Master of Arts (Applied Psychology)

This study was conducted in one Malaysian all-girls secondary school with the objective of exploring how perceived parental acceptance-rejection and academic achievement affect psychological adjustment of adolescent girls. It attempted to explore whether adolescent girls perceived more acceptance than rejection from their parents. It further examined the relationship between the variables of the age of adolescent girls, family income, birth order, ethnicity, religion and perceived parental acceptance. Also, it examined the relationship between parental acceptance-rejection and adolescent girls' psychological adjustment. Finally, it also examined the relationship between perceived parental acceptance, academic achievement and psychological adjustment of adolescent girls.

A total of 318 students participated in this study. There were approximately even numbers of students in each grade level, ranging from Secondary 1 to Secondary 5 (in Malaysia, compulsory secondary school education consists of five secondary school years). The data of the study was collected through a self-report questionnaire that consisted of three instruments: Personal Information Questionnaire, Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, Personality Assessment Questionnaire. Students' academic achievement was obtained from the school administration. The data was analyzed using correlational analysis, one-way analysis of variance and independent samples t-test.

The results suggest that generally the adolescents perceived their parents to be accepting toward them, except for a handful that experienced more rejection than acceptance. The adolescents' perception of parental acceptance-rejection did not vary with the variables of age, family income, and birth order. Perception of parental acceptance-rejection however, varied with ethnicity and religion. Perceived parental acceptance-rejection was found to affect adolescents' psychological adjustment, but academic achievement was not found to affect adolescents' psychological adjustment.

The implications of these findings are discussed, with recommendations on how parents, health professionals, and the school authorities can address the area of adolescent girls' psychological adjustment. These include the training of school authorities in increasing their awareness regarding psychological maladjustment, increasing consideration of an adolescents' background in counselling sessions, and introducing parenting programs to train parents in parenting skills.