COMPILATION OF JOURNALS ABOUT

THE PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

OF STUDENT’S PERFORMANCE
ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

A FINAL REQUIREMENT OF THE SUBJECT

PHILOSOPHICAL, SOCIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL
FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION

PREPARED BY:

DESIREI I. JIMENEZ

MAED-FILIPINO

PRESENTED TO:

DR. REGINA P. GALIGAO

PROFESSOR

i
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Parental Involvement and Students’ Achievement in Cambodia

Abstract 1

Introduction 2

Theoretical Background 3

Data and Method 14

Results 23

Discussion and Conclusion 34

II. Does Parental Involvement Matter in Children’s Performance?

A Latin American Primary School Study

Abstract 39

Introduction 40

Method 45

Participants 46

Variables 47

Instruments 48

Data Analysis 49

Results 52

Discussion 65

Practical Implications 67

ii
Conclusion 68

III. Parental Attitude and Involvement in Children’s Education:

A Study on the Parental Aspiration among Form Four Students in Selangor

Abstract 70

Introduction 71

Methodology 73

Results and Discussion 74

Conclusion 93

IV. Educational Aspirations among First-Generation Students and their

Parental Influence towards Pursuing Tertiary Education

Abstract 94

Introduction 95

Objectives 96

Methodology 97

Results and Discussion 98

Concluding Remarks 102

V. Parental Support, Personality, Self-Efficacy and

Depression among Medical Students

Abstract 103

iii
Research Background
104
Research Purpose 108
Research Methodology 108
Results 109
Discussion 111
Conclusion 113
VI. The Role of Parental Involvement Affects in Children’s Academic

Performance

Abstract 114

Introduction 115

Results 117

Conclusion and Discussion 119

VII. Parental Involvement and Intrinsic Motivation

with Primary School Students

Abstract 120

Introduction 121

Research Purpose and Objectives 124

Instruments 125

Results 126

Discussion 128

iv
VIII. Relationship between emotional intelligence, parental involvement and

academic performance of high school students

Abstract 130

Introduction 131

Backgrounds 132

Method 138

Results 139

Discussion and Conclusion 141

IX. Emotional Intelligence, Parental Involvement and Academic Achievement

Abstract 144

Introduction 146

Parental Involvement and Academic Performance 151

X. Relationship between Parental Involvement/ Attitude

and Children’s School Achievements

Abstract 155

Introduction 157

Method 158

Conclusion 163

XI. References

v
 1

Parental Involvement and Students’ Achievement in Cambodia:

Focusing on Parental Resourcing of Public Schooling

Sokcheng Nguon
Comparative and International Education, Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima
University, 28-6 Saijo Nishihonmachi, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima-ken, 739-0043,
Japan

___________________________________________________________________

Abstract

Studies of the effect of parental involvement on students’ achievement in a variety of

contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationship between parental

involvement and students’ achievement may depend on specific local contexts of

education and family. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives derived from social

capital model, this study examines the effects of three types of parental involvement

on students’ achievement. Dataset drawn from student questionnaire of 1551 tenth-

grade students and their parents were used to investigate the determinants and the

effects of parental resourcing on students’ achievement in comparison to other types

of home-based and school-based involvement. Multiple regression analyses show

that parental efforts in resourcing public schooling are significantly associated with

students’ achievement. Features of Cambodian education in which parental

resourcing becomes an important strategy for parents to enhance educational quality

are described, and the broader implications of the findings are discussed.
 1.
1. Introduction

The contribution of parental involvement to children’s education has been

continuously promoted and formalized through both international and national policy,

with even greater attention paid to it in recent years (Bray, 2001; Chrispeels &

Coleman, 1995; Chrispeels, 1996; Coleman, 1988, 1994; Finn, 1998; Grolnick,

Benjet, Kuroski, & Apostoloris, 1997).

In the past three decades, family effects on students’ achievement have been tested

in an extensive body of research. Empirical evidence from Western studies suggests

that family socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the most powerful predictors of

children’s school performance. More significantly, most findings show positive

relationship between parental involvement and students’ achievement (Epstein,

1992, 1995; Finn, 1998; Fuller, Singer, & Kelly, 1995; Gold & Miles, 1981; Ho &

Willms, 1996; Lareau, 1989; McNeal, 1999). Nevertheless, the understanding of

parental involvement is largely limited to U.S. and Western studies. Little research

examines the nature and extent of parental involvement in developing settings, which

is particularly true in Cambodian context. 3

Keng’s study on household determinants of children’s schooling in Cambodia found

that parental involvement in their children’s schooling is an important determinant

that positively affects children’s schooling (Keng, 2004). The current study aims to

extend this earlier study by exploring the important factors related to parental

involvement in children’s education and the types of parental involvement that are

positively related to students’ achievement. Using data from the questionnaire

surveys of tenth-grade students and their parents and the qualitative data collected
from school staff and other community members conducted in the central part of

Cambodia, this study first explores the nature and extent of parental involvement in

children’s schooling in rural schools. Second, the study addresses how parental

involvement activities may vary according to their social class backgrounds. Third,

the study assesses the extent to which different dimensions of parental involvement

are associated with students’ achievement.

The following section provides theoretical perspectives regarding parents’ social

capital for children’s schooling. It is followed by a brief description of the nature of

parental involvement in Cambodian education. The paper then goes on to elaborate

on data collection and overall analytic strategy used in this study. The subsequent

part presents empirical results and discusses broader implications of the findings.

2. Theoretical backgrounds

2.1. Parental involvement as social capital

Studies on students’ achievement have examined different theoretical perspectives

in an effort to explain the difference in students’ school performance. Along this line

of research, researchers try to predict students’ achievement to be influenced by

parents’ social capital. The concept of social capital is acknowledged as valuable by

an increasing number of educators and sociologists of education because it lends

researchers new explanatory power in addition to the traditional factors such as

gender, race, and socioeconomic status (SES) for stratification in public school

system. While parental involvement is one area that is frequently studied, how it can

be conceptualized as social capital is not always clear.

 4

Bourdieu (1986) and Coleman (1988) are the major contributing figures in the

theoretical development of the concept of social capital. Bourdieu discussed the

interaction of the three forms of capital: economic, cultural, and social capital.

Coleman focused on the role of social capital in the creation of human capital,

namely students’ achievement. Drawing on the earlier work of Bourdieu and

Coleman, the current study defines social capital as a process of making connections

by parents, as community members and as individual parents, in the school

community network for a specific purpose-better education for children.

The current study considers parents’ social capital as a necessary and valuable

concept for two reasons. First, its boundary is more extensive than that of home-

based and school-based personal relationship. The concept of social capital can be

extended to include community-based relationships. More importantly, as an

analytical and conceptual tool, social capital is useful in understanding how

interactive networks can serve as a resource for student’s learning, and why these

networks are important. Second, social capital allows dynamic flow of resources from

one link in the network to another in the process of accomplishing the collective goal-

better education for children. One of the Coleman’s important arguments is that by

making connections with one another and keeping them going over time, people are

able to work together to achieve things they either could not achieve by themselves

or could only achieve with great difficulty. 5

In the literature, there appears to be at least two distinct elements that researchers

must address when conceptualizing the term social capital: forms and resources. In

terms of forms, parental involvement can be thought of as involving mutual

relationships between parent and child (bonding social capital), between parent and

community (bridging social capital), and parent and public institution, i.e. school

(institutional social capital). 6

Firstly, the personal relationship between parent and child can be characterized as

immediate family or kinship base. It constitutes home-based or family-based social

capital. A prime source of influence on children’s learning is the quality of parent–

child interaction within the home. There are various ways parents may get involved in

their children’s schooling including checking homework. Secondly, social connections

of parents in community networks are symbolic of an extended network which may

be built through the establishment of formal or informal networks in the community.

Such extended networks are clearly a dimension of structural form which provides

significant amount of resources to individual members of the network, which then can

be transformed into something that may benefit children’s school experience. This is

clearly articulated in the work of Coleman (1988) who argues that social capital exists

not only within the family in the form of personal relationship between parents and

children, but also within the school community in the form of collective action. In

Cambodian villages, it is common to find a range of community groups actively

engage in small-scale development and other self-help initiatives (MoEYS, 2000;

Pellini & Ayres, 2007). These groups are often linked to pagodas, which in the

context of rural Cambodia, represents the social, cultural, and religious center of

collective action. These existing groups serve to strengthen and consolidate

‘bridging’ social capital (Pellini & Ayres, 2007). Thirdly, the relationship between

parents and public institution can be characterized as institutional social capital which
can be activated through the establishment of parent–teacher associations or school

support committees. The set of resources that are inherent in parents’ relation with

the school are especially beneficial for the cognitive or social development of a child.

There may be numerous ways parents might get involved in school-based activities

including attending school meetings. These school-based involvement activities by

parents may influence the time and resources that are dedicated to children’s

learning. For Coleman (1988), the existence of mutual relationship between parents

and school staff is essential in reinforcing parents’ influence on children’s school

performance.

Another element of social capital is the existence of resources. The resources, not

the network per se, are the key in the concept of social capital according Bourdieu’s

definition (Bourdieu, 1986). He defined social capital as ‘‘the aggregate of the actual

and potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more

or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’’ (1986,

p. 248). He also argued that the potential benefit of social capital is likely to depend

on parents’ position in social hierarchy. However, for Coleman (1988), economic and

cultural capital in parents will not transfer automatically to children’s learning and

achievement unless there is an intimate relationship among home, school, and

community. One of the Coleman’s important arguments is that economic and human

capital in parents is necessary in the development of human capital in children, but

each by itself is not sufficient.

7
It is well recognized that parents in developing settings such as Cambodia have

traditionally contributed to children’s educational achievement through helping to

improve the physical conditions, educational resources that support teaching and

learning, and the quality of learning experience. This level of social capital in parents

may be in sharp contrast with that in western countries where the available stock of

resources is already relatively abundant. This is clearly articulated in Coleman’s

(1988) work who argued that parents, nowadays, with increasing level of physical

and human capital, are at the same time decreasing investment in social capital on

children, as reflected by the frequency of parent–school interaction about children’s

academic and personal development. In short, Coleman already warned that the

alienation between parents and school community in western countries would

destroy social fabric-social capital. In other words, school system would be less

efficient and effective unless there is an intimate relationship between parents and

school community. 2.2. SES differentials in parental involvement and students’

achievement

2.1.2 SES differentials in parental involvement

8
Studies based in the United States and Western countries have consistently shown

that the level to which parents are involved in their children’s education vary across

parents’ SES. Although the results of these studies demonstrate a clear relationship

between social class and parental involvement, the results of studies conducted in

some Asian countries show parental involvement to vary, independent of social class

of parents (Ho, 2003; Ho & Willms, 1996). Findings from Ho’s (2003) study, for

instance, suggested that the involvement of Asian parents is not limited to family

resources. Asian parents from lower social class, with limited education, would

maximize their involvement within their limited resources. Ho (2003) further highlights
that parental involvement is more important than parental investment to create ideal

learning environment for children. In their empirical analysis carried out in a sample

of eight grade students, Ho and Wilms (1996) found that parental involvement makes

a significant unique contribution to explain variation in students’ achievement over

and above the effects of household background. Thus, parental involvement has an

effect on students’ achievement that is independent of household background. These

findings contrast sharply with evidence from most Western countries, where

household characteristics greatly explain the differentiation in the level of parental

involvement, which directly affects the levels of students’ achievement. Inevitably,

these inconsistent findings raise the question of whether the effects of background

characteristics on the extent of parental involvement can be adequately tested in

developing countries by using conventional measures of social class such as

parents’ educational attainment and occupational status which are more appropriate

for industrialized settings, rather than using indicators of class that are more

culturally valid for the country in which the study is conducted. How applicable is this

knowledge to the Cambodian context?

9

In Cambodia, the current study posits the argument that the effects of family social

class on the extent of parental involvement may be not universal, and that what

parents do, not what parents have, is essential for understanding the process of

involvement. Parents from lower social background may evaluate the importance of

schooling similarly to parents from higher social background. Cambodian parents,

regardless of their social background, appear to engage actively in children’s

education both at home and in school. For instance, they check children’s books
(Keng, 2004); they support children’s private tutoring (MoEYS, 2009, 2010); and they

contribute substantial amount of money to school (Bray, 1999a, 1999b; Bray & Bunly,

2005). Cambodian parents in rural areas, though faced with more widespread

poverty and illiteracy, effectively perform their role as community members using

their individual resources for the collective good of the school community. This is

clearly articulated in the work of Bray (1999a, 1999b) when he argues that

community resourcing serves to strengthen and consolidate the existing strong

community spirit in school. In addition, Cambodian rural parents usually receive

support from their extended family network among relatives. In a collective-culture

society like Cambodia, nearby family members are expected to provide mutual help

in times of need. The consideration of family type suggests that the extended family

network is predicted to mitigate against the social class effects. By having

grandparents in the same household, parents are more likely to have available time

in mobilizing in home-community-school activities. More importantly, the extended

family may be a source of emotional and material support which can facilitate

children’s school performance.

2.1.3. Effects of parental involvement

Most studies in the United States have found that various forms of parental

involvement in children’s education positively affect children’s educational outcomes

(Coleman, 1987; Epstein, 1992, 1995; Ho & Willms, 1996; Lareau, 1989; McNeal,

1999). The empirical results about which dimensions of parental activities are the

most effective are not consistent in Asian contexts. Numerous home-school studies

in Asian contexts have shown significant effect of home-based parental involvement

on students’ achievement (Chiu & Ho, 2006; Hung, 2005; Ng, 2000; Park, Byun, &

Kim, 2011; Tam & Chan, 2009). 10

Despite a large number of studies showing a positive relationship between home-

based involvement and students’ achievement, only a small share of the available

studies reveals positive influence of school-based involvement on student’s

achievement. In Hong Kong, Ho (2003) found that, among other school-based

activities, school communication and parents’ donation of money or gifts to school

have positive but moderate impact on students’ self-esteem. In Indonesia, van der

Werf, Creemers, and Guldemond (2001) found a moderate effect of parents’ doing

voluntary work on students’ achievement.

The review of the literature above indicates a growing awareness in Asian countries

of the importance of involving parents in both home-based and school-related

activities. Bourdieu’s (1986) and Coleman’s (1988) theory on parents’ access to

resources in social networks may be helpful in identifying the invisible mechanisms.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned studies failed to conceptualize parental resourcing

as an educational strategy that parents actively use in comparison to other forms of

parental involvement. Thus, the current study attempts to extend the previous

literature by highlighting another distinctive type of parental involvement prevalent in

the Cambodian context.

3. Parental Involvement in Cambodian education

3.1. Current educational reform

The introduction of the nationwide education reform and the expansion of the

educational system since the early 1990s made Cambodia a particularly appropriate

setting in which to explore the nature and the extent to which parents are involved as

responsible partners in achieving higher learning outcomes for children.

11

Several educational policies in Cambodia have been implemented to meet the

targets mentioned in the main international conventions from Jomtien to Dakar.

These reform policies have increasingly emphasized the importance of expanding

educational opportunity as a means to promote democracy and foster economic

development (MoEYS, 2005a). As an essential part of the transition to democracy,

the reform and expansion of the educational system emerged as a priority after

Cambodia had emerged from over 30 years of internal conflicts. Despite recent

increase in educational spending (MoEYS, 2005b), Cambodia’s educational system

faces significant issues with access, quality, retention, and achievement levels

(MoEYS, 2005a). These issues continue to disproportionately affect rural, high

poverty children. Following the lead of other Asian countries, Cambodia has

attempted to promote decentralization, with an emphasis on parental involvement as

a means to improve educational access and outcomes, particularly in rural

communities.
12

Given the significance of parental involvement in children’s education, Cambodian

government has given considerable attention to the promotion of school-community

relationship since the early 1990s. The National Education for All Committee

(NEAC), for example, recommends that a school support committee (SSC) be set up

so as to strengthen and consolidate school-community relationship. To reiterate the

importance of parental involvement, NEAC urges schools to take initiative to involve

parents and community in school management which are conducive to the

development of quality school education. With the assistance of officers from district

education office, SSC has been established in almost every school and parents have

started involving in different levels of school governance. Based on the official

guidelines of MoEYS (2002), SSC has wide-ranging responsibilities from budgeting

management to internal educational governance. Although the idea of parents as

school managers has still not yet been actualized in Cambodia, there are marked

examples showing that community-school relations are gradually improved when

parents have been involved in the educational process of their children (Nguon,

2011b).

3.2. Parental resourcing as a form of parental involvement

Western studies tend to distinguish between two types of parental involvement,

depending on the context in which parents become involved. The first type of

parental involvement represents what parents do at home to influence their own

children’s education, including parental supervision of children’s homework and

parent–child discussion. The other type of parental involvement refers to activities

parents do in school such as attending school events, attending parent–teacher

meeting, or contacting teachers and school staff. Considering that home and school

are the two most important habitats for children’s education, home-based and
school-based parental involvement probably constitute the major forms of parental

involvement in Asian countries as well. Therefore, the current study conceptualizes

home-based and school-based involvement as two important dimensions of parental

involvement. However, the current study also highlights a distinctive type of parental

involvement that has not received much attention in the earlier studies: parental

resourcing of public schooling. 13

A growing body of literature in Cambodia and elsewhere has examined parental

involvement in the form of parental resourcing (Bray, 1996a, 1996b, 1999a, 2004;

Bray & Bunly, 2005). Although parental resourcing arises in Asian countries such as

Bhutan, Laos, Indonesia, and Thailand, parental resourcing of education in

Cambodia is even more substantial because national governments have found

themselves short of resources and thus unable to meet all children’s basic

educational needs (Bray, 1999a; Bray & Bunly, 2005). Many current educational

policies regarding the relationship between parental involvement and increased

school efficiency and students’ learning are based on the premise that in traditional

society such as Cambodia, parents are the primary provider of children’s education

(Bray, 2001). While public basic education in Cambodia is officially free, in reality the

government usually covers only teacher salaries, and the payment is often late or

does not constitute a living wage. In Cambodian education context, it is well-known

that Cambodian parents contribute a substantial proportion of private resources to

cover operational supplies and infrastructure improvements. This is confirmed by

Bray’s study concluding that Cambodian parents provide in various forms over half of

the total financial resources for public primary schooling, and more significantly the
burden of household costs was considerably heavier at the secondary level (Bray &

Bunly, 2005). In such resource-poor context as Cambodia, parental resourcing can

and does enlarge the overall resource base for education which in turn permits

improvement in quality as well as quantity.

