment of Family Training Programs (FTPs) for Military Parents: Case Study of High Schools in a Military Town in Tehran, Iran

Background and Aim: Family training programs (FTPS) are considered an educational field for parents- students in the education system. This research has been carried out for the assessment and prioritization of educational needs for military parents that participated in FTPS at schools of a military town in Tehran, Iran.
Methods: This is a mixed study that was conducted in two qualitative and quantitative phases in 2017. The research sample in the qualitative phase consisted of 10 mothers, 8 fathers and 10 adolescents (12‒17 years old) of military families who were selected by a purposeful sampling method. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and a brainstorming technique and analyzed by the Colaizzi method. In the quantitative phase for prioritizing data; 364 parents and students was selected through the cluster sampling method, and analyzed with SPSS-18, using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: By analyzing the qualitative phase, 19 and 21 educational needs in junior and senior high schools were identified in four dimensions of socio-cultural, educational, religious, and physical - health. In the quantitative phase, the first priority of military parents educational needs in FTPS, from the perspective of both junior and senior high school students was: physical health needs (with a score of 7.384) and educational needs (with a score of 5.970), respectively. From the perspective of parents in both junior and senior high school, physical health needs (with mean 73.3 and 75.5) were identified as the first priority. Results also showed that boys have more severe physical-health needs than girls. |There was no significant difference between the views of mothers and fathers on the selection of educational needs.
Conclusion: The educational needs prioritized in this study, physical health needs and educational needs, (within the framework family training program) can be considered as a basis for revising the educational content of these courses in military town schools.