Communication Patterns of College students

between their OFW parent

A Research Paper
in the course

Broadcast Journalism and Business Operations Management

Submitted to

Dr. Henry L. Bernardo

Professor

By

Kelly Anciro
Jeronimo Carpizo

May 3 2017
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Labor Migration is one of the major pressing issues faced by the Philippine society

today. The Philippines is the focus of the analysis because it uses as a major source of

labor migrants for many countries around the world, perhaps the prototype of a labor-

exporting nation. The export of labor has been an official policy for decades and now

involves large numbers of parents who must leave their children behind. In part, because

of the global demand for both female and male workers, those who were leaving the

Philippines in search for work overseas.

The Philippine economy continues to strengthen its dependence on these OFWs.

Eleven percent of the country's population or 10 million adults are OFWs, wherein 9 to

15 million or 15 to 25% of the country's population have some form of dependence on the

OFWs income. While millions of Filipinos work overseas, either they temporarily or

permanently leave their children behind, the children directly carry the burden of leaving

alone without the supervision of their parents. Approximately, 9 million Filipino children

grow up geographically separated from their migrant parents, father, mother or both.

Reportedly, the physical separation may affect the relationship between parent and

children.

It is significant to note that the rights of the child are broadly categorized into

survival, development, protection and participation with the family as the primary duty-

bearer. Parental care is undoubtedly important, but when one or both parent/s is/are away,
there will surely be a reconfiguration of the roles and lines of responsibilities.

Communication within the family is extremely important because it enables members to

express their needs, wants, and concerns to each other. Open and honest communication

creates an atmosphere that allows family members to express their differences as well as

love and admiration for one another. Researchers have discovered a strong link between

communication patterns and satisfaction with family relationships. Communication is

essential so that family members respect each others needs and wants. Without it, they

will not know what each other think or feels which can make family life more difficult.

Family communication provides form and content to a family lifes as members

engage in family related functions. Family communication is important because of the

factors that it reaches understandings beyond the family member, especially if the parents

and children are sharing ideas and thoughts. It is through communication that family

members are able to resolve the unavoidable problems that arise in all families. Parents

migration requires changing previous arrangements concerning the division of care and

other domestic responsibilities within the left-behind households.

The OFW parents may encounter communication barriers with their teens if certain

conflicts can arise. For instance, compromise is imperative in families. But how can each

OFWs family cope with this issue considering that each family member's needs cannot be

met all the time. This means that there is need for one party to make compromises to meet

the needs of others. However, it should be noted that compromising does not mean that

one party loses and another family member wins, it should be regarded as mere creation
of a new solution. With this, good communication skills within the family unit should be

nourished, such as listening to a family member and repeating back what you heard for

recognition. In one of the studies that it is also about psychological service of the children

of the OFW parents is that they also need to consider the gaps in the current practice, we

recommend that more purposive school-based and family-focused psychological services

are implemented to help the children and families left behind by OFW parents.

The OFWs parents and their teens specifically their daughters or sons that is now

in their college years encounter different kinds of communication relationship.

Nowadays, numbers of parents away from their children are continuously rising and this

may have an effect to their children especially to the teenagers. Another study from the

The Impact of Parents Overseas Employment on Educational Outcomes of Filipino

Children that the family structure, household resources, numbers of siblings competing

for those resources, and parents own educational attainment are often important

predictors of childrens education outcomes. Also Western-based analyses might predict

negative education outcomes for children as a result of parental absence. We find that

separations caused by overseas migration often are either neutral or can have positive

effects on schooling outcomes, at least among older children. Also a lot of problems arise

in their families, there are many factors that might affect the OFW families, mostly this

are education, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, lack of connection to their family and

money issues. This has been the reason why teenage pregnancy and drug abuse become

rampant. A number of studies have found that Filipino children who are left behind

experience psychological and emotional stress, while others suggest that the children
have better self-reported physical health. Although some researchers have found that

children with absent parents are less well socially adjusted than those in intact families,

others have reported results to the contrary. Also from the study about the Transnational

Migratory Labor and Filipino Fathers: How Families Are Affected When Men Work

Abroad. Children from OFW families were reported to demonstrate greater internalizing

and externalizing problems when compared with children from homes in which both

parents lived in the home.

Family communication behavior and family beliefs about how family members

should communicate with one another are closely related and combine to create

communication patterns. Also family communication is characterized by clearly

discernible patterns and forms. An analysis of family communication reveals that families

develop and sustain a variety of different communication patterns.