14
Although the Cambodian government’s efforts to introduce priority action program

(PAP) to remove some barriers to schooling as a whole have had a strong positive

impact on enrollments at both primary and lower secondary levels, the PAP system

itself has not been without problems. This means that household economic burdens

still remain. Considering that parental resourcing of their children’s education not only

imposes an economic burden on parents but also requires parents’ time to

participate in school management, it is reasonable to consider parental resourcing of

education as a form of parental involvement in the context of Cambodian education.

Cambodian parents have generally responded positively to government calls for local

inputs, however, little research has been conducted on the impact of parental

contributions on student’s learning outcomes. Thus, this study attempts to examine

the consequence of parental efforts in resourcing children’s education in comparison

to other types of parental involvement.

4. Data and Method

4.1. Sample 15

Data obtained for this study was collected by the author between February and

March 2011 in Kompong Chhnang Province, Cambodia. Kompong Chhnang was

selected for its typical characteristics which generally reflect Cambodia as a whole.
To obtain detailed information on involvement practices at school and household

levels, the field study was conducted in five educational districts. The districts were

randomly sampled from a list of all the districts in the province. These five districts

consist of a total of six high schools. This study focused on these six high schools.

That is, no sampling technique was used for selecting these schools. The study

focused on tenth-grade students. Simple random sampling was used for selecting

students. A total of 1551 students and a total sample of 1445 students’ parents were

included in the surveys. Different questionnaires for students and their parents were

distributed in each school by the author. The student questionnaire asked the

students to provide responses regarding their personal characteristics (i.e. sex, age,

number of siblings, birth order, and educational aspirations) and their own

perceptions about their parents’ involvement within home and at school. For

students’ parents, the questionnaires asked parents to provide answers regarding

their social background, their frequency of contributions (material and non-material),

their own involvement in school-based activities, and the nature and the extent to

which they engage in children’s education at home.

Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 33 teachers, 10 school support

committee (SSC) members, and 6 officials from district education office (DEO).

Stratified random sampling was adopted for teachers and SSC members and

purposive non-random sampling was undertaken for the teachers and for DEO staff.
4.2. Variables

4.2.1. Student’s achievement

The student achievement measure used in this study was a measure of overall

achievement derived from the five subtests developed and validated by the district

education office. These subtests measure students’ Khmer language achievement,

maths, chemistry, physics, and biology achievement. The subtests were all

significantly positively intercorrelated, each contributing to the overall internal

consistency as indicated by Cronbach’s alpha, which was .859.

16
4.2.2. Student and household characteristics

As mentioned earlier, the basic information collected about each student include his

or her sex, age, birth order, number of siblings, and educational aspirations. Sex was

coded as a dummy variable: 1 = male and 2 = female. The other three variables were

coded as continuous variables. Student’s educational aspirations were measured by

a single item that asked about the number of additional years of full time education

the student expected to complete. Summary statistics of variables analyzed in this

study are presented in Table 1. 17

As shown in Table 1, this study has measured family social and material background

as consisted of three indicators: parental occupation, parental education, and

household economic status. Using these indicators as a rough proxy for social class

of rural households may not be a perfect measure; however, the three indicators may

be more likely to capture the differences in social class of rural households that exist

among families in the sample. This is clearly articulated in Heyneman and Loxley’s
(1983) who noted that, in the third world settings, the educational levels of adults are

uniformly low and occupations are preponderantly related to rural agriculture, yet the

differences are pronounced and have been found to affect children’s learning

achievement.In this study, the parents’ occupational statuses were classified into 4

categories: (1) doing farming, (2) doing construction-related work, (3) doing business,

and (4) working in government institutions or private company. This variable was also

dummy-coded; farmer was the reference group. Because father’s and mother’s

occupational statuses were highly correlated (r = .52), the study only analyzed

father’s occupational status. The parents’ educational levels were classified into 6

categories: (1) no schooling, (2) less than primary education, (3) primary education,

(4) lowersecondary education, (5) upper-secondary education, and (6)

college/university. This variable is dummy coded, with no schooling or less than

primary education being the reference group. Because the father’s and mother’s

educational attainment were also highly correlated (r = .60), only maternal

educational attainment was included in the analyses. This

Table 1

Definitions of variables and descriptive statistics.

Variable Description Percentag Mea SD

e n
Dependent

Achievement Student’s overall achievement scores 36.5 4.8

scores ranging from 19.94 to 43.81 0 5

Independent Student’s sex: 1 = Male; 2 = Female 1.4 .

Student 8 50
 characteristics

Sex
Female 46.4%

Age Student’s age in years ranging between 14 16.5 1.0

and 20 years 6 2
Birth order The position of the child in order of birth 3.3 2.0
18
7 4
Education Number of years of full-time education 15.3 .

aspirations student expected to complete 0 46

Household

characteristics

Number of 4.3

children Number of children in the household 7

Marital status Marital status of parents

Live together 88.4%

Live separately 6.7%

Divorced 4.9%

Father’s Father’s working status

occupation
Farmer 69.7%

Self-employed 15.8%

Govt/private 12.5%

employed
Construction- 2.0%

related work
Mother’s Level of mother’s educational attainment:1 = 3.2 1.1

education no schooling; 2 = less than primary; 2 3

19
3 = primary; 4 = lower secondary; 5 = upper-
 secondary; 6 = college/university
Household

economic status Size of agricultural land owned by the family 1.5 1.1

Land asset in hectares ranging from 0 to 20 8 9

Monthly income Household average monthly income in USD 1.9 .

1 = $0–50; 2 = $51–100; 3 = $101–200; 2 73

4 = $201–300; 5 = more than $300

Household Number of household possessions students 4.6 .

possessions have ranging from 1 to 11 5 45

Parental Frequency that

involvement parents contribute

school: 1 = never; 2 = 3.8 .
Parental to
rarely; 3 = sometimes; 6 95
contributions 4 = often; 5 =

always
School-based Frequency of school-based activities: 3.2 .

involvement parents’ 1 = never; 2 = rarely; 2 71

involvement in

3 = sometimes; 4 =

often; 5 = always
Home-based Frequency of home-based activities: 1 3.0 .

involvement parents’ = never; 2 = rarely; 3 20 44

involvement in

3 = sometimes; 4 =

often; 5 = always
helps avoid multicollinearity which could otherwise result from using the highly

correlated parental education variables as predictors in the analyses. For the

measurement of family economic resources, this study has included material

possessions, land holding, and average monthly income as a rough proxy for the

economic status of rural households for two main reasons. First, as noted by

Heyneman and Loxley (1983), the conventional measure of SES borrowed from

industrialized societies may be less valid for use in the Third world settings. Hence,

using indicators such as material possessions and landholding may be more

culturally valid in developing countries such as Cambodia. Second, earlier studies

conducted in Cambodia and elsewhere conceptualized these indicators as a

measure of family economic status (see, for example, Jamison & Lockheed, 1987;

MoEYS, 2009, 2010). In this study, the household material and non-material

possessions were measured by 11 items (motorbikes, televisions, computers, study

desks, mobile phone, refrigerator, TV, tape-recorder, electricity, running water, etc.).

The amount of land owned by the household was coded as a continuous variable.

The household average monthly income was classified into 5 categories: (1) USD$

0–$50, (2) $51–$100, (3) $101–$200, (4) $201–$300, and (5) more than $300. A

principal components analysis with varimax rotation identified one factor with

eigenvalue greater than 1. The factor accounted for 46 per cent of the variance in the

set of three variables. 21

Other household characteristics including number of children in the household and

parents’ marital status were also analyzed in the regression models. Number of

children in the household was coded as a continuous variable. The marital status of

parents was dummy-coded into two groups: those who live together are coded as 1,

and those who are separate or divorced are coded as 0 (see Table 1).
4.2.3. Parental involvement

Three indexes of parental involvement were analyzed: (1) parental contributions, (2)

school-based involvement, and (3) home-based involvement. All were developed

from a factor analysis of the student survey, which contained Likert-type items with

response alternations ranging from ‘‘never’’ (=1) to ‘‘always’’ (=5). Factors were

initially identified through varimax factor analyses and then confirmed through

principal component analyses, from which factor scores were constructed. Parental

contributions were measured by 3 items asking students to describe how often their

parents engage in each activity, for example, ‘‘how often your parents contribute

money to school’’. The 3 items constituted a single factor, with principal component

factor loadings ranging from .70 to .85 and communality of 6.15; a high value

represented a high level of parental contributions to schools. School-based

involvement was formed from 4 items (for example, ‘‘how often your

Table 2

Parental involvement perceived by parents, teachers, and students.

Items Parents Teachers Students

N = 1445 N = 33 N = 1551

Mea SD Mea SD Mea S

22
n n n D
1. Parental contributions to school .

Responding to teachers’ requests for meetings 5

regarding monetary contribution 3.01 .69 2.39 .62 3.51 2

Contributing cash (for capital improvement, 3.76 .65 2.14 .63 3.87 .

school supplies, teacher salaries) 5

3
Contributing labor and materials for 3.09 .76 2.86 .61 2.88 .

infrastructure projects 5

9
2. School-based involvement .

Engaging in school events 5

3.60 .64 3.24 .62 3.47 4

Participating in school meetings about 3.33 .70 3.01 .66 3.12 .

improving school 5

4
Consulting with teachers about student 3.70 .72 3.49 .65 3.44 .

performance 5

8
Responding to teacher requests for meetings 2.95 .58 2.23 .58 2.49 .

regarding student behavior 5

5
3. Home-based involvement .

Making sure child is attending school 5

3.44 .58 – 2.78 8

Providing ideal home learning environment 2.51 .62 – 2.62 .

(study desk, study room. . .) 6

1
Doing additional household chores to allow 3.16 .60 – 2.53 .

child more time to do homework 6

0
Supporting child to attend private tutoring 3.30 .53 – 3.70 .

3
 Checking whether child has completed 2.33 .61 – 2.67 .

homework 5

2
Limiting the amount of time child watches TV 2.37 .58 – 1.52 .
23
7

8
Talking with child about school-related issues 2.49 .59 – 1.95 .

5
Providing consistent encouragement 3.76 .52 – 3.26 .

5
parents attend school events’’) whose principal component factor loadings ranged

from .68 to .85 and communality of 2.46. Home-based involvement was measured by

8 items with response alternatives ranging from ‘‘never’’ (=1) to ‘‘always’’ (=5). The 8

items constituted a single factor, with principle component factor loadings ranging

from .66 to .77 and communality of 1.79. High scores represented greater perceived

parental support.

5. Results
5.1. The extent of parental involvement 24

As mentioned earlier, this study has measured three types of parental involvement:

parental contributions, school-based involvement, and home-based involvement.

Data are taken from the parent questionnaire. As shown in Table 2, parents’

responses to the 15 items of parental involvement measure have been used to

compare with the responses from the student questionnaire and from interviews with

teachers about the extent to which parents are involved in children’s schooling. The

mean score of each item of parental contributions ranged from a low of 3.01 to a high

of 3.76. These mean scores, displayed in the first column of Table 2, indicate that the

general level of parental contributions to Cambodian rural schools is relatively high.

In the same table, but in the third column, the mean score from the student

questionnaire ranged from 2.88 to 3.87. Overall, the data from both student and

parent questionnaire reflect a relatively high level of parental contributions.

Interestingly, the analysis of teachers’ responses to the three items shows a

disappointing result. Of the three items, ‘contributing cash for school improvement’

was reported as the least common parental practice with the mean score of 2.14 as

compared to 3.76 and 3.87 reported by parents and students respectively. These

results suggest that there may be some teachers who were reluctant to admit that

they were asking for such contributions because they feared that this was not

allowed under priority action program funding mechanism introduced by the national

government since 2001. Discussions with school support committee members

revealed that they were actively involved in collecting from parents and other non1

parent members in the community. This finding reconfirms the result of the survey
conducted by Bray and Bunly (2005) that parents contribute a substantial amount of

money to school. 25

Among the four items of school-based involvement, ‘engaging in school events’ was

one of the most common activities reported by parents, teachers, and students, with

the mean scores of 3.60, 3.24, and 3.47 respectively. According to the 2 interviews

with the teachers and SSC members, parents are more likely to attend school events

ranging from attending school opening ceremonies, awarding ceremonies, Children’s

Day, Teachers’ Day, Flower Festivals (Bun Phka Samki), and other religious events

held in schools. In rural Cambodia, parental involvement in these school events may

serve as an important communication channel where both parents and teachers can

build good relationship with one another. For many parents, their commitment to

attending these events is that they believe contacting teachers with a positive

message about their children would probably make a big difference to the nature of

further communication because of the trusting relationship established between

parents and teachers. ‘Consulting with teachers about student performance’ and

‘attending Interviews with SSC representatives during the field study from 10th to

22nd March, 2011. 2 Interviews with teachers and SSC representatives during the

field study from 10th to 22nd March, 2011.

Table 3

Regression analysis of parental involvement by social class background.

Parental School-based Home-based

contributions involvement involvement

Mother’s education (ref. .173 (.051)*** . (.025)*** .048(.014)**
 primary or less) 17

Lower-secondary 5
***
Upper-secondary .236 (.055) . (.026)*** .275 (.049)***

46

3
***
College/university .330 (.048) . (.029)*** .366 (.067)***

53

7
Father’s occupation (ref.

farmer)

Construction-related . 26

work .043 (.013)** 018 (.048) .040 (.053)

Self-employed .312 (.059)*** . (.017)* .046 (.016)*

05

0
***
Government/private .236 (.043) . (.059)*** .475 (.057)***

employed 53

1
**
Household economic .135 (.043) . (.038)** .573 (.063)***

status 11

8
R2 .116 . .052

06

7
Note: Data were drawn from parent survey, N = 1445. Standardized errors are in

parentheses.

* p < .05.
 ** p < .01.

*** p < .001.

School meetings were also highly reported by parents, teachers, and students. The

reported high levels of school-related involvement may result from the current

reform of school-community partnership that advocates some innovative practices

such as SSC member-led meetings with students’ parents to discuss about

children’s academic and behavior problems. The general arrangement of the

meeting is usually between SSC members and parents preferably with the absence

of students so that parents and SSC members can discuss in depth about problems

to be solved.
27

Among the 8 items of home-based involvement, ‘providing consistent

encouragement’ and ‘supporting private tutoring’ are the most popular home-based

activities reported by parents, with the mean scores of 3.76 and 3.30. These mean

scores do not significantly differ from the mean scores of 3.26 and 3.70 as reported

by the students. In general, parents tend to report relatively higher levels of home-

based involvement in comparison to that reported by the students.

Overall, the analyses of the data reveal that parents have shown their increased

awareness of the need to be involved in the three types of parental involvement

although parental contributions appear to be the most popular practices among the

three. The levels of school-based involvement are generally higher than the reported

home-based involvement.
5.2. SES differences in parental involvement

Table 3 shows the results of ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis

predicting each parental involvement variable by social background measures.

Mothers with different levels of educational attainment do not substantially differ in

the extent to which they get involved in all of the three types of parental involvement.

These results are consistent with the findings of earlier researchers who found that

mother’s education has a major influence on the levels of their involvement and that

more educated mothers are assumed to create home environment that facilitate

children’s learning and involve themselves in their children’s learning process at

home and in school (Ho, 2003; Hung, 2005; Ng, 2000; Park et al., 2011). 28

Another interesting finding is that fathers’ different occupational statuses show the

differentiation in the extent to which they are involved in the three dimensions of

parental involvement. Fathers of self-employed background are less likely to engage

in school-based and home-based activities compared with fathers of government-

employed status. However, fathers of different occupational statuses do not greatly

differ in the extent to which they provide material or non-material support to schools.

These findings suggest that parents in rural areas, whatever occupational status they

belong to, have played an important role in supporting their own schools. As

members of the community as well as individual parents, they have worked hard to

secure resources and funding to improve their own schools. 29

Family economic status was found to be positively related to all the three types of

parental involvement. However, the effect of family economic status on school

contact is much weaker in comparison to the effect of economic resources on home-

based involvement. The results suggest that parents with higher level of economic

capital are more likely to provide learning support for their children at home. Bivariate

correlations between economic status and each items of home-based involvement

show statistically strong influence of economic resources on supporting private

tutoring for the enhancement of children’s leaning. In Cambodia, private tutoring is a

particularly significant item of household expenditure. Parents of higher economic

characteristics invest substantially in their children’s private tutoring (MoEYS, 2009).

Surprisingly, further inspection using bivariate correlations between private tutoring

effect and students’ achievement does not reveal any statistically significant

relationship between the two variables. This finding, as confirmed by Bray’s (1999b)

study, suggest that, in Cambodian education, private tutoring is not, as outsiders

might assume, an opportunity for individual students to get special help on

instructional material they might not have understood in class. Unlike in some other

Asian countries such as Japan and Korea where private tutoring is provided by

private for-profit cram schools called hakwon in Korea and Juku in Japan, and where

private teachers teach major subjects to tailor curriculum and instruction to the

specific needs of children students, in Cambodia, private tutoring constitutes an

extension of the regular curriculum offered by the same teachers in

Table 4

Regression coefficients of parental involvement on students’ achievement.

Variables Achievement scores

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Mod

el 4
 Student characteristics .

Female .209** .209** 178*

Age .120* .079 .067
Child birth order .113 .064 .046
Education aspiration .157* .129 30.093

Household characteristics

Number of children in

household .158 .130

Two-parent family .083 .049
Paternal occupation (ref.

farmer)

Construction-related work .118 .077

Self-employed .135* .104
Government/private .179* .118

employed
Household economic status .105 .082
Mother’s education .217** .

195*
Effects of parental .

involvement 324*

Parental contributions .356** *

School-based involvement .263** .

213*
Home-based involvement .175* .116
* p < .05.

** p < .01.
the same large group setting, but with a user fee attached. Such a typical type of

private tutoring cast some doubt whether such a system of tutoring serves to boost

students’ achievement.
31

32
5.3. The effect of student and household characteristics on students’ achievement

Table 4 presents the results of multiple regression analyses that predict student

achievement by parental involvement variables and other background variables.

Model 1 shows the effects of student characteristics on their achievement. The

results of the analysis show significant gender-related effects. Female students tend

to do better in comparison to male students. This finding may reflect higher level of

parental involvement in girls’ education. This finding reconfirms the result of earlier

studies which found that higher level of involvement by the mothers is positively

related to girls’ achievement (Campbell & Uto, 2002; Nguon, 2011a). This gender

discrepancy in academic achievement has an important implication. The empirical

finding of this study suggests that parents and educators need to pay more attention

to boys and that effective communication between boys and their parents as well as

their teachers might have essential impact on boys’ learning achievement. Student’s

age is inversely related to their achievement. This finding is also consistent with that

of previous studies which found that age is negatively related to children’s academic

achievement (MoEYS, 2009, 2010). This negative relationship indicates that older

students are usually those who enroll in school later than the official age or are

repeaters. Stated in another way, children who are enrolled at a later age (older than

16 years old, the normal enrolled age) appeared to be more likely to do poorly in

school compared to children being enrolled in school at a recommended age.

Likewise, students’ educational aspirations have been found to have a positive

implication on their achievement. This finding reconfirms the result of the study by

Coleman et al. (1966) who found that students who have positive and high

educational aspirations achieved at higher levels. However, the result of the analysis

indicates no significant relationship between child’s birth order and their

achievement.

Model 2 examines the extent to which students’ achievement are affected by family

background. The results of the analysis show that family background positively

affects students’ achievement after the effect of student characteristics was

statistically controlled. Female students still continued to outperform male students.

With initial student characteristics held constant, paternal occupation and maternal

education were still significantly related to students’ achievement. Students whose

fathers are government employed or privately employed appear to have higher levels

of achievement compared to students whose fathers are from other occupational

backgrounds. Fathers’ self-employed status is negatively associated with students’

achievement, although significant only at the .05 level, whereas fathers’ government

or private employed status is positively related to achievement.

Family economic resources have no statistically significant relationship with students’

achievement. The failure to find significant relationship between students’

achievement and household economic status suggests that other variables such

parental involvement variables may be more influential in explaining differences in

students’ achievement.
 33

Mother’s educational status is another significant factor predicting students’

achievement. Compared to students whose mothers have received less than

secondary school education, children whose mothers have received secondary

education or above have achieved much higher levels of achievement. These results

are consistent with the results of earlier studies which found that mother’s education

status play substantially important role for children’s achievement (Campbell & Uto,

2002; Hung, 2005; Ng, 2000).

5.4. The effect of parental involvement on student achievement

Model 3 in Table 4 includes only three measures of parental involvement, showing

gross effects of parental involvement. All the three types of parental involvement are

significantly related to students’ achievement. Higher levels of parental resourcing,

school-based involvement, and home-based involvement are positively related to

students’ higher achievement. Although students with higher achievement tend to

have higher level of parents’ home-based involvement, the effect of home-based

involvement on achievement is much weaker in comparison to the effect of the other

two types of parental involvement on students’ achievement.

34
Model 4 adds the same set of student and household background variables to Model

3, showing to what extent the relationship between parental involvement and

students’ achievement is due to their mutual dependence on background

characteristics. Interestingly, gender of the student is still statistically related to

achievement. This result indicates that the relationship between parental involvement

and students’ achievement is accounted for by gender-related effects. Controlling for

the effects of student and household background characteristics results in the

reduction of coefficients for the three measures of parental involvement on students’

achievement. Home-based parental involvement is no longer significantly associated

with students’ achievement, and the size of the coefficient of home-based

involvement is reduced from .175 in Model 3 to .116 in Model 4. The relationship

between school-based involvement and students’ achievement decreases as well.

Although significantly reduced, school-based involvement and parental contributions

remain significant in Model 4. Interestingly, school-based parental involvement rather

than home-based involvement is significantly associated with students’ achievement.

Overall, the results indicate that parental resourcing of education is most strongly

associated with students’ achievement.

6. Discussion and conclusion

It is not unusual across many societies for parents to be vigorously involved in

various activities to help their children succeed in school. However, specific types of

parental involvement and their effects on students’ achievement may depend on

family and educational contexts. In examining the nature of parental involvement

manifest in Cambodia, this study identified three dimensions of parental involvement,

namely parental resourcing of schooling, school-based involvement, and home-

based involvement. Of the three dimensions, parental resourcing of education has

been found to be most strongly associated with students’ achievement.

35

The significant effect of parental resourcing on students’ achievement delineates the

importance of providing physical/ financial support to schools, suggesting that

schools in rural areas still continue to face the shortage of instructional resources
which directly influence students’ learning achievement. There are two possible

factors that might help explain these significant effects. First, in a country as

resource-poor as Cambodia, where the demand for schooling greatly surpasses the

current supply and the basic infrastructure is a precious commodity, strategies of

cost-sharing between government and students’ parents are understandable.

Second, the availability of teaching and learning materials in rural schools are critical

ingredients in students’ learning achievement, yet the availability of the very basic

teaching and learning materials such as textbooks, notebooks, paper, erasers, maps,

globes, and posters are frequently limited. Hence, parents’ collective efforts to

provide their private resources to increase the available stock of the basic

instructional materials are more likely to affect students’ learning.

36

Two major implications may be drawn from these results. First, it is recommended

that the government should do their best to increase the levels of funding, which

should greatly profit students. Since schools in rural areas generally lack available

stock of basic educational resource, the effect of adding educational resources may

be larger for rural schools and for the educationally disadvantaged children who are

working from smaller resource base. In this regard, it is suggested that a strategy for

equal funding across regions and schools would be inefficient because investing in

settings where resources are already relatively abundant would be relatively

unproductive. Second, while the national and local educational authorities should do

their best to remove some barriers to schooling, the national target of the

abolishment of parent/community contributions to 0 per cent by 2015 set by the

National Education for All Commission (2003, p. 23) may undermine the existing
strong community spirits for schools as reflected in Bray and Bunly’s (2005) study.

Therefore, the zero target should perhaps be reconsidered as this act may reduce

the desirable social capital which exists in the school-community network. This is

clearly articulated in Coleman’s (1988) work who warned that the amount of social

capital created through the school-community relationship would continuously

become less and less when home and school would be getting alienated. Hence,

parental involvement in terms of parental resourcing, as a sort of social capital,

should not be neglected by the educational authorities.

Similar to findings in some Asian countries (Ho, 2003; van der Werf et al., 2001), the

current study has found statistically significant relationship between school-based

involvement and students’ achievement. The relatively high level of schoolbased

involvement by parents may reflect the interests that parents have in school to which

they provide support, suggesting that parents have a great sense of ownership of the

school in which their children are enrolled. More importantly, parents’ physical and

financial support and their role in school support committee may enhance the

responsiveness of the schools to the needs of the community. The possible reason

behind the increased awareness of parents to be involved in school-related activities

may be related to the traditional tendency to maintain good relationship between

home and school, as already reflected in the high level of parental contributions to

school. This pattern may be broadly interpreted as reflective of decentralized system

of Cambodian education which puts great emphasis on parental involvement in

school activities as a means to improve educational access and outcomes. In

Cambodia, parents have generally shown their increased awareness in the need to
be involved in the decision making processes of the schools (Nguon, 2011b). Despite

their individual goals for their children’s education, they are found to be substantially

involved in activities inside and outside the school buildings to support their children’s

education. 37

Another interesting finding is that home-based involvement is not significantly

associated with students’ achievement. However, because home-based involvement

has been found not to be statistically significant, this does not mean it can be

interpreted as providing evidence that parents do not take interest in their children’s

education. One possible reason may be simply due to parents’ fear of being unable

to help since their children are at higher grade levels. The finding confirms the results

of earlier studies which found that parental involvement in home-based activities

such as homework supervision tend to be lower and appear to be less important for

students at secondary school level (Campbell & Uto, 2002; Ho, 2003; Tam & Chan,

2009; Tett, 2004). Another possible explanation may be because by the time

students reached the tenth-grade, home-based parental involvement has completed

their influence on achievement. It is possible, for instance, that parental help with

children’s homework determines achievement more strongly for children in lower

grades (i.e. primary education level), whereas school-based involvement activities by

38
parents have a greater influence on achievement of children in higher grades.

Inconsistent with findings in the United States, the empirical analysis of this study

found no significant relationship between family social background and students’

achievement. One possible explanation is that, to the extent that schools provide

students with needed instructional resources, schools might mitigate the effects of
differences in family social background. Another possible reason is that, unlike in the

U.S. and western nations, Cambodian parents, especially those who live in rural

areas, typically live near a large extended family, and thus they may enjoy collective

culture. Extended family members are expected to offer support for one another in

times of need. This finding reconfirms the work of Coleman (1988) who argued that

parents, whatever social class they belong to, who are aware of the need to be

involved in the school community networks, do provide children with the sort of social

capital helping to lead to the children’s success in school. For Coleman (1988), social

capital in the form of school involvement activities in school community is of

paramount importance in influencing students’ achievement. In general, the empirical

result of this study suggests that parents, regardless of their social background, need

to understand that their involvement is more important than their economic capital

and that economic capital in parents will not automatically transfer to increase

children’s achievement unless there is an intimate school-community relationship.

 39

Does Parental Involvement Matter in Children’s Performance?

A Latin American Primary School Study

F. Javier Murillo Torrecilla and Reyes Hernández-Castilla

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between parental involvement in school activities

and primary school students’ performance in reading and math in Latin America. We

applied four-level multilevel analysis to data from the Second Regional Comparative

and Explanatory Study (LLECE/UNESCO, 2012). The sample encompassed 3000

schools and approximately 180,000 3rd and 6th grade students from 15 Latin Ameri-

can countries. The analysis found that parental involvement in the school and the

educational process has a direct effect on students’ academic achievement. Third-

grade students who received parental help with homework achieved higher academic

scores in both subjects; there was an LLECE/UNESCO, even greater difference

when the mother provided this help. When parents attended meetings with the

principal and

teachers, as well as participated in extracurricular activities, there was a noticeable

effect on students’ performance in both subjects.

 40

Introduction

Families send their children to school with the strong belief and hope that they will

acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to become integral members of society.

These parental expectations cut across nationality, socio-economic level and cultural

background, which facilitates ongoing interaction and communication between home

and school. However, there is sometimes contradictory evidence about the type of

partnership and collaboration that needs to happen between home and school in order

to improve learning and performance (Werf, Creemers, & Guldemond, 2010). Studies

suggest that parents’ involvement with schools falls on a wide spectrum: Some obtain

little information about the school or their children’s performance, while others join

parent associations and search for more autonomy and complex information. It is clear

from the literature that parental involvement exerts more obvious effects in secondary

than primary education (Cooper, Steebergen-Hu, & Dent, 2012; Dumont, Trautwein,

Nagy, & Nagengast, 2014; Fuentes & García, 2004; Fuentes, García, Gracia, &

Alarcón, 2014; Lee, 2018; Muller, 2018; Nagengast, 2015; SuárezÁlvarez, Fernández-

Alonso, & Muniz,˜ 2014; Xu & Wu, 2013; Xu, Xu, & Xu, 2014).

To begin addressing this gap, our study explores the relationship between students’

performance in reading literacy and math in Latin American primary school and the

different methods of parental involvement. To this end, we applied four-level multilevel

analysis to data from the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study

(LLECE/UNESCO, 2008). The sections that follow provide a review of the relevant

literature, a description of the method and findings, and a discussion of the study’s

implications and limitations.

 41

Studying a group of North American tenth graders, Houtenville and Smith (2008) found

that family attendance at school meetings has a positive and statistically significant

effect on students’ performance. Similarly, found that parents’ involvement in school-

sponsored events and lectures conferred positive effects (Etxeberria, Intxausti, &

Joaristi, 2013). Likewise, found that parental involvement in school management and

decision-making was positively correlated with student performance (Bower & Griffin,

2011). Meanwhile, found that parents’ volunteer efforts and attendance at school

meetings had minor effects on students’ math achievement (Núnez,˜ Vallejo, Rosario,

Tuero, & Valle, 2014).

Nevertheless, there is no clear consensus about how much parental help with

homework (Van Voorhis, 2003) affects academic outcomes, despite the commonality of

this practice. First, there is a concern over the effectiveness of assisting student

learning, considering that scholars cannot consistently verify a positive association

between the two variables (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006). Second, there needs to

be a better understanding of the suitable amount of time and frequency required for

homework (Draper, Gower, Huffington, & Whiffen, 2018). Third, there is a question over

whether research projects are more relevant for improving performance and

achievement than problem-solving exercises (Trautwein & Köller, 2003), and further, if

they should be completed in school rather than at the student’s home (HooverDempsey

et al., 2005). Fourth, scholars have deliberated about the amount of help that should be

given to finishing homework. On this point, research suggests that unaided studying can

be much more important for performance than homework, family involvement in learning
(Draper et al., 2018), and the significance that parents attribute to homework

(Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muniz,˜ 2016). 42

To compound matters, the literature concerning parental homework help contains

contradictory evidence. For instance, some research shows that parental involvement

with homework has no effect on student achievement while other studies suggest that

parental involvement may negatively effect student success (Evans, 2018; Khon, 2006a,

2006b). The recent studies done by FernándezAlonso et al. (2016) have examined the

link between student achievement and different homework-related variables like time

spent, level of autonomy, an importance attributed to homework both student and the

family. Kohn’s (2006) conclude that the relationship between homework and academic

achievement remains unclear. The latter authors attributed this ambiguity to the analysis

and management of both variables, homework and academic achievement, within other

factors that also affect performance and may be confounded by other factors. 43

Recent scholarship has striven to settle this ambiguity and establish a foundation for

new research. For instance, Patall, Cooper, and Civey (2008) used a 14-study meta-

analysis to address the relationship between parental involvement in school

assignments and academic performance (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001). The authors

found that such involvement can lead to: (1) higher rates of assignment completion; (2)

fewer problems with completing the assignment; and, (3) in some cases, higher

academic performance among primary students (Valle et al., 2015). A study run by Ruiz

(2010) offered similar findings for Colombian students: Performance improved among

children who received homework help from their parents. This meta-analysis of 22

additional studies saw a positive association between assistance with homework and
performance among primary school students, but a negative association in the case of

secondary school students. There was also a negative association for math

achievement, while verbal areas showed positive results.

An even more recent meta-analysis synthesized 37 studies between 2000 and 2013

(Schereens, Witziers, & Steen, 2013) that encompassed kindergartens, primary and

secondary schools. The authors found that the parental models most associated with

high achievement are those focusing on supervised learning activities. The strongest

relationships between type of parental involvement and academic achievement

occurred when parents had high academic expectations for their children, maintained

communication with them over school events and schoolwork, and promoted reading

habits. This overlays with Sheldon and Epstein (2005) finding that parental

involvement with reading tasks translated into significant improvements in language

and reading skills from kindergarten to high school. By contrast, the analysis did not

find much relationship between academic achievement and parents’ homework

supervision, attendance at school events, and control exerted over students’ habits.

Despite the above ambiguity, scholars generally agree that help with homework

effects a student’s study habits, time management, accountability and other issues

that indirectly affect academic performance (Cooper et al., 2006; Nokali, Nermeen,

Bachman, & Votruba-Drzal, 2010). Other research has established a relationship

between homework, achievement, and cognitive factors, like the studies by Brown,

McBride, Bost, and Shin (2011); DeSpain, Conderman, and Gerzel-Short (2018);

Hoang (2007); and Oyserman, Brickman, and Rhodes (2007); Pomerantz, Moorman,

and Litwack (2007).

 44

The findings of two specific studies are particularly relevant to this article: The first is

UNESCO’s First International Comparative Study (LLECE/UNESCO, 2001), which

evaluated the performance of 3 rd and 4th grade primary students in different Latin

American countries. The second is the Spanish-American research on School

Effectiveness (IIEE, in its Spanish acronym), which developed and validated a model

to examine the effectiveness of Latin American school systems and schools (Murillo &

Hernández-Castilla, 2011a, 2011b; Murillo, 2007). It is important to underline that the

two studies differ in terms of how they construct and measure the factors associated

with family involvement (McWayne, Melzi, Limlingan, & Schick, 2016).

The IIEE treated parental involvement as a form of overall involvement in the school,

including curricular activities, noncurricular events, and organizational matters. The

IIEE found that students’ math and language performance increased significantly in

cases of major parental involvement (Murillo, 2007). Interestingly, the IIEE confirmed

that the best-performing students are those who ask for parental help with their

homework. More specifically, it found that (1) students who received the most parental

help also showed lower achievement (because those students were the most

academically behind), but (2) students who asked for more help performed better

(perhaps because they were more committed to their learning (Auerbach, 2012;

Blanco & RodríguezMartínez, 2015; LLECE/UNESCO, 2001), meanwhile, derived two

main findings: (a) A significant effect on language and math performance among

students whose parents regularly read to them at home and (b) A negative correlation

between performance and help with homework, resulting in lower achievement for

students who received parental help with homework.

 45

Method

This study aimed to determine the effect of family involvement on student performance.

Specifically, we explored the diverse forms of parental involvement in school activities

(i.e., group or individual meetings, as well as institutional and extra-curricular activities)

and their relationship to helping a child with homework.

We utilized data from the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study

(SERCE), conducted by UNESCO (LLECE/UNESCO, 2008, 2012), to achieve the

study’s objectives. We were particularly interested in testing the IIEE’s finding that the

best-performing students were those who claim to receive parental help with their

homework. The UNESCO survey applied standardized tests to approximately 200,000

students in 16 countries, as well as distributed questionnaires to their families, teachers,

and school administration. The survey mainly focused on math and literature. We

applied four-level multilevel models (student, classroom, school, and country) to the

collected data1 .

46

Our analysis is grounded on the concept of value added, that is, an estimation about the

contributions to student’s test scores made by the school. It provides an accurate

estimate of what each individual school contributes to student learning. To analyse the

effect that different types of family involvement have on student performance, we

controlled for certain external factor such the family’s socio-economic and education

level; years of education prior to primary school; native language; and whether the

1
student’s home was urban or rural. We used this data to derive and control for

adjustment variables that could influence the data output.

Participants

Our sample was drawn from the population of all 3 rd grade (8 and 9 years of age) and 6 th

grade (11 and 12 years of age) primary education students in Latin America; this

totalled approximately 10 million boys and girls in the region. The sample itself covered

2,809 schools located in 16 Latin American countries, from which we derived 90,300 3 rd

graders from 4,092 classrooms and 86,362, 6 rd graders from 3,683 classrooms (Table

1). To establish the exact sample, a stratified random sampling was used by UNESCO

with the following criteria: type of administration and geographic area (public and private

schools in rural and urban areas); institution size (small: one class per grade; medium:

two or three classes per grade; large: four or more classes per grade), and the

relationship between 6th and 3rd grade enrolment (R6/3≥0.8; 0<R6/3<0.8 R6/3=0; and 3 rd

grade enrolment=0). The sampled schools were selected at each level using a single-

stage selection process from each cluster, and all students from that grade at the

selected school were in the sample.