This case study aims to find out the communication pattern that the college

student being use in terms of level of conversation and communicating between their

OFW parent. They will be conducting case study to have an in-depth study with the

different types of college student that has a OFW parent. The researcher wanted to know

the different types of techniques that the college student use to communicate. They also

wanted to find out the experiences of college student and OFW parent according to their

parent-child relationship.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

General Statement of the Problem

What are the communication pattern that the college student being use in terms of level of

conversation and communication between their OFW parent?

Specific Questions:

1) When do you usually contact your parent? What specific time, day, week or month,
do you talk with your parent?
2) In what topic do you initiate talking with your parent?
3) How do you adjust your schedule to contact and communicate to your parent?
4) What adjustment do you make when your parent could not contact you because of a
busy day at school?
5) What mobile application do you normally use to communicate with your parent?
Why?
6) What features do you think mostly helps you to keep in touch to your parent? Video
call or private message? Why?
7) What are the topics or issues you openly or comfortable to discuss to your parent?
8) How do you describe a good conversation to your parent?
9) Do you comply with all the rules and regulations give by your parent?
10) What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a OFW parent?

CHAPTER II

RESULT & DISCUSSION

This chapter provides the gathered data and the researchers analysis and

interpretation of the results of the participant in-depth and qualitative interview. The

researchers also analyzed the cases if it is high and low in terms of conversation and

communication.

The research questions was based on the frequency, duration, communication

tools used by the college student between their OFW parent, the topics they openly

discussed and the topics that talked about and lastly to ask the level of conversation and
communication that the college student and OFW parent have.

Case 1.

Case 2.

Case 3.
 CHAPTER III

METHODS/PROCEDURE

The purpose of this study is to examine the communication patterns used by the

college student towards their OFW parent based on the level of conversation and

communication. This case study falls under the descriptive research study and qualitative

in nature that already answered the questions provided by the researchers. The

researchers chosen the descriptive research it encompasses to let the researchers chose the

subject in an accurate way, it is also a way of describing the people that will take part
from the study. Also they use qualitative study to gain an understanding of underlying

reasons and opinions.

This case study conducted three of distinctive cases of college student and OFW

parent to represent the research. The researcher used a snowball sampling technique

because it is a type of convenience sample that the researchers funded people who are

difficult to identify or had to meet the certain criteria to participate. The researchers

selected the participants based on how long they are apart from each other and also

researchers seek help by asking random students in DLSU-D if they know someone who

is suitable for the case study study.

The researchers used an interview guide and the questionnaires based on the research

questions which divided into the frequency, duration, communication tools used by the

college student, the topics they openly discussed and the topics that they have to talked

about and lastly to ask the level of conversation and communication. The researchers

used personal interview with the college student who are currently studying in DLSU-D.

The researchers first prepared a set of questionnaire of different questions particularly to

the communication pattern used by the college student between their OFW parent. Then

second, the researcher found the appropriate participants and scheduled the interview

with the college student. Third, the researcher conducted the interview from April 17 to

22, 2017 with the given time to interview the three cases. Fourth, the researchers

conducted the focus interview on the schedule day that happened to be one day per case

with the allotted time. The participants were based on the snowball sampling where one
respondent had been referred another person that met the criteria which made it credible.

Fifth, during the interview the researcher asked several questions by using the interview

guide, they also prepared follow-up questions during the focus-interview to the full

details. The researcher had unique and extreme three cases of college student in DLSU-D

to scope the study. The three cases have different situations and perceptions based on the

communication pattern that they use.

CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

The communication patterns of the college student based on the levels of

conversation and communication it is affected by the factors of frequency, duration,

communication tools and the topics that they are discussing every time they

communicate. Based on the cases that was gathered, case 1 was high in terms of

conversation and communication, case 2 was high in terms of conversation and low in

terms of communication, and case 3 was high conversation and low in terms of

communication. The researchers therefore concluded that the three cases of college

students that have different types of level of conversation and communication depending

on how they communicate with one another. It was also indeed that communication in a

family is a very important thing because in this way the bond of the family members may

improve.

REFERENCES

https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/350/350-092/350-092.html
http://family.lovetoknow.com/about-family-values/importance-family-communication
http://dissertation.laerd.com/purposive-sampling.php
http://www.comm.umn.edu/~akoerner/Family%20Communication%20Pattern.html
http://study.com/academy/lesson/descriptive-research-design-definition-examples-
types.html
https://explorable.com/snowball-sampling