 47

Variables

We classified the controls into three different groups: family involvement, academic

development, and socio-demographics.

Family involvement variables

These included seven variables that were organized into two areas, depending on the

data source and the variable type: (1) parental assistance with studying or homework,

based on the student’s opinion (dummy variables); and (2) family involvement in

different school activities (school-organized extracurricular activities; meetings arranged

by the schools’ principals, teachers, or parent associations; and parent association

elections) based on the parents’ response. In both cases, respondents had three

choices: no, sometimes and always.

Student performance variables

The UNESCO survey measured students’ performance in math and literature using the

Item Response Theory (ITR). The data had a mean of 500 and SD of 50. The survey

administrators collected this information using standardized tests in the areas

mentioned.

48
Adjustment variables

These were composed of six factors: (1) family and student socio-economic levels,

based on the parents’ professions and family possessions (typified); (2) family education

level, based on the highest level of degree obtained by each parent (typified); (3)

student gender (dummy variable); (4) student’s native language, be it Spanish,

Portuguese, or other (dummy); (5) years of pre-schooling acquired by student (number

of years the student attended an education centre prior to entering the formal education

system), and (6) environment, if residing in a rural or urban setting (dummy).

First, we created a “null model” without the control variables. Next, we added the

adjustment variables in order to account for their influence over the null model. Our full

model encompassed the variables in the null model alongside those adjustment

variables that made a statistically significant contribution. This model served as the

basis for the value added approach, since it accounted for the external factors that are

relevant to student achievement.

Instruments

The LLECE/UNESCO survey collected the variables using data from the following four

types of tests:

A questionnaire sent to the parents, containing 20 confidential questions about family

possessions, their relationship with the student and school, and their overall satisfaction

with the school. A questionnaire for 3 rd and 6th grade students (containing 20 and 40

questions respectively) that covered personal characteristics, family support,

involvement in school activities, and students’ opinions regarding these topics.

Standardized tests, validated for each country, that comprised different booklets for the

purpose of collecting the output variables (in our case, math and reading performance).

We assessed performance via two dimensions: curricular elements common to the

region, and skills acquired for daily life. The test items were designed to evaluate the

comprehensive use of the different codes and rules of each discipline assessed, with an

emphasis on the ability to understand meaning and resolve everyday concerns.

 49

Data analysis

Following data collection, we ran multilevel models with four levels of analysis. The

procedure for each grade and product variable consisted of the following: (a) estimating

the null model; (b) calculating the model with control variables; (c) including each of the

explanatory variables individually in the adjusted model; and (d) expanding on the final

model by including all variables. When the variable used is ordinal, it is modelled with a

Poisson distribution. It is called a link function of level 1 (link function) to the

transformation of the dependent variable of level 1 that is equated to a linear

combination of the coefficients of the explanatory variables, by means of a Poisson

transformation using the

MLnWin1 program. This method, The IGLS algorithm (generalized

Table 1

Study sample: Number of schools, grades and students

Grades Student
School
Country s
s 3rd 6th
3rd 6th
Argentina 167 312 353 6663 669

6
Brazil 157 252 245 5711 545

6
Colombia 203 300 207 5902 603

5
Costa Rica 171 180 150 5233 476

6
 Cuba 206 370 383 5293 591

0
Chile 165 281 263 6136 702

5
Ecuador 192 224 215 5349 542

7
El Salvador 182 256 235 7474 634

6
Guatemala 231 313 267 7095 556

0
Nicaragua 205 289 250 6885 678

9
Panama 155 294 247 6476 565

5
Paraguay 209 234 208 5506 483

9
Peru 165 238 243 4814 470

1
Dominican R. 183 167 114 4554 464

6
Uruguay 218 342 303 7209 651

50 1
Total 2809 4092 3683 90300 86362
Source: independent presentation of SERCE data

least squares) has been used. The model that uses the MLwinN fixes the components

of the variance in an initial value and maximizes the verisimilitude of the fixed

coefficients (Generalized Square Minimes). Then, fixes the coefficients with their current

values and maximizes the likelihood, until convergence is achieved. we estimated four
multilevel models as shown below (one for each output variable): yijkl = ˇ0jkl +

ˇ1jklNSEijkl + ˇ2jklNCultijkl + ˇ3jklPreescijkl +ˇ4jklGeneroijkl + ˇ5jklLMijkl+

ˇ6lHábitatkl + ˇ7jklAp madijkl + ˇ8jklAp padijkl + ˇ9jklpart actijkl

51

+ˇ10jklpar reu profijkl+

ˇ11jklpar reu dirijkl + ˇ12jklpar reu asijkl + ˇ13jklpar elec asijkl + εijkl

ˇ jkl

ˇ jkl

ˇ jkl

ˇ6l = ˇ6 + ϕ6l

ˇ jkl

ˇ jkl

With:

,˝ :˝

,˝:˝

,˝:˝
52
,˝ :˝

Where i = student variables, j = classroom variables, k = school variables, and l =

country variables: yijkl, represents the various measurements of the student’s

performance; NSEijkl represents the socio-economic level of the student’s family; NCult ijkl
represents the family’s education level; Preschool ijkl represents the student’s years of

preschool; Genderjkl represents the student’s gender; LMijkl represents the student’s

native language, be it Spanish, Portuguese or other; Environ kl represents the school’s

surrounding environment, be it urban or rural; Ap mad ijkl represents mother’s help with

homework and studying; Ap pad ijkl represents father’s help with homework and studying;

Par actijkl represents parental involvement in extracurricular activities; Par reu prof ijkl

represents parental involvement in teacherorganized meetings; Par reu dirijkl

represents parental involvement in meetings organized by the school directors; Par reu

asijkl represents involvement in meetings organized by parent associations; and Par

elec asijkl represents votes cast in elections for parent association representatives.

We should note that some respondents lacked complete information. The missing

values were worked with SPSS, previously to be used in MLwiN software. We strove

to maximize the sample by filling in the gaps with data from similar respondents (i.e.,

etc.). In the absence of this data, we used the value of a classmate that shared the

same classroom, environment, and characteristics. It has been done by analysing the

pattern data and using the mean of the series using this SPSS option. In a few

unusual cases removed the respondent from the data analysis as the multilevel work

demands.

Results

Level of family involvement in student learning 53

The data clearly indicate that parental involvement in the educational process and the

school itself directly influences a student’s academic achievement. The four-level

multilevel modelling processes (one for each grade and product variable) reveal the

effect that different forms of family involvement have on a child’s learning progress

(Tables 2–5): All but one variable showed a significant influence on the individual

variable models (Table 2) for some level or product variable, while four of the seven

variables exerted an influence in all cases.

We want to stress that the six variables used in the output conformed to the same

pattern across the four models. The results show that, in both the 3 rd and 6th grade,

students’

Table 2

Multilevel model results for math performance 3rd grade

Null Fixed Variable Final

model model coefficients model

B (SE) B (SE) B (SE) B (SE)
Constants 505.6

Intercept 5 500.76

(7.35) 514.91 (6.61) (6.44)

NSE Family 3.00 (.40) 2.67

(.40)
Family Educational Level 14.82 (.47) 14.19

(.47)
Preschool Education .93 (.23) .81

(.23)
Gender (male-female) −6.10 (.62) −6.30
 54

(.63)
Native Language (Spanish or other) −21.89 (1.30) −21.50

(.74)
Environment (urban/rural) −13.66 (16.33)

Mother’s help with academic 7.1

homework or studies 0 (.72)

Father’s with academic homework 5.0 (.63) 3.40

help or studies 9 (.66)

Involveme i extracurricular activities 4.1 (.40) 3.35

nt n 4 (.41)

Involveme i meetings organized by 1.9 (.42) NS

nt n school administration 2

Involveme i teacher-organized 4.6 (.48) 3.76

nt n meetings 9 (.48)

Involveme i meetings organized by NS -

nt n parents’ associations

Involveme i parent association 3.3 (.73) 1.66

nt n elections 1 (.74)

Random Sampling 1746.1

Countries 2346.45 1873.04 0

Schools 1823.70 1374.27 1338.5

8
Grades 524.39 495.42 489.74
 Students 5630.78 5546.36 55 5528.5

3
Source: Prepared by Author

Table 3

Multilevel model results for reading performance 3 rd grade

Null Adjusted Variable Final

model model coefficients model

B (EE) B (EE) B (EE) B (EE)

Constants 507.62 513.74 499.15

Intercept (7.47) (6.67) (6.54)

NSE Family 5.16 (.42) 4.81

(.42)
Family Educational Level 17.92 (.49) 17.23

(.49)
Preschool Education 1.23 (.24) 1.13

(.24)
Gender (male-female) 6.32 (.65) 6.09

(.64)
Native Language (Spanish or other) − −

Environment (urban-rural)

Mother’s help with academic 8.2 7.08

homework or studies 0 (.75) (.79)

Father’s with academic homework 4.0 (.66) 2.02

help or studies 9 (.69)

Involveme i extracurricular activities 3.6 (.42) 3.19
 nt n 8 (.43)

Involveme i meetings organized by 2.2 (.44) NS

nt n school management 8

Involveme i teacher-organized 5.2 (.50) 4.87

nt n meetings 9 (.51)

Involveme i parent association NS -

nt n meetings

Involveme i parent association 1.6 (.77) NS

nt n election meetings 3

Random Sampling 2422.4 1800.5

Countries 4 1912.29 1
Schools 1973.7 1129.35 1085.5

6 9
Grades 582.24 523.62 514.06
Students 6269.4 6159.26 56 6141.9

5 4
Source: Prepared by author

performance in reading and math were affected by their socioeconomic and education

levels, native language, gender, years of preschool involvement, and living

environment (rural/urban).
 57

According to the results, four out of the five forms of parental involvement demonstrated

a positive influence on students’ achievement:

1)Parental help with homework and studying (both mother and father).

2)Involvement in extracurricular activities.

3)Involvement in meetings organized by school management. 4) Involvement in

meetings organized by school teachers.

Meanwhile, family involvement in parent association meetings and elections showed

little or no effect on student performance. In the following, we describe the specific

results of each involvement type. Parental help with homework and studying Students

who claimed to receive parental support with homework obtained:

• 3rd-grade students received 7.1 additional points (using a mean of 500 and a standard

deviation of 50) in math if aided by the mother, 5.1 points if aided by the father, and

9.38 points if aided by both parents.

• 3rd-grade students received 8.2 additional points in reading if aided by the mother, 4.1

points if aided by the father, and 9.5 additional points if aided by both parents.

• 6th-grade students received 2.0 additional points in math if aided by the father, while

assistance from the mother did not appear to affect these students’ math performance.

• 6th-grade students received 2.5 additional points in reading if aided by the mother, 3.0
58
if aided by father, and 4.02 if aided by both parents.

Table 4

Multilevel model results for math performance 6th grade

 Null model Adjusted Variable Final

model coefficients model

B (EE) B (EE) B (EE) B (EE)
Constants 498.91 531.00 521.26

Intercept (13.00) (12.36) (12.31)

NSE Family 2.51 (.41) 2.46

(.43)
Family Education Level 9.67 (.04) 9.52

(.40)
Preschool Education 2.01 (.23) 1.92

(.23)
Gender (male-female) −7.57 (.63) −7.64

(.63)
Native Language (Spanish or other) −13.88 −13.68

(1.63) (1.62)
Environment (urban-rural) −20.78 −21.02

Mother’s help on academic studies or (2.44) (2.43)

59
homework NS -
Father’s on academic studies or 1.9 (.64) 1.58

help homework 8 (.64)

Involveme i extracurricular activities 2.4 (.41) 1.66

nt n 8 (.42)

Involveme i meetings organized by 2.1 (.40) NS

nt n management 7

Involveme i teacher-organized 5.2 (.50) 4.81

nt n meetings 6 (.51)
 Involveme i meetings organized by the NS -

nt n parent association

Involveme i parent association NS -

nt n elections

Random Sampling 2213.2

Countries 2673.24 2241.00 8

Schools 2580.03 2076.24 257.36
Grades 587.71 567.69 562.43
Students 6426.26 6343.33 6333.0

7
Source: Prepared by Author

Table 5

Multilevel model results for reading performance 6th grade

60 Null model Adjusted Variable Final

model coefficients model

B (EE) B (EE) B (EE) B (EE)

Constant 498.05 538.89

Intercept (11.13) (2.13)

NSE Family 3.92 (.48)

Family Education Level 11.29 (.40)

Preschool Education 1.91 (.23)

Gender (male-female) 5.53 (.63)

Native Language (Spanish or other) − 2.5 (.69) NS

Environment (urban/rural) 4
 Mother’s help with academic studies or

homework
Father’s with academic studies or 3.0 (.63) 2.68

help homework 5 (.63)

Involveme i extracurricular activities 1.6 (.40) NS

nt n 0

Involveme i meetings organized by 2.0 (.40) NS

nt n school management 8

Involveme i teacher-organized 6.4 (.49) 6.35

nt n meetings 5 (.49)

Involveme i parent association NS -

nt n meetings

Involveme i parent association NS -

nt n elections

Random Sampling 1492.7

Countries 1959.67 1515.43 8

Schools 2334.37 1507.89 1497.4

3
Grades 419.71 383.37 375.70
Students 6296.43 6213.05 61 6198.5

0
Source: Prepared by Author based on SERCE data.
 62

Remarkably, 3rd graders (both male and female) who received homework help from their

mothers showed greater improvement than the rest of their peers. Meanwhile, paternal

support was most valuable for 6 th grade boys (11 and 12 years of age), in both math and

reading. In light of these results, it is important to know how many students are

receiving parental help with homework and schoolwork in each of the countries studied

—this information is represented in Figures 1 and 2. Across all Latin American countries

studied, 82.3% of 3rd grade and 71.3% of 6th grade primary school students claimed to

have received their mother’s help with homework, whereas 81.4% and 50.6% of the

corresponding grades received their father’s help. When broken down by country, we

see that an especially large number of 3 rd-grade students receive their mother’s help:

Over 90% of such students in Cuba, Panama, Chile and the Dominican Republic, and

over 80% in the remaining Latin American countries, save for Guatemala and Uruguay.

The amount of paternal support, by contrast, ranged from 48% (Uruguay) to 80%

(Cuba), indicating that fathers, while still an important source of help, constitute a less

frequently available resource compared to mothers.

Parental involvement at school

The results also highlight that parental involvement at school directly influences a

child’s progress. We considered three types of school involvement—extracurricular

activities, managementorganized meetings, and teacher-organized meetings—and all

of them demonstrated major significance for both grades; however, the weight of each

one varied.

Parental involvement in extracurricular activities

This variable exerted influence on the reading and math performance of both studied

grade levels. Third-grade students whose parents participated in extracurricular

activities showed 4.14 more

Cu a
Figure 1. Percentage
b
Panam of parents who support child with homework and
á C ie
Dominican
studies at home h l 3rd grade primary school students.
RCosta
RicaEcuado
Argentin
rCu a
aColombi
b
Dominican
Paragua
a
R Nicaragu
yChil
Ela
Paname
á Brazi
Salvador
Ecuado
lPer
r Perú
Urugua
u
Guatemal
y
Paragua
Ay agentin 0 2 4 6 8 10
rColom
a i 0 0 0 0 0

Elb a Fathe Mother

Salvador
Guatem l
aNicaragu a r
a
Costa
RicaBrai
z l
Urugua
y 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 70 8 9 10
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fath Moth

er er
Figure 2. Percentage of parents who support child with homework of63

studies at home 6rh grade primary school students.

performance points in math (with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 50) and

3.68 more points in reading, whereas 6 th grade students showed 2.48 and 1.60 more

performance points in math and reading, respectively. Evidently, this form of

involvement has a greater influence on 3 rd-grade students than 6th-grade students, and
on math more than reading. The variable’s importance is underscored by its appearance

on three of the four final models.

64

Parental involvement in meetings organized by school management

This variable also showed a significant and positive effect on students’ academic

performance. According to the data, constant parental involvement in meetings

organized by school leadership created a 3.84 point increase (1.94 if occasional

involvement) and a

4.65increasein3rd-gradestudents’mathandreadingperformance, respectively. Meanwhile,

there was a 4.34 and a 4.16 point increase in 6 th-grade students’ math and reading

performance, respectively. The effect of parental involvement in teacher-organized

meetings was even stronger, increasing 3 rd-grade students’ performance by 9.38 points

in math and 10.50 points in reading, whereas 6 th-grade students’ performance increased

by 4.50 in math and 12.90 in reading. Even when controlling for all demographic

variables (e.g., socio-economic level, gender, native language, etc.), students’

performance increased by as much as a quarter of a standard deviation when parents

expressed interest in attending teacher-organized meetings. Such findings confirm that

family relationships are extremely important in a child’s development.

Parental involvement in parent associations

From the two variables comprising this area (involvement in association meetings and

parent association elections), only the latter appeared to correlate with academic
performance, and that was specifically for 3 rd-grade students. Nonetheless, the effect

was 65

significant, leading to a 3.26 and 6.62 increase in performance in reading and math,

respectively. The final multilevel models, which included all variables simultaneously,

allowed us to accurately compare performance variations between students from equal

socio-demographic levels based on whether they received parental help with homework.

For 3rd-grade students, the categorical data indicated a 26.44-point difference in math

performance and a 25.22-point difference in reading performance (more than 0.5

standard deviations); for 6th-grade students, there was a difference of 14.52 points in

math and 15.38 points in reading (0.3 standard deviations).

Discussion

Theoretical implications

The present study used an extensive sample of Latin American schools to explore the

effect of different forms of parental involvement on primary school students’

performance. At a broad level, family involvement with the school, and specifically with

homework, was found to be the most relevant factor in the relation between schools and

parents. The limitations of this study as a quantitative research could be completed with

a qualitative perspective with interviews to let us know and understand the parent’s

perspective in deeper way. But also, to have a more accurate data about the time

devoted to help the students as it seems not to be a linear relationship, maybe due to an

excessive protection to the children that does

 66

On a theoretical level, the present study disagrees with the finding observed in the first

comparative study (LLECE/UNESCO, 2001): namely, that there is a negative

relationship between homework support (Trask-Tate & Cunningham, 2010) and student

performance. However, our results do underscore that the quality of learning

experiences derives from social class, which influences the types of home experiences

that children encounter. To illustrate, half of the parents becoming from working-class

reported negative academic experiences for their children. These findings align with

earlier studies on international contexts, and Latin America in particular (Murillo, 2007;

Ruíz, 2010; Sheldon, 2003). Class division, as this and other studies have shown, is

particularly pronounced during the preschool period. This reveals the inequalities

associated with social class (Yamamoto, Holloway, & Suzuki, 2016) that are related with

parental involvement and affect student academic performance.

It is worth adding that parents’ involvement in extracurricular activities and

administrator-organized meetings showed a positive relationship with student

performance, but the size of the effect was weaker compared to the other variables.

These findings are analogous to other studies like recently Houtenville and Smith

(2008) for North American students. Likewise, a multilevel method by González and

Jackon (2014) found that parental involvement significantly effects reading and

mathematics in the average school (Lin & Yan, 2005).

The last form of parental involvement—namely, participation in organizations related

to school management, such as parent associations or school boards—did not

correlate with student performance in our study. Nonetheless, parental involvement in

these boards or associations could benefit other areas of the student’s life, such as
their concentration on education and schooling, student rights, their responsibilities

and duties as a citizen, etc., all of which are relevant for learning and school

performance (Benner, Boyle, & Sadler, 2016).

67

Practical implications

For 3rd-grade students, having a mother’s help with homework was particularly

significant for both reading and math performance (producing 8 and 7 more points,

respectively, then those who did not receive maternal backing). Curiously, parental

assistance had considerably less effect for 6 th-grade students, producing only 2 to 2.5

additional points depending on the subject and parent’s gender. Regardless, the

results generally align with other studies that highlight the relationships between

mothers’ involvement in their children’s education and said children’s emotional

success, capital, and wellbeing (Yamamoto et al., 2016).

Beyond helping with homework, parents’ involvement in parent-teacher meetings also

showed a positive effect on student performance across both subjects and both grade

levels. Sixth-grade students showed the greatest gain in reading performance, with an

increase of 6.5 points in their scores. This seems sensible, since parent-teacher

meetings frequently address issues and problems directly related to the learning

process or student behaviour, thus building shared support and control strategies
between parents and schools that positively influence the student’s performance.

Secondly, regular meetings between teachers and parents that address student

learning may be used to guide parents in providing more effective support. It is

important to mention that, regardless of the type of parental involvement, the effect

was always greater in reading than math for both grades. This merely serves to

confirm the stronger influence that family has traditionally had on language and

communication studies versus math and science studies (Murillo, 2007). 68

The literature shows as the most robust predictive effects of parenting resumed after

inclusion of the collaboration term of parenting by family processes, which lends care

to the conditionality of parenting with a moderate effect of family processes. This

shows that parenting tasks are more relevant in the home environment with low

positive family processes and shows merging in the family context of highly positive

family processes (Yeung, Chen, & Choi, 2017).

The present research sought to determine the type(s) of family involvement that

schools could promote in order to facilitate strong, long-term alliances as García

(2003) refers. Secondly, parents and teachers should be encouraged to engage in

regular meetings to address student learning Chavkin (2017). Relatedly, the evidence

suggests that teachers cannot simply assign homework; rather, they are most

effective in their role when they convey the meaning behind the task, as well as

provide support and collaboration strategies between school and home. By organizing

meetings with parents, teachers may be able to accomplish these goals

Conclusion
Overall, schools should recognize that parents are students’ most influential partners in

the learning process. Indeed, in our study, a large majority of the children reported

receiving support from home when studying and doing homework. As such, teachers

should trust students’ families and coordinate with them, as best they are able, in order

to earn their support. By collaborating with families, schools may better achieve their

mission of enhancing student learning 69

The fact that the support of families in school duties positively influences us raises a

question about the role of the school. Undoubtedly, families must be counted, but

families cannot be a way of schooling. It is not their paper. On the other hand, the fact

that their support is key in the tasks makes question what the role of the school is itself,

and on the other hand could be an element of social justice. Not all families have the

knowledge, nor the time, to carry out this systematic support in school tasks at home,

and therefore, it can become a new source of inequality of learning opportunities.

In the future, scholars should focus on the relationship between social class and

parental support, as well as apply qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups, observations)

to develop a more holistic comprehension of the phenomenon. Further studies should

explore the relations between parents’ socio-cultural level and the role(s) they assume

in the school and community contexts (Talani & Branco, 2018).

The creation of a strong relationship among family and school has been shown as a key

factor in the pleasant development of the education process and in achievement

success. The relation has been branded by a mutual responsibility between school

agents and students’ families and it is far from the expected, particularly in the context

of many Latina American countries.

 70

Parental Attitude and Involvement in Children’s Education:

A Study on the Parental Aspiration among Form Four Students in Selangor

Siti Fatahiyah Mahamooda*, Ruzela Tapsirb, Ahmad Saatc, Sanizah Ahmadb,

Kamiliah Ab Wahabb, Mohd Hassan Awang Boonb & Kahartini Abdul Rahmanb

a
Centre for Islamic Thought & Understanding, UiTM Shah Alam

Abstract

Parents' aspirations appear to be one of the important predictors for children’s

academic and social development, especially in decision makings for the

children’s tertiary education. This study identifies the parental attitude in

involving themselves towards the enhancement of the children’s education

among parents of students from secondary schools in Selangor. The factors

of interest are: parents’ income and qualification, finance preparation in

children’s tertiary education, involvement in activities at children’s schools and

 children’s exposure on future carrier. The findings positively demonstrated

that parents are providing high considerable attention in terms of

decisions, expectations and financial towards their children’s academic

future.

2.

1. Introduction

Involvement of parents’ in the future academic plan is defined as the degree

to which a parent dedicates resources and energy to his or her child in a given

developmental or educational domain. Several investigators have

documented that levels of parent involvement are related to socioeconomic

status, beliefs about the role and place of parents in school. Involvement of

parents in activities at school and how much the parents keep abreast of their

children's educational opportunities and developments are looked into.

72
2. Literature Review

Parents’ involvements have become major educational issue since 1980’s.

Since school aging children spend approximately about 70% of their waking

hours outside of school, parents’ involvement and influence can become very

significant for developing a child (Cotton & Wikelund, 2001). Parents’

involvement includes playing a role in home learning activities in the form of

teaching, being a model and to guide them during the learning process.
Concern on how children organize their time, providing conducive

environment in the house, monitoring outside school activities, focusing on

self-discipline, expressing high expectations and encourage development in

school are also examples of parents’ involvement (Michigan Department of

Education (2001)). Series of researches have proven that the activities

mentioned above contribute towards students’ achievements. Research have

proven that for all types of children and age the more intensively parents are

involved in their children learning, the more beneficial the achievements are.

Early childhood education with strong parents’ involvement is a healthy

situation and an effective approach for children’s development. It is believed

and proven that parents with high expectations of their children and

continuously communicating and motivating them to strive for their best in

whatever they are doing will result in improved achievements (Stagelin, 2003).
73

Influential effects in parents’ involvement is essential in the education system

and are very welcome by teachers and schools as the activities would result

in more beneficial achievements. However there are a number of issues being

discussed by researchers on matters pertaining to parents’ involvement with

their children’s education. Among the issues are when exactly should parents

be involved, support for parents wanting to be involved and how much

involvement is consider healthy for the child (Xu, 2002). The impact of

parents’ involvements and major factors influencing parents’ involvement and

type of involvements are among research topics being highlighted when

parents’ involvement is concern. A collaboration study done by the College

 Board and Art & Science Group in the US which involved 1778 responses of

high school seniors who took SAT found that generally the college bound high

school seniors are satisfied with the involvement of their parents in the search

of college. It is comforting to know that 30% of the respondents expect more

parental involvement. Engaged and interested parents are known to be one of

the essential component in improving student academic achievement and

school performance. A study completed by Harvard Family Research Project

portrays that parental expectations is a great influence towards achievement

of grades K-12. Parental involvement is more pertinent for less motivated

students. Another finding of the research is concerning the aspects of

involvement. The findings show that parents have greatest involvement when

college matters are concern as compared to everyday matters like TV

programs, apparels worn or books read. 50% of the respondents indicated

that their parents are very much involved in decisions pertaining to college

matters.

3. Methodology 74

In this study, a convenient random sampling method was utilized to collect

data from seven secondary schools around the area of Selangor. Data was

collected through the distribution of questionnaires to 560 students after

permission from the Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri Selangor is sought. Students

of form four from the 2009 cohort had been identified and dates and time
confirmed before the questionnaire are taken to the schools. In this study,

parents and students have to respond to different questionnaires. The

questionnaire for the students consists of a section for demographic profile

and sections on four different aspects which are closely related to the

development of human resources. The four constructs are the Mathematics

and Science Anxiety, Quality of Life and Learning Style. Students answered

the questionnaire in a hall and they were allowed to consult the researchers to

clarify uncertainties or questions which they found vague. Then the students

brought back home the set of questionnaires to be given to their parents.

Once their parents completed the questionnaires, they submitted them to their

counselors to be submitted to the researchers. This study focuses only on

parents’ aspiration. The questionnaire on the parents’ aspiration is a self

developed questionnaire pertaining to their plan for the future education of

their children and some demographic details. It consists of items which range

from academic discussions with their children, hopes for tertiary education,

obtaining information on furthering education, willingness to spend on their

children’s education, deciding area of study, and preparations made to

finance tertiary education of their students.

 4. Results and Discussions

75

Note SK – SMK Seri S – SMK Seksyen 7

s: Kundang 7
UA – SMK Ungku Aziz D – SMK Dato

M Mustaffa
CB – SMK Cyberjaya B – SMK Bandar

R Rinching
TM – SMK Taman

Melawati

Fig. 4.1. Percentage of Parents Respondents According to Schools

 76

This survey was carried out among 294 parents who sent their children to

seven selected schools in Selangor. The distribution of parents classified by

schools is shown in Fig. 4.1. The highest percentage of 31.3% are the parents

from SMK Seri Kundang, 16 percent are parents from SMK Seksyen 7 and

SMK Ungku Aziz, followed by SMK Dato Mustaffa (15.6%). However, less

than 10 percent are the parents who come from SMK Cyberjaya, SMK Bandar

Rinching and SMK Taman Melawati who made up only 8.2%, 7.5% and 5.4%

respectively. 186 out of 294 (63.3%) parents are fathers, while another 36.1

percent are mothers of the respondents. On average, the parents’ age is

around 48 years old (mean=47.67, standard deviation=5.973) (Table 4.1). In

terms of race, majority of the parents (92.5%) are Malay and only a small

amount of them are Chinese and Indian who made up 3.4 percent and 3.1

percent respectively (Fig. 4.2). While another one percent are among other

races such as Caucasian. About 50 percent of the respondents live in rural

area, while 35.7 percent live in town and only 16.3 percent of the respondents

live in city area (Fig. 4.3).

Table 4.1. Descriptive of Parents’ Age

Standard
Minimum Maximum Mean Median
Deviation
ParentsAge 31 69 47 47.67 5.973
Fig. 4.2. Distribution of Race

77

Fig. 4.3. Distribution of Residence Area

In Fig. 4.4, 25.5 percent of the parents have total number of dependents of

four followed by 3 (21.8%), 5 (18.0%) and 6 (10.9%) in their households. Only

2.7 percent of the parents have only one dependent in the household.

78

Fig. 4.4. Distribution of Dependents

6 Mahamood, S. F., et. al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences 00 (2011) LE 8
In terms of language, majority (93.5%) of the respondents speaks in Malay at home. Only 2.4
speak in English at home and 2.0 percent respectively speak in Tamil and Chinese. This
percent
those parents
indicates that prefer using their mother-tongue language as their main communication
(Fig. 4.5). at home
language

Fig. 4.5. Distribution of Main Language Used 79

Based from Fig. 4.6, most (40.3%) of the parents both obtained secondary

education, this is either SRP or SPM. 27.2% of the parents, both obtained

tertiary education. 11.3 % of the parents both obtained only primary

education. The rest of the parents (21.1%) are those parents with

combinations of qualification. For example one of them may have secondary

education as the highest education and the other parent have tertiary

education.
Fig. 4.6. Distribution of Parents’ With Highest Qualification

Fig. 4.7 demonstrate the employers of the parents involved. It is found that

38.4 percent of the parents are working with the private sector followed by

fathers who are self-employed (30.6%). Twenty four (24.4%) of the fathers

are working as a government servant, only three percent work with statutory

body and another 3.7 percent are not working.

80

Fig. 4.7. Distribution of Father’s Employer

 On the other hand, Fig. 4.8 portray that more than 50 percent of the

respondents’ mothers are housewives (62.3%). 19.8 percent work in

government sector, 5.6 percent in private sector and only small amount work

with statutory body (1.1%). In addition, about 5 percent of the mothers are

self- employed (5.6%) such as having their own business.

Fig. 4.8. Distribution of Mother’s Employer 81

In terms of income, about one-third (31.5%) of the parents earn moderate

monthly income which is RM1000-RM3000. While 26.5 percent earn less than

RM1000. The percentage of parents earning more than RM5000 is 26.5

percent. At the same time 15.4 percent is made up for parents who earn

between RM3000-RM5000 per month (Fig. 4.9).

Fig. 4.9. Distribution of Parents’ Monthly Income (RM)

Fig. 4.10 shows positive efforts by parents in the preparation to finance their

children’s tertiary education in which majority (88.1%) of them are allocating

some money in saving accounts and 38.4% of the parents buy insurance

education as their preparation. Other preparations done by the parents are

getting part-time jobs (21.4%), 6.1% willing to sell available assets and only

4.4% of them will borrow some money from close relatives or friends.

82

Fig.

4.10. Preparation Done to Finance the Tertiary Education of Child

Since their children began attending secondary school, 26.5% or 78 of the

parents were not involved in any activities relating to the school. However,

most of the parents are involved in varieties of activities in connection with

their children’s education. The findings show 38.4% read university’s

brochures, attended education fairs (33.7%), visited universities website

(27.2%), visits some universities (24.1%), spoke to counselor (13.3%) and

attended volunteered activity (18.4%). Other relevant activities they had

involved together also include sport’s day, attending PIBG and school 83
open

day activities that made up 6.8% of the population (Table 4.2).

Table 4.2: Activities Done when Child Began Attending Secondary School

Activities Frequency/Percentage
Read a university's/college's brochure 113 (38.4%)
Attended any education fairs 99 (33.7%)
Visited any university's/college's 80 (27.2%)

website
None 78 (26.5%)
Visited any university/college 71 (24.1%)
Spoke to a teacher or counselor 54 (18.4%)
Volunteered at your child's school 39 (13.3%)
Other activities 20 (6.8%)

Table 4.3. Association between Parents’ Highest Academic Qualification and

Child’s Course Planning Preparation

Child's Course Planning Preparation

 Total
Often Sometimes Never
Parents'

Qualificatio

n
13 13 6 32

Primary (40.6 (40.6 (18.8 (100.0

Education %) %) %) %)

(7.8%) (13.4%) (31.6%) (11.3%)

77 30 7 114

Secondary (67.5 (26.3 (6.1% (100.0%

Education %) %) ) )

(46.4%) (30.9%) (36.8%) (40.4%)

44 30 3 77

Tertiary (57.1 (39.0 (3.9% (100.0

Education %) %) ) %)

(26.5%) (30.9%) (15.8%) (27.3%)

32 24 3 59

Combinatio (54.2 (40.7 (5.1% (100.0

n %) %) ) %)

Level of (19.3%) (24.7%) (15.8%) (20.9%)

Education
166 97 19 282

(58.9% (34.4 (6.7%) (100.0%

Total ) %) (100.0%) )

(100.0%) (100.0%) (100.0%

 84

)
Chi-square = 15.265 p-value = 0.018

From Table 4.3, it is clear that parents are providing high considerable

attention towards their children’s preparation for their tertiary education. More

than half of the parents (166 parents, 58.9%) who acquired variety of

academic qualification often making the preparation for their children. Out of

166 parents, 46.4% of them are parents who acquired secondary education,

either SRP or SPM. It is a good indication as the parents are aware of the

importance of the education although they themselves did not obtain tertiary

education. There was a significant association between parents’ education

level and their child’s course planning preparation, with value of chi-square =

15.265, p-value < 0.05. 85

However there are also parents who are never involve with their children’s

planning for education. These parents come from all categories of level of

education. It is expected that the highest percentage come from the parents

with the lowest education background. More than half of the parents surveyed

(162 parents, 58.3%) are often involved in their children’s course planning

preparation regardless of how much they earn. Among those parents, the

group earning RM1000-RM3000 takes the highest percentage (35.2%)

followed by parents who earn more than RM5000 per month (27.8%). In the

category of those who sometimes doing the preparation, the group earning

less than RM1000 takes the highest score of

30.9% as well as for the category of those who never done the preparation,

which takes 57.9% (Table 4.4). There was a significant association between

parents’ monthly income and child’s course planning preparation where chi-

square = 14.878 and p- value < 0.05.

Table 4.4. Association between Parents’ Monthly Income and Child’s Course

Planning Preparation

Parents' Child's Course Planning Preparation

Often Sometimes Never
Monthly Total

Income
32 30 11 73

(43.8%) (41.1% (15.1%) (100.0%)

< (19.8%) ) (57.9%) (26.3%)

RM100 (30.9%)

0
57 28 88

RM100 (64.8%) (31.8% 3 (100.0%)

0- (35.2%) ) (3.4% (31.7%)

RM3000 (28.9%) )

(15.8%)
28 13 43

RM300 (65.1%) (30.2% 2 (100.0%)

0- (17.3%) ) (4.7% (15.5%)

RM5000 (13.4%) )

(10.5%)
45 26 74
 86

(60.8%) (35.1% 3 (100.0%)

> (27.8%) ) (4.1% (26.6%)

RM500 (26.8%) )

0 (15.8%)
162 97 19 27

(58.3%) (34.9% (6.8% 8

Total (100.0%) ) ) (100.0%)

(100.0%) (100.0%) (100.0%)

Chi-square =14.878 p-value = 0.021 87

Based from Table 4.5, 104 parents (37.3%) are willing to spend RM100-

RM499 per semester for their children’s tertiary education. Among those

parents, 36.5% are parents who earn RM1000-RM3000 per month, followed

by parents’ who their monthly income is less than RM1000 (35.6%). Among

the parents who earn more than RM5000, about half (48.9%) of them are

willing and ready to spend more than RM1500 since financial is not a big

problem to them. It is encouraging to see that those who are earning less than

RM1000 are also willing to commit themselves for their children’s education

where 50.0% of them are willing to spend between RM100-RM499 and 9.5%

willing to spend even more than RM1500. This shows that commitment of

parents in terms of money for their children’s future does not depend on how

much they are earning. There is a significant association between parents’

monthly income and amount of money willing to spend for their children’s

tertiary education per semester, where chi-square = 33.774, p-value < 0.005.
Table 4.5. Association between Parents’ Income per Month and Amount of

Money Willing to Spend per Semester for Child’s Tertiary Education

Child's Course Planning

Parents' Preparation Total

1000-
Monthly
Not 100-499 500-999 1499 >1500
Income
willing
8 37 12 10 7 74

(10.8%) (50.0%) (16.2%) (13.5%) (9.5%) (100.0%

< (50.0%) (35.6%) (20.3%) (18.9%) (14.9%) )

RM1000 (26.5%)
3 38 22 15 10 88

(3.4%) (43.2%) (25.0%) (17.0%) (11.4%) (100.0%

RM100 (18.8%) (36.5%) (37.3%) (28.3%) (21.3%) )

0 - (31.5%)

RM300

0
3 15 9 9 7 43

(7.0%) (34.9%) (20.9%) (20.9%) (16.3%) (100.0%

RM300 (18.8%) (14.4%) (15.3%) (17.0%) (14.9%) )

0 - (15.4%)

RM500

0
2 14 16 19 23 74

(2.7%) (18.9%) (21.6%) (25.7%) (31.1%) (100.0%

> (12.5%) (13.5%) (27.1%) (35.8%) (48.9%) )

 88

RM5000 (26.5%)
16 104 59 53 47 279

(5.7%) (37.3%) (21.1%) (19.0%) (16.8%) (100.0%

Total (100.0% (100.0% (100.0% (100.0% (100.0% )

) ) ) ) ) (100.0%

) 89
Chi-square = 33.774 p-value = 0.001

It is clear from Table 4.6 that parents are providing high attention towards

their children’s direction after SPM, since whatever academic qualifications

the parents acquired, majority (97.9%) of them expecting their children to

further study until tertiary education to any higher education institutions either

local or abroad universities, polytechnic, teacher’s college or training institute.

164 out of 281 parents (58.4%) are expecting their children to further study at

local universities since the cost is lower, followed by 23.5 percent hope their

children to further study abroad, polytechnic or teaching college (8.5%) and to

trade, skill and technical training centre (7.5%). Only small amount (2.1%) of

the parents decided for their children directly go into workplace may be

because of difficulties of life. Out of 6 parents who decided their children to

directly get a job after SPM, 83.4% come from the group where the parents’

qualification is below secondary education. It was quite impressive to see that

more than 80 percent (87.1%) of the parents with primary education are

hopeful to see their children further their studies until tertiary education either

to universities, college, polytechnic or training centre. There was a significant

association between parents’ qualification and direction of the children after

SPM, where chi-square = 56.621 and p-value < 0.001.

From Fig. 4.11, almost half of the parents believe that students should start

preparing for their tertiary education when they were in upper secondary

school (49.8%) which is between Form 4 and Form 5. Interestingly a

total of 44.7% agree that the preparation should be done at an earlier stage

that is when their children were in primary and secondary schools, which is an

indication that the parents have awareness that early education has some

impact on the future education of their children. 90

When deciding for the area to further their education 81.6% of the parents

suggest that decisions should be made by the children themselves. 51

percent of the respondents agree that the father should make the decision

and 49.6% of them agree that the mother will decide on the area of study of

their child (48.6%). Interestingly some of the parents thought that their

children are following the decision made by their friends. There are 2.4% of

the parents who agree with this. All these can be viewed in Fig. 4.12 below.

Table 4.6. Association between Parents’ Qualification and Direction They

Expect of the Children after SPM

Expected Direction of Children after SPM

Local Universi Polytec Trade, Direct

Parents'
Universi ties hnic/ Skill ly into
Qualifica Total
ties Abroa Teache and the
tion
 d r's Tech workpl

Colleg nical ace

e Training

Centre
15 5 5 2 4 31

Primary (48.4 (16.1 (16.1% (6. (12. (100.

Education %) %) ) 5% 9%) 0%)

(9.1%) (7.6%) (20.8%) ) (66.7% (11.0

(9.5%) ) %)
70 16 14 12 1 11

Secondar (61.9 (14.2 (12.4% (10.6 (0.9 3

y %) %) ) %) %) (100.

Education (42.7%) (24.2%) (58.3%) (57.1%) (16.7% 0%)

) (40.2

%)
39 35 1 2 0 77

Tertiary (50.6 (45.5 (1.3% (2. (0%) (100.

Education %) %) ) 6% (0%) 0%)

(23.8%) (53.0%) (4.2%) ) (27.4

(9.5%) %)
40 10 4 5 1 60

Combinati (66.7 (16.7 (6.7% (8. (1.7 (100.

on of %) %) ) 3% %) 0%)

Level (24.4%) (15.2%) (16.7%) ) (16.7% (21.4

Education (23.8%) ) %)
 91

164 66 24 21 6 281

(58.4 (23.5 (8.5%) (7.5 (2.1 (100.

Total %) %) (100.0%) %) %) 0%)

(100.0 (100.0 (100.0%) (100.0 (100.

%) %) %) 0%)
Chi-square = 56.621 p-value = 0.000

92

Fig. 4.11. Level Where Students Should Start Preparing to Continue Study

after SPM
Fig. 4.12. Decision Maker of Children’s Area of Study

Fig. 4.13 shows the highest level of education the parents wish their children

would achieve. Almost half of them wish their children could achieve until

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) level (48.3%). In addition, 37 percent of them

wish their children could reach until Bachelor Degree level, followed by Master

(33.2%), Diploma (24.7%) and Certificate (9.9%).

93

Fig.

4.13. Highest Level of Education Parents Wish Their Children Could Achieve
5. Conclusion

Parents’ involvement was found to be a positive and powerful source of

influence towards the achievements of adolescents. The study concludes that

parents of the state of Selangor specifically and Malaysia in general have high

expectation in the academic achievements of their children and are willing to

make monetary contributions and other sacrifices for the sake of the

education of their children. Although the finding is quite positive in many

aspects of parents’ involvement in education, awareness of the importance of

education needs to increase among parents of Malaysia. Further

encouragement must be provided to parents to get more involvement from

them by the schools, which may bring positive impacts towards students’

achievement in academic. 94

Educational Aspirations among First-Generation Students and their Parental

Influence towards Pursuing Tertiary Education

Abdul Hamid Abdul Rahima, Norzaini Azmana,*

a
Faculty of Education, Universiti Kebangsaan

Malaysia, 43600, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study is to ascertain the level of educational aspiration among

first-generation students and the extent of parental influence in the students’

aspirations to pursue tertiary education. A total 71 form four students responded to

questionnaires containing aspiration scales and the role of parent’s items. The results

showed that the level of educational aspirations of first-generation students to pursue

studies at higher education institutions is high. The study also showed that parents’

factors influence the first-generation students’ educational aspirations in pursuing

tertiary education.

3.

1.Introduction

In Malaysia, the competition is very high for a student to gain a place for further

studies into tertiary education particularly for public higher education institutions. The

situation occurs because tertiary education opportunities available are not sufficient to

meet the demands of society and the growing needs of the country (Kementerian

Pendidikan Malaysia, 2001; Ishak Yussof, 2007). In addition, studies on access into

higher education institutions are very important as means to help the underprivileged

students to enhance their academic achievement and social status. This is evidently

true, especially among first-generation students who require education mobility to

achieve social mobility.

 96

First-generation students are those whose parents possess education level at

secondary school and they have not been to institutions of higher learning (York-

Anderson & Bowman, 1991; Horn & Nunez, 2000; Choy, 2001; Ishitani, 2003).

Previous studies found that first-generation students differ much compared with non-

first-generation students (McCarron & Inkelas, 2006; Pratt & Skaggs, 1989). The

difference is first-generation students have low level aspiration (Saenz et al., 2007;

Terenzini et al., 1996; 2001) and in many cases, they come from families of low

socioeconomic status (Ceja, 2001; Peters, 2009). Because of these differences, the

first-generation students are at risk to drop out of higher education institutions. Aware

of the risks and differences, many previous studies have been done by the

researchers for the first-generation students with a focus on various issues such as

academic performance (Riehl, 1994), experience in college (Pike & Kuh, 2005) and

demographic characteristics (Terenzini et al., 1996; Bui, 2002). Research in western

countries, in respect of academic achievement, college experience and demographic

characteristics of first-generation students are many. Unfortunately, there is only

limited research especially in developing countries regarding motives or factors that

encourage first-generation students to pursue studies at higher education institutions.

This study is expected to contribute to the shortage of studies on first-generation

children and to added literature related to the entry of the first-generation of students

to higher education institutions. Based on the theory of college choice by Hossler and

Gallagher (1987), there are three stages of college selection process - the first stage

(predisposition), second (search) and third (choice). At the first stage (predisposition),

the student will decide whether to extend education to college or not. According
Thallemer (1998) the first stage is the formation of educational aspirations, including

the factors and processes influencing it. Accordingly, the first stage of the research

focus is consistent with the purpose of this study which is to determine the level of

educational aspirations of students and factors influencing it.

2. Objectives

This study will attempt to answer the following questions:

1) What are the educational aspirations of first-generation students to pursue studies

at higher education institutions?

2) Is parent factors influence the ‘first-generation students’ aspirations for further

studies at higher education institutions?

4.

3. Methodology

This is a pilot study which uses a survey method conducted in a cross-sectional way.

The sample for the survey comprised of secondary school students in rural areas who

were chosen to be involved Projek Menara Gading in Kuantan, Pahang. Projek

Menara Gading is organized by the Istana Abdul Aziz Foundation. This intervention

project is a long term two- year programme aim to help improve the quality of the

education among orphans and disadvantaged students from rural areas in the state of

Pahang. Of the 78 participants in Projek Menara Gading Cohort 5, 71 of them can be

categorized as first-generation students (parent education level at secondary schools

only) and they have been selected to participate in this study.

Questionnaires were used for data collection. The questionnaire consists of several

parts, including the demographics, the motivation and the influence of parents. The

questionnaire contained demographic questions to obtain students personal data

including information on educational aspirations for students. Educational aspirations

are measured based on the highest level of education to be achieved by students

after secondary school education. The questionnaires on parents was adapted from

Marvin-Humann (2008); Yamchuti (2002) and Kono (2000) questionnaire. There are

seven items, all of which attempt to measure the influence of parents on the

encouragement and support they give to the children to further their education in

higher education institutions. The questionnaire on the influences of parents section

requires the students to respond to statements made based on likert scale of level 1 =
98
strongly disagree to the extent 5 = strongly agree.

Data obtained from questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. There

are two methods of analysis used which are descriptive statistics and inferential

statistical methods. Descriptive statistics (mean, frequencies and percentages) were

used specifically to obtain information on demographics, level of educational

aspirations and parental influence. Inferential statistics (regression) were used to

determine if there is a relationship and the influence of motivational variables and

parental involvement on educational aspirations to higher education institutions in the

first-generation students.
4. Result and Discussion

The results of descriptive analysis found that the overall mean for first-generation

students' educational aspirations is 4.52. This means that the first-generation

students' educational aspirations for further education to higher education institutions

are at a high level. Of the 71 students who became respondents, the majority of the

56 students (78.9%) would like to pursue a university education (see Table 1). There

are 4 students (8.5%) and 2416 Abdul Hamid Abdul Rahim and Norzaini Azman /

Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 7(C) (2010) 414–418 (2.8%) would like to

extend their education in college / matriculation / polytechnics and institutes of

industrial skills. While a total of 6 students (5.6%) would like to pursue their studies to

form 6. However, there are 3 students (4.2%) who are not sure of their educational

aspirations.

99

Table 1. Educational aspirations to higher education institutions

Level of education Number (n) Percentage

(%)
Not sure 3 4.2

Form 6 6 5.6

Institute of Industrial skills 2 2.8

College / Matriculation / Polytechnic 4 8.5

University 56 78.9
Total 71 100

The results displayed in Table 1 showed that the level of educational aspirations of

first-generation students is at a high level. These findings contradict previous studies

which found that first-generation students have lower levels of educational aspirations

(Saenz et al. 2007; Acker-Ball (2007). However, contradictory findings are not

surprising because this is indeed the aspiration of the unstable factors in the process

college selection (Chapman 1984). The case is in fact true in the longitudinal study by

Horn and Nunez (2000) who found that educational aspirations of first-generation

American grade-8 level students are at a high level but dropped when the students
100
were in the sophomores.

In terms of parents’ influence and educational aspirations, results of regression

analysis showed R square (R ²) is 0.003. This value indicates that parental influence is

a significant predictor in making estimates about the aspirations of institutions of

higher education. The influence of parents can be explained by 3% of the variance

that exists in the aspirations of higher education institutions to students in the first-

generation.

Parental influence can be seen in the form of encouragement that they give to

children. Based on the perceptions of students (see Table 2), showed 59 (83.1%)

students strongly agree that their parents allowed them to pursue higher education. In

fact, they not only gave permission, but 49 (69.0%) students strongly agree that their

parents seek them to do so. Linked to this, students' perceptions of their parents

clearly emphasize the importance of higher education. A total of 44 (62.0%) strongly

agree that their parents stressed the importance of education. Encouragement of

parents to children to pursue their studies in higher education institutions are also

accompanied by strong support such as making financial savings (22 student or

31.0% = strongly agree), discuss with the childrelated expenses (27 student or 38% =

agree), and discuss plans to pursue higher education qualification. (25 student or

35.2% = agree).

Table 2. Influence of parents and educational aspirations

The influence of Frequency & Percentage Mea S.

parents (%) n D
SDA D NS A SA
Allow further studies 0 0 3 9 59 4.78 0.5

(4. (12. (83.1 0

Require further 1 2 2) 7) ) 49 4.50

studies (1. (2. 6 13 (69.0 0.8

4) 8) (8.5) (18. ) 22 3.70 7

Education savings 3 6 22 3) (31.0)

(4.2) (8.5) (31. 18 6 2.43 1.1

Setting the field of 19 24 0) (25. (8.5) 2

study (26.8 (33.8) 12 4) 44 4.49

) 2 (16.9) 10 (62.0 1.2

Emphasizing the 0 (2.8) 5 (14. ) 20 3.70 6

importance of 11 (7.0) 1) (28.

education 2 (15. 13 20 2) 3.38 0.7

(2. 5) (18. (28. 9 5

 101

Discuss plans for 8) 14 3) 2) (12.7)

further studies 2 (19.7) 19 25 1.1

Discuss continuing (2.8) (26.8) (35. 2

education expenses 2)

27 1.0

(38.0) 3
**Notes: SDA = Strongly Disagree; D = Disagree; NS = Not Sure; A = Agree; SA =

Strongly Agree; S.D = Std. Deviation

Therefore, this study found that parent' highly encourage and support their children to

pursue their studies in higher education institutions. These findings contradict previous

studies which found that first-generation students' lack of support and encouragement

from parents to further their education to college (York-Anderson & Bowman 1991).

These findings contrast with results from a similar study by Horn and Nunez (2000),

Saenz et al. (2007) and Gofen (2009) who found that students placed first-generation

parental support as key factors that encouraged them to pursue college. 102

However, the majority of the variance that exists can not be explained by parents’

factors. This is due to gaps in the variance which is influenced by environmental

factors not included in this study as the influence of peers, teachers and counselors.

The findings Horn & Nunez (2000) of first-generation students find much reference to

their peers than their parents' plans and programs related to their schooling. The

study by Doyle & Reyes (2009) found that school counselors help students by

providing ideas what to do after high school.

 Thus, further studies at higher education institutions can give further insights into ways

and opportunities need for first-generation students to enhance their social mobility

and improve their living standards. Parental influence plays an important role to

encourage students to further their studies in higher education institutions. Thus, if the

factors that affect student aspirations, such as parental influence are not taken

seriously into intervention programmes, they can be barriers to first-generation

students to seize the opportunity to enter higher education institution.

5. Concluding Remarks

The results of this study suggest that the intervention programme such as Projek

Menara Gading can help increase the aspirations of students to pursue tertiary

education. Thus, policy makers who want to increase enrollment of students into

higher education institutions should give more attention, space and opportunity for

firstgeneration students to help them see the need and find the aspiration to pursue

studies at higher education institutions. If not, they will face the risk of dropping out

after secondary education.

5.

Parental Support, Personality, Self-Efficacy and Depression among Medical

Students
 Muhammad Bazlan Mustafaª, Rohany Nasirb,*, Fatimah Yusooffb

ª Faculty of Education and Human Development, Universiti Pendidikan

b
Sultan Idris 35900 Tanjong Malim, Malaysia Faculty of Social

Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,43600

Bangi, Malaysia

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the relationships between parental support, personality

and self-efficacy with depression among medical students. Subjects for this study

were 1,029 medical students from seven Higher Learning Institutions in Peninsular

Malaysia. The questionnaires used were: Career-Related Parent Support Scale

(CRPSS), NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R), College Self-Efficacy

Instrument (CSEI), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for measuring parental

support, personality, self-efficacy and depression. The results of the Pearson’s

correlation analysis showed that there were significant negative relationships between

parental support, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and self-efficacy with depression. A

significant positive correlation between Neuroticism with depression was also found.
104

1. Research Background

Choosing the right career can be very challenging and difficult. One’s career is mostly

influenced or perhaps dictated by the subjects that one took during secondary education

and subsequently during tertiary education at the higher learning institution.

Performance in certain subjects in the fields of science, technical, and arts taken during

secondary school will usually be used to gain entrance into various study programs in

those or related fields at institutions of higher learning. The study programs pursued in

the institutions of higher learning will in turn determine their future professions or

careers. Excellent achievement in either Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), Sijil Tinggi

Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) or even at the Matriculation level and their equivalents is a

pre-requisite for many students to ensure their eligibility to be enrolled into any courses

or field of studies locally or abroad.

In Malaysia, currently, due to a shortage of manpower and the nature of its profession,

the medical profession is greatly in demand and is very demanding on the individual

medical doctor. Despite it being so challenging and demanding and requiring a high

academic achievement at the pre-university level (for example: in both Matriculation

level as well as Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia), a career as a medical doctor remains

the most desired and chosen career by many students. Many parents too tend
105
to

influence and encourage their children to pursue degrees in medicine.

Parents certainly play an important role in determining the students’ performance in

the university and careers. Flores and O’Brien (2002) believed that parental support

is crucial for one’s career aspiration. Fisher (1999) discovered that parents’

encouragements are important in influencing students’ career decision making. Lent

and Brown (1996) echoed from the social cognitive perspective, that self-efficacy is

mostly related to the action and support from the family in strengthening self-belief

and supporting academic achievement and career interest. Parents who expressed

confidence in their children’s ability would make it easier for their children to be
adjusted to college life (Cutrona, Cole, Colengelo, Assouline, & Russel, 1994).

Parental support would have positive influence on children’s coping skill and they in

turn would experience less stress at the college (Walker & Satterwhite, 2002).

Melton (2006) believed that parents play an important role in their children’s choice
106
of medical study program.

Personality becomes the most important criteria in selecting students for medical

program. Studies by Leivens, Coetsier, Fruyt, & Measeneer (2002) and Hoschl &

Kozeny (1997) indicated that there is a significant relationship between medical

students’ personality and their academic achievement. There are also positive

correlations among various medical students’ personality characteristics and their

mental health, coping skill and academic achievement (Borges & Savikas, 2002;

Tysen & Vaglum, 2002). Klasner & Pistole (2003) also found that personality and

social support influenced students’ coping skill and their adaptation to college life.

Hughes (2002) believed that medical students should have stable personalities at all

time. Several researches saw the relationship between the Five-Factor Model with

success in training and in the fields of study. Fergusion, Payne, & Anderson (1994)

said that the Five-Factor Model is a personality model that could be applied in

personality assessment in jobs. The study by Barrick & Mount (1991) and Salgado

(1997) revealed that a high score in Conscientiousness and low score in Neuroticism

are generally very much related to success during training. Another study conducted

by Ferguson, Sanders, O’Hehir, & James (2000) also indicated that

Conscientiousness is a significant factor in determining students’ success in medical

courses. According to Salgado (1997) and Salgado & Rumbo (1997), a high score
for Conscientiousness and low score for Neuroticism are related to success in

training and scores in Extraversion are related to interpersonal skill.

Apart from parental support and personality, a student’s academic success could

only be achieved if he personally beliefs in his ability to perform his tasks. Self-

efficacy or one’s belief in oneself becomes the main basis in accomplishing any task.

According to Bandura (1997), self-efficacy is a belief instilled in oneself about his

ability to strategise and execute any action required to achieve a certain goal in life.

One’s belief in self- efficacy however, has various effects. Self-efficacy would

influence any action taken, how much effort one puts to do things, and one’s

resilience against hardships and obstacles in facing failures or problems in life. Self-

efficacy would also influence one’s thinking pattern in that it prevents one from doing

something or on the other hand would give strength to one to be able to face the

pressure, depression, and gain success in a challenging environment.

Self-efficacy does not only involve one’s ability but also one’s belief in his ability to

produce effective action results. Operationally, one’s self-efficacy would determine

one’s level of self-confidence to accomplish any desired task (Lent & Hackett, 1987).

A study by Amoon (2008) indicated that there was a positive relationship between
107
self-efficacy and the level of self-adjustment in college and academic performance.

A medical student would not only be trained in many basic sciences and clinical

medicine but also other related and relevant knowledge that are important for a

medical practitioner such as ethics in medicine, medical laws, illnesses prevention,

health guidance, communication skills, and medical research methods (Malaysia

Medical Association 2007). Therefore, it is no wonder that a medical student may

experience extreme stress throughout the entire program (Helmes, Danoff, Steinert,

Leyton, Leyton, & Young, 1997; Khanna & Khanna 1990). A survey conducted on a

group of medical students indicated that they were prone to stress and their stress

level was higher than before their entire life (Lee & Graham 2001). 108

Muhammad Bazlan Mustafa et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 7(C)

(2010) 419–424421. Stress contributes to an increased level of depression (Stecker

2004) emotional difficulties, anxiety, and suicide (Shapiro, Shapiro and Schwartz 2000).

Studies by Dahlin, Joneborg and Runeson (2005); Smith and Betz (2007); Aktekin,

Karaman, Senol, Erdem, Erengin and Akaydin (2001) showed that depression is a

common phenomenon among the medical students. A study by Sherina, Rampal and

Kaneson (2003) pointed that emotional disturbances among the medical students in

Malaysia is indeed overwhelming. Sherina et al.’s study (2003) found a significant

correlation between emotional disturbances and the medical students’ relationship with

their parents, siblings, and lecturers as well as the level of stress before the

examinations. It is therefore important to have an early detection of the problems that

lead to depression and stress in order to prevent unhealthy psychological conditions

that would consequently affect the medical students and those who practice medicine.

Parental supports are very much needed for educational and career development. Such

supports would give emotional strength to the students and would prevent them from

depression throughout their studies. Further research should be conducted to ascertain

the relationships between parental support, students’ personality, and their self-efficacy

with depression among medical students. Findings from such research would enable

the universities to have a better understanding of the problem and would be in a better
position to develop action plans to help their students to better manage their stress and

depression and would ultimately achieve the universities’ goal of producing excellent

and high quality medical graduates. Upon realizing it’s importance, the researches

embarked in this research.

2. Research Purpose

This present study aimed to determine the relationships between parental support,

personality and selfefficacy with depression among medical students. The five

constructs of personality being studied were Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness,

Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.

109
3. Research Methodology

This survey research was conducted at all public institutions of higher learning in

Peninsular Malaysia offering medical degrees. The higher learning institutions involved

in this survey were Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Malaya (UM),

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Institute Teknologi Malaysia (UITM),

Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

(UIAM), and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Prior to the research, a written permission

was obtained from all the universities concerned. The total number of students involved

were 1,029 from the first, second, third, fourth and fifth years of study in the medical

program who had been randomly selected to participate in this study. A cross-sectional

technique was used in this research study.

A set of questionnaires comprising of the following scales and inventories was used

to collect the data: Career-Related Parent Support Scale (Turner, Alliman-Brissett,

Lapan, Udipi and Ergun, 2003), NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (Costa &

McCrae, 1992), College Self-Efficacy Scale (Solberg, O’Brien, Villareal, Kennel, &,

1993), and Beck Depression Inventory (Beck and Steer, 1993). The questionnaires

were back translated into the Malay language using Brislin, MacNabet and

Bechtold’s (2004) and Marsella’s (1987) back translation techniques.

The data was analysed by using Pearson correlation.

110
4. Results

Results of the correlation test are presented in Table 1. The table indicates that there

was a significant relationship between parental supports, r = -0.63, p<.05,

Neuroticism, r = .255, p<.001, Extraversion, r = -.138, p<.001 and

Conscientiousness, r = -.225, p<001, and self-efficacy, r = -.258, p<.001 with

depression. It further shows that, there was a negative relationship between parental

support, Extraversion and Conscientiousness with depression. This means that

when parental support, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and self-efficacy were

high, depression was low. On the contrary, when parental support, Extraversion,

Conscientiousness, and self-efficacy were low, depression was high. The results

also indicated that there was a positive significant relationship between Neuroticism

and depression which means a high score in Neuroticism was followed by a high

score in depression. Likewise, a low score in Neuroticism was followed by a low

score in depression.
The results however, did not show significant relationship between Openness and

Agreeableness with depression.

Table 1 Pearson Correlation on parental support, personality, and self-efficacy with

depression.

Variables r
Parental Support -.063*
Neuroticism .255**
Extraversion -.138**
Openness -.056
Agreeableness -.053
Conscientiousness -.225**
Self-Efficacy -.258**
**p<.001, *p<.05

111

5.Disscussion

There was a significant negative relationship between parental support, Extraversion,

Conscientiousness, and self-efficacy with depression. This result showed that when

parental support, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and self-efficacy were high,

depression was low. On the other hand when parental support, Extraversion,

Conscientiousness, and self-efficacy were low, depression was high.

 112

Many studies had shown that parents have a great influence on children’s and

adolescence’ behavior and emotions. Parents have considerable impact on

children’s emotional lives (Halbertstadt, Thomson, Parker & Dunsmore, 2008). Lack

of warmth, hostility and rejection had been linked to adolescents problems such as

loneliness and depression (Campo & Rohner, 1992 & Rubin, Dwyer, Booth-La

Force, Kim, Burgess & Rose, 2004). In this study parental support had a significant

negative relationship with depression. Even though the subjects for this study were

university students who were presumably in their early adulthood, in Malaysia the

families are generally close-knitted. As such, it is expected that parents of the

students in this study were very much in contact with the students. Thus, the

parents’ influence on their children was inevitable. Verbal encouragement and

emotional support can have a positive effect on depression in that it can reduce it’s

level. Parental emotional support would strengthen the positive emotion and induce

acceptance of any negative emotion about future careers. Parental support in the

form of genuine understanding and empathy could become a source of strength for

the medical students in facing difficulties and hardships during their studies while at

the same time coud also strenghten the students’ self-efficacy. As such, self-efficacy

had a negative relationship with depression. The belief in one’s ability to perform well

or self-efficacy could spark emotional strenght within the individual student. A

student with low self-efficacy would be too overwhelmed by the difficulties and

amount of work and challenges that he had to face in the medical program.

Eventually the student would end up feeling stressed and depressed.

Individuals who are extrovert are assertive, active, and talkative. They tend to be

cheerful, calm, and fun even during unfavorable and difficult times. They are joyful,

energetic, and always optimistic. The medical students in this study were generally

high in Extroversion score. For students in this study with high Conscientiousness,

they have a characteristic that would push them to continuously strive for excellence

to reach the desired standard. This attitude would help in dealing with stress, which

would eventually reduce their depression. According to Bandura (1997), most people

experience depression not because they lack social skills, or because they are weak

as result of their negative thinking, generalizing, and making conclusion about being

helpless, but it is mainly because they have set an unachievable standard which is

hard for them to attain. Thus medical students in this study who are high on

Conscientiousness would be able to achieve their goals because of their hard work

which was consistent with the standard that they had set for themselves. 113

A person who has a high score on Neuroticism would have an inclination to have

negative feelings such as scared, sad, shy, angry, guilty, and hatred toward

someone or something, and this would elevate the level of depression as well. It was

indicated in the results of this study that Neuroticism had a positive relationship with

Muhammad Bazlan Mustafa et al. / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 7(C)

(2010) 419–424 423 depression. This was somewhat expected, because medical

students who were high in Neuroticism would have all those negative feelings which

are generally symptoms of depression.

6.Conclusion

This research had shown the importance of parental support, personality, and self-

efficacy on medical students. Parental support and self-efficacy could not only provide

emotional strenght and motivation to the medical students in facing the difficulties and

challenges during their studies, but it also helped them to reduce their depression.

Personality and self-efficacy which are indeed important not only for their success and

wellbeing as students of medicine but also for future career growth and enhancement

as medical doctors.

114

The Role of Parental Involvement Affects

in Children’s Academic Performance

 Milad Khajehpoura, Sayid Dabbagh Ghazvinia *

a
Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch, Young Researchers Club, Tehran,

1916639461, Iran

Abstract

This study examined the role that parental involvement has on children’s academic

Performance. Different types of parental involvement were assessed, including

volunteering, home involvement, attending parent classes, school political

involvement, talking to staff, talking to teachers and etc. The data were collected by

parental involvement questionnaire scores and by academic performance grades. The

sample was included 200 boy students in Tehran. Overall, the results indicated that

those who did the self-report survey, went to the parent class, or were involved in

more home-type involvement (such as checking child’s programming, talking whit

child at home about classroom, lessons and friend topics, or engaging in educational

activities outside of school and etc.) had children that performed better in different kind

of areas of the parental involvement questionnaire or had better grades. It is hoped

that the results of this study will give parents and educators a better understanding of

how particular kinds of parental involvement affects children’s performance.

 6.

1. Introduction

Academic achievement is undoubtedly a research after the heart of educational

psychologists. In their attempt to investigate what determines academic outcomes of

learners, they have come with more questions than answers. In recent time, prior

literature has shown that learning outcomes (academic achievement and academic

performance) have been determined by such variables as; family, school, society, and

motivation factors (Aremu, 2000) This fact largely contributes to the limited body of

knowledge regarding which aspects of parental involvement help student education

and just what components of this involvement are most important (Epstein, 2001).

2. Parental involvement and academic performance 115

On parental involvement and academic achievement, studies have shown to date that

the two constructs seems to be positively related. Findings have demonstrated that

parent’s involvement in the education of the children has been found to be of benefit

to parents, children, and schools (Campbell, 1995). Rasinki and Fredrick’s (1988)

concluded that parents play an invaluable role in laying the foundation for their

children’s learning; Zang and Carrasquillo (1995) also similarly remarked that when

children are surrounded by caring, capable parents and are able to enjoy nurturing

and moderate competitive kinship, a foundation for literacy is built with no difficulty.

Cotton and Wikelund (2005) ably capped it by asserting that the more intensively

parents are involved in their children’s learning; the more beneficial are the

achievement effects. Thus, it is believed that when parents monitor homework,

encourage participation in extracurricular activities, are active in parents –teacher

associations, and help children develop plans for their future; children are more likely

to respond and do well in school.

Based on the results of Sixty-six studies, Henderson and Berla (1994) were of the

opinion that repeated evidence has confirmed that the most accurate predictor of

student achievement is the extent to which the family is involved in the child’s

education, and not the family ‘s level of income.

As a matter of fact, McMillan (2000) noted that parental pressure has a positive and

significant effect on public school performance. This becomes particularly obvious

when the exactness of the parental pressure is brought to bear on the children’s

academic performance. Similarly, Schickedanz (1995) also reported that children of

passive parents were found to perform poorly academically.

Valez in Ryan (2005) reported that academic performance is positively related to

having parents who enforce rules at home. The obviousness of the research findings

reported in this study is that family involvement improves facets of children’s

education such as daily attendance (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000),

student achievement (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Sheldom & Epstein, 2001,

Simon, 2000; Van Voorhis, 2001) behaviour (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Simon,

2000) and motivation (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Brooks, Bruno &Burns, 1997).

It is on this note that (Deutsher and Ibe, n.d) posited it was expected that parent

involvement would have a large role on children’s performance. The foregoing, have

shown that one of the greatest barriers to high academic achievement for a good

number of students, is lack of parental involvement in children’s education.

 116

In sum, research has shown that parents do want to get along with their children’s

education knowing fully well that such involvement could promote better achievement.

However, parents need a better little direction as to how they can effectively do this.

According to a magazine reports (2002), six types of programs could be utilized by

schools to build strong parental skills. These are: one, school can assist families with

parenting and child-rearing skills; two, schools can communicate with families about

school programs and students’ progress and needs; three, school can work to

improve families as volunteers in school activities; four, schools can encourage

families to be involved in learning activities at home; five, schools can include parents

as participants in important schools decisions, and six, schools can coordinate with

business and agencies to provide resources and services for families, student, and

the community. The importance of these programs further attest to the fact that

student’s academic performance is dependent upon the parent-school bond. Thus the

importance of parental involvement on academic performance cannot be over

emphasized. The stronger the relationship is, especially between the parents and their

wards’ education, the higher the academic achievement. 117

Adeyemo (2005) saw reason in this by stressing that there is need to foster home

school partnership. In his attempt to give more meaning to his contribution on parental

involvement and children’s education, (Epstein, 1997) put up a model in which he

analysed how children learn and grow through three overlapping spheres of influence:

family school and community. According to him, these three spheres must form

partnership to best meet the needs of the child. Epstein (1997) again identified six

types of involvement based on the relationships between the families, school and
community. These are: parenting (skills), communicating, volunteering, learning at

home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. He stressed it clearly

that these six types of involvement need to be included to have successful

partnerships (between the home and the school).

Baker and Soden (1997) remarked that much of the research that examined the

relationships between parent involvement and children’s education assesses parent

involvement by utilizing one particular measure, such as counting the number of

parents that volunteer, coming to meetings, or coming to parent-teacher conferences.

Other studies utilized measures that consists of a view closed-ended questions that

target particular aspect of parent involvement and often focus on the number of times

parents participate in some particular events (Goldring & Shapira, 1993; Griffith, 1996;

Grolnick & Slowiczek, 1994; Zellman &Waterman, 1998).

According to Baker and Soden (1997), this type of measure does not allow for a rich

picture of parent involvement, nor generate new ideas.

1206 Milad Khajehpour and Sayid Dabbagh Ghazvini / Procedia Social and Behavioral

Sciences 15 (2011) 1204–1208

3. Results

After extracting data from the questionnaires and analysis of data collected, following

results were obtained: Base on first goal of this study correlation between parental

involvement and academic achievement examined and result showed in table 1.

 118

Table 1: Correlation between academic achievement and parental involvement

variables n M SD Academic performance

Parental involvement 200 106 13.41 0.62

Academic performance

14.79 4.59 1.00

P < 0.0001

As can be observed in the above table, parental involvement and academic

achievement have positive and significant correlation.

According to the second goal of this research we are going to know academic

performance of children with high parental involvement is better or with low parental

involvement. Result of “T test” about this hypothesis showed in table 2:

Table 2: difference of average academic performance between family with high

parental involvement and with low parental involvement

VAR N M SD t
Family with high 107 16.2 4.02 5.

parental involvement 6 9

5
Family with low 93 13.1 3.97
 119

parental involvement 1
4. Conclusion and Discussion

The accumulated evidence supports the importance of parental involvement in

children’s education. Some parents have the skills to foster both cognitive growth and

achievement motivation. More importantly, parents who do not have these skills can

readily acquire them. The research shows that when teachers and educational

administrators are strongly committed to drawing parents into their children’s

education, the academic outcomes for children can be very positive. This project

examined the role that parental involvement has on children’s performance. This study

used multiple measures to examine parental involvement. It examined various areas

such as volunteering, home involvement, attending parent classes, etc. Parental

involvement has been shown to be an important variable in children’s education, and

more schools are trying to encourage increased involvement. It therefore becomes

essential to understand what types of parental involvement have the most impact on

children’s performance. Also, using various measures to examine parental involvement

has been a powerful tool. In this study, only about half of the parents filled out the

survey (most likely the more involved ones) and by using the behavioural measures a

richer picture of all the parents could be included. It is hoped that the results of this

study will give parents and educators a better understanding of how particular kinds of

parental involvement affects children’s performance.

 120

Parental Involvement and Intrinsic Motivation

with Primary School Students

Mariela Pavalache-Iliea*, Felicia-Antonia ğîrdiab

a
Transilvania University, 29, Eroilor Blvd,

Brasov, 500036, Romania aTransilvania

University, 29, Eroilor Blvd, Brasov, 500036,

Romania

1.Abstract

The interest that the parents show towards the evolution of their children and the

assistance that they offer with the homework are among the predictors of academic

success and of the adaptation to the school environment. The present study

investigates the relationship between parental involvement towards the school

(evaluated according to the frequency of interactions with the teacher and the

teacher’s perception on the quality of this interaction), the intrinsic motivation for

learning and the educational performance. The participants in the research are

students in the 3rd and 4th grade and their teachers. The results confirm the

hypothesis that school performance is significantly associated to the level of parental

involvement and of intrinsic motivation.

 7.
1. Introduction

Parental involvement in relation with the school

Considering the fact that school dropout is more and more frequent in Romania, and

the level of academic performance lowers dramatically (Voicu, 2010; Ministry of

National Education Report, 2014), both teachers and officials are looking for the best

solutions to solve these issues. Numerous research from around the world show that

when schools and families work together as partners, the students are the main

beneficiaries (Miedel & Reynolds, 2000).

The partnerships between schools and families support the teachers in performing

their job, enhance the educational abilities of the students and contribute to the

improvement of the curriculum and of the school climate. Furthermore, they

determine the improvement of the educational and leadership abilities of the parents,

they offer services and support to the families and they create a safer environment in

schools (Agabrian & Millea, 2005).

Parental involvement is defined as ‚the totality of strategies, actions and resources

which the parents use during the tuition of their children in order to improve their

chances to become successful from an educational and social point of

view’(Hatos, 2004, pp. 114-115). Among the effective parental involvement

strategies are exercising one’s part as a parent, communicating, volunteering,

offering home support, decision making and collaborating with the community

(Epstein, 1995, 2004).

 122

Among the factors which determine and influence parental involvement, Hoover-

Dempsey and Sandler (1997) mention the concept of active parental part, high

self-effectiveness convictions, a welcoming school climate, requests coming from

both teachers and from the chilld, the knowledge, abilities, time and energy of the

parent. The socio-economical status and the educational level of the family can

influence parental involvement, not necessarily at the level of the invlovement

123
proper, but at the level in which it is manifested.

The main educational actions undertaken by the parents even from the beginning

of their children’s educational life are: communicating with the children, offering

support in solving the homework, discussing the school activities and the

educational progress (Albritton, Klotz & Robinson, 2003; Epstein, 2004; Henderson

& Mapp, 2002); initiating and maintaining contact with the educational institution

(Epstein, 2004; Henderson & Mapp, 2002); controlling the psychical and social

environment of the child in order to ensure the academic success through the

expectations of the parents, the attitude towards the learning process, the offered

encouragements, the management of leisure time (Albritton et al., 2003; Epstein,

2004; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005); the founding of extra-classes (inside or

outside school) (Henderson & Mapp, 2002). Parental involvement also includes

volunteering and participating in the events organised by the school (Epstein,

2004; Henderson & Mapp, 2002); sharing their own experience in the domain of

expertise as a guest of the class (Carlisle, Stanley, & Kemple, 2005); occupying

decision-making positions inside the school (Carlisle et al., 2005); being enrolled in

parental associations/organisations and in the parents’ council (Albritton et al.,

2003; Epstein, 2004). Parental involvement positively influences the following

variables: the mark average and the scores obtained in standardised tests, the

enrollment of the students in challenging academic programs, the graduation of

school cycles, the attendance of classess, the behaviour displayed at home and at

school, the social abilities and the adaptation to the school environment

(Henderson & Mapp, 2002).

Parental involvement is associated to motivation in its various aspects (Gonzalez

DeHass, Willems & Doan Holbein, 2005). When the parents get involved,the

children make more efforts to learn, they are more concentrated and attentive,

more attracted towards the learning process and they think of themselves as being

more competent (Izzo, Weissberg, Kasparow & Fendrich, 1999; Trusty & Lampe,

1997). Although homework assistance and the use of rewards for hjgh marks are

correlated to extrinsic motivation, the encouragements and the praise are

correlated to intrinsic motivation (Ames, deStefano, Watkins & Sheldon, 1995;

Marchant, Paulson & Rothlisberg, 2001). The students whose parents get involved

feel responsible for their own education. When the parents show vivid interest for

the education of their children, the students are oriented towards excellence, they

constantly look for challenges, they persevere in spite of difficulties and they show

satisfaction towards the school tasks (Gonzalez, Doan Holbein & Quilter, 2002).

When the parents get involved in the reading activities of the students, the

students feel more effective, more motivated and they voluntarily take up reading

(Adunyarittigun, 1997)
 124

2.Research purpose and objectives

The present correlational study pleads for the parents to play a more active part in

the evolution of their children, primarily by consolidating a collaboration relationship

with the teacher. The study has two objectives: (O1) to investigate the relationship

between parental involvement and the intrinsic learning motivation for the

primaryschool students; (O2) the identification of the relationship between parental

involvement and the school results of students enrolled in the 3 rd and the 4th grade.

To this aim, the following hypotheses were formulated:

H1. The level of parental involvement in the activity of the students is associated witht

their intrinsic motivation

Mariela Pavalache-Ilie and Felicia-Antonia Ţîrdia / Procedia - Social and Behavioral

Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 607 – 612 609

H2. There is a connection between the educational results and parental involvement.

H3. There are differences regarding the degree of involvement of Romanian parents

and the degree of involvement of Rroma parents in the education of their children.

3.Participants

The population for this study included a convenience sample comprising students and

teachers of elementary school. The research was conducted during the 2013-2014

school year in five schools in FăJăraú on a concenience sample comprising 231 3 rd

grade and 4th grade students (table 1) and 12 teachers of these students. 60,6% of

the students are Romanians, the rest being Rroma.

 125

Table 1. Mean, standard deviations for pupils’ age.

Grade Pupils Mean SD Girls (N) Mean SD Boys (N) Mean SD

3rd 115 9,68 1,08 50 9,46 0,80 66 9,83 1,6

5
4th 116 10,34 0,56 60 10,32 0,62 55 10,37 0,4

8
60,6% of the students are Romanians, the rest being Rroma.

4. Instruments

Starting from the wide variety of dimensions brought forward by the models of

parental involvement (Eccles & Harold, 1996; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Wong

& Hughes, 2006), we have designed a 19 item scale focusing on the relationship

between the teacher and the parent (10 items concerning mutual understanding,

mutual aims, mutual expectations and respect) and the general involvement (9

items: ease of communication, volunteering, participating in school meetings and

events); the teachers filled in the scale for each of the students. The 10-item

alliance scale has a Cronbach alpha = .94, and for the second 9- item scale

Cronbach alpha was .89. The answering format was a 5-point Likert-type scale

ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The high scores represent

a strong educational alliance between school and family and a high degree of
126
involvement of the parents in relation with the teacher.

The students completed the extrinsic motivation subscale (9 items) from the

Elementary School Motivation Scale (ESMS), (Guay et al., 2010). The instrument

measures the level of intrinsic motivation which refers to behaviours that are

performed by choice because the individual judges them to be important, related

 to reading, writing and mathematics. The answering format was, anew, a 5-point

likert-type scale. The students completed the scale at school, being guided by the

teachers (the teachers explained the assignment and answered possible

questions from the students).

5. Results

H1. Table 2 presents the Pearson correlations between the parents’ involvement

and the three components of the intrinsic motivation of the students for the entire

sample and for the 3rd and 4th grade separately.

Table 2. Pearson correlations for motivation and parents’ involvement.

Reading Writing Maths Intrinsic

motivation motivation motivation motivation

Entire Alliance .32** .26** .40** .39**

sample
Parental .44** .40** .53** .56**

involvement
3rd grade Alliance .45** .35** .52** .51**
Parental .46 ** .42** .56** .57**

involvement
4th grade Alliance - - .30** .22*
Parental .36** .31** .50** .48**

involvement
*p<.05, **p<.01. 127

The association relationship is more intense for the 3rd grade students, possibly

because of their greater need to be assisted at this stage of their educational life.
 H2. The results confirm the existence of an intense correlation between the

academic achievement and the parental involvement in the educational life of their

children (table 3).

Table 3. Pearson correlations for academic achievement and parents’ involvement.

Romanian Language Mathematics

average average
Entire sample Alliance .60** .59**
Parental involvement .69** .64**
3rd grade Alliance .67** .68**
Parental involvement .75** .68**
4th grade Alliance .53** .52**
Parental involvement .62** .61**
**p<.01.

Anew, the association relationship is more intense for the 3rd grade.

H3. The T tests indicate that the parents of Rroma children get less involved in

collaborating with the teacher and with the school t(114, 86)= 11,97, p < .001(Av

romanian = 3.65, SD = .61; Av rroma = 2.53, SD = .68). No significant differences

were registered between the 3rd and the 4th grade. 8.

6. Discussion

After the statistical analyses we are entitled to conclude that there is a significant

association between the level of parental involvement and the level of intrinsic

motivation for reading, writing and mathematics, as well as between parental

involvement and the educational results of the students. The results confirm those

obtained by other researchers who have concluded that parental involvement in

school is a dynamic force influencing the students' academic success concerning

reading achievement, mathematics achievement (Shaver & Walls, 1998) and the

motivation to learn.

Despite the fact that no similar studies were conducted in Romania, we can

sustain, as Bernard (2004) did, that to militate for stimulating the parental

involvement in school is an important component in early childhood education in

order to help promote long-term effects, even for the academic success in high-

school. The results of the current research confirm other studies conducted on

other populations (Fan & Williams, 2010; Gonzalez et al., 2002 úi Gonzalez-

DeHass et al., 2005), which emphasize the need of further investigations

129
concerning the relationship between parental involvement and learning motivation.

Even though at European level the need of empowering the families and the

parents to support the education of their children is considered a priority (Final

report. European Commission, 2013), schools have to develop approaches that

enable parents to become a resource in their children’s learning. Parents who did

not have access to education particularly need to be supported in their role to

encourage and motivate young people to aim higher in their educational

aspirations and achievements. For many pupils, parental involvement is important

for gaining recognition, demonstrating and celebrating achievements, raising self-

esteem and self-respect.

The practical implication of this explanatory study targets the implementation of

some partnership programs and activities involving the family and the school. The

implementation should be done by the teacher. The long-term effectiveness could

 increase if these programs were not occasional, but the ideal consequence of the

collaboration between the parents and the school in all the school actions and

policies. One of the challenges is related to the need of developing programs

suitable to the Rroma parents, whose presence in school (school meetings,

celebrations) is very low and the assistence that they offer to their children in the

educational process is modest or even inexistent. Based on the results of this

study, one of the authors, which directly works with Rroma children has designed

an

Mariela Pavalache-Ilie and Felicia-Antonia Ţîrdia / Procedia - Social and Behavioral

Sciences 187 ( 2015 ) 607 – 612 611

assistance program directed towards the parents of Rroma children, which is to

take place mainly inside the community and to a lesser extent inside the school.

130

Relationship between emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic

performance of high school students

 Milad Khajehpour a *

a
Islamic Azad University, Roudehen Branch, Young Researchers Club, Tehran,

1916639461, Iran

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence, parental

involvement and academic performance of 300 high school Students in Tehran, Iran.

The participants ranged in age between 15 and 18 years. Researcher in this study

used an adapted questionnaire. Results showed that both emotional intelligence and

parental involvement could predict academic achievement in high school students.

Similarly, there were significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence

and academic achievement; and between parental involvement and academic

achievement. The implications of these results for academic are discussed. It is

important to acknowledge that this study has some limitations. Despite these

limitations, the findings of the study have provided a further need on how to improve

upon the academics of students. In particular, the study has shown that parental

attention and emotional well-being cannot be over emphasized in academic success.

9.
1. Introduction

Academic achievement is undoubtedly a research after the heart of educational

psychologists. In their attempt to investigate what determines academic outcomes of

learners, they have come with more questions than answers. In recent time, prior
literature has shown that learning outcomes have been determined by such variables

as; family, school, society and motivation factors (Aremu, 2000).

In the same vein, Parker and et al. (2003) noted that much of the previous studies have

focused on the impact of demographic and socio-psychological variables on academic

achievement. More recently, another emerging dimension to the determinant of

academic achievement is government factor (Aremu, 2004).

In spite of the seeming exhaustiveness of literature on the determinants of academic

achievement of learners, there seems to be more area of interest to be investigated.

This becomes obvious in view of the continue interest of researchers and educational

psychologists; and the continued attention of government and policy makers and

planners. Academic performance has been largely associated with many factors. Most

students in high schools in Iran are daily confronted with challenges of coping with their

academics under serious emotional strains occasioned by long walk to school, poor

school environment, and been taught by unmotivated teachers. Couple with this, is 132
an

uncooperative to study attitude of parents who more often than toil to provide for the

needs of the family. These would definitely not augur well for academic success. It is

therefore, instructive in the present study to investigate the relationship among

emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic achievement of students in

high schools.
2. Backgrounds

In the beginning, psychologists focused on cognitive constructs like memory and problem

solving in their first attempt to write on intelligence. This did not last when researchers

begun to challenge this orientation and recognized that there are other non-cognitive

aspects of intelligence. For instance, David Wechsler proposed that the non-intelligence

abilities are essential for predicting ability to succeed in life. Imbrosciano and Berlach

(2003) have remarked that success may be viewed in three main domains. A good

student is often referred to as being intelligent, or well behaved, or academically

successful. Arising from this are the questions: Are there any connection between these

domains? Is there a strong connection, between intelligence and academic achievement?

Do students with high intelligence behave better? These and many more questions

underscore the important place intelligence has been found to play in academic success.
133

Goleman (1995) gave a short of answer when he asserted that success depends on

several intelligences and on the control of emotion .Specifically, he stressed that

intelligence (IQ) alone is no more the measure of success. According to him intelligent

account for only 20% of the total success, and the rest goes for Emotional and Social

intelligences. Abisamra (2000) then queried that if this is found to be so, why the

teachers don’t begin to teach its components (i.e.., emotional intelligence) to students

at schools? He then concluded that if emotional intelligence affects student

achievement, then it is imperative for schools to integrate it in their curricula and

thereby raising the level of students’ success.

According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), Emotional Intelligence is being able to monitor

one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use

this to guide one’s thinking and actions. Again, Salovey and Mayer (1993) wrote that an

emotionally intelligent person is skilled in four areas: identifying, using, understanding,

and regulating emotions. Similarly, Goleman also stressed that emotional intelligence

consists of five components: Knowing one’s emotions (self-awareness), managing

them, motivating self, recognizing emotions in others (empathy), and handling

relationships. In recent times therefore, social scientists and educational psychologists

are beginning to uncover the relationship of emotional intelligence to other

phenomenon. These are: leadership (Ashfort & Humphrey, 1995); group performance

(Williams & Sternberg, 1988); academic achievement (Abisamra, 2000); and policing

(Aremu, 2005).

The foregoing attest to the significance of emotional intelligence to all constructs

(school achievement inclusive).

As a matter of fact, emotional intelligence (EI) has recently attracted a lot of interest in

the academic literature. Specifically, Finnegan (1998) argued that school should help

students learn the abilities underlying the emotional intelligence. This he believes could

lead to achievement from formal education years of the child. 134

In a recent studies conducted by Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan and Majeski (2002) they

discovered that various emotional and social competencies were strong predictors of

academic success. Similarly, Parker, et al. (2003) found emotional intelligence to be

significant predictors of academic success. In the same vein, Low and Nelson (2004)
reported that emotional intelligence skills are key factors in the academic achievement

and test performance of high school and college students respectively.

Likewise (2000) reported that there is a positive relationship between emotional

intelligence and academic achievement. He therefore canvassed for inclusion of

emotional intelligence in the schools’ curricula. Petrides, Frederickson and Furnham in

Cotton and Wikelund (2005) argued that any investigation of the potential effects of

emotional intelligence on academic performance must be pursued in a specific

context .In essence, the importance of emotional intelligence on academic

achievement has been found to be very significant .Nevertheless, and in spite of the

studies reviewed, there is still a need to further investigate the relationship of emotional

intelligence to academic achievement most especially in country like Iran, where most

researchers are yet to show interest in the construct.

Milad Khajehpour / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (2011) 1081–1086

1083

Parental involvement and academic performance

On parental involvement and academic achievement, studies have shown to date that

the two constructs seems to be positively related. Findings have demonstrated that

parent’s involvement in the education of the children has been found to be of benefit to

parents, children, and schools (Tella and Tella 2003; Campbell, 1995; Rich, 1987).135

Rasinki and Fredrick’s (1988) concluded that parents play an invaluable role in laying

the foundation for their children’s learning; Zang and Carrasquillo (1995) also similarly

remarked that when children are surrounded by caring, capable parents and are able to
enjoy nurturing and moderate competitive kinship, a foundation for literacy is built with

no difficulty. Cotton and Wikelund (2005) ably capped it by asserting that the more

intensively parents are involved in their children’s learning; the more beneficial are the

achievement effects. Thus, it is believed that when parents monitor homework,

encourage participation in extracurricular activities, are active in parents –teacher

associations, and help children develop plans for their future; children are more likely to

respond and do well in school.

Based on the results of Sixty-six studies, Henderson and Berla (1994) were of the

opinion that repeated evidence has confirmed that the most accurate predictor of

student achievement is the extent to which the family is involved in the child’s

education, and not the family‘s level of income.

As a matter of fact, McMillan (2000) noted that parental pressure has a positive and

significant effect on public school performance. This becomes particularly obvious

when the exactness of the parental pressure is brought to bear on the children’s

academic performance. Similarly, Schickedanz (1995) also reported that children of

passive parents were found to perform poorly academically. 136

Valez in Ryan (2005) reported that academic performance is positively related to

having parents who enforce rules at home. The obviousness of the research findings

reported in this study is that family involvement improves facets of children’s education

such as daily attendance (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000), student

achievement (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Sheldom & Epstein, 2001, Simon, 2000;

Van Voorhis, 2001) behaviour (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000) and

motivation (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001; Brooks, Bruno &Burns, 1997).
It is on this note that (Deutsher and Ibe, n.d) posited it was expected that parent

involvement would have a large role on children’s performance. The foregoing, have

shown that one of the greatest barriers to high academic achievement for a good

number of students, is lack of parental involvement in children’s education.

In sum, research has shown that parents do want to get along with their children’s

education knowing fully well that such involvement could promote better achievement.

However, parents need a better little direction as to how they can effectively do this.

According to a magazine reports (2002), six types of programs could be utilized by

schools to build strong parental skills. These are: one, school can assist families with

parenting and child-rearing skills; two, schools can communicate with families about

school programs and students’ progress and needs; three, school can work to improve

families as volunteers in school activities; four, schools can encourage families to be

involved in learning activities at home; five, schools can include parents as participants

in important schools decisions, and six, schools can coordinate with business and

agencies to provide resources and services for families, student, and the community.

The importance of these programs further attest to the fact that student’s academic

performance is dependent upon the parent-school bond. Thus the importance of

parental involvement on academic performance cannot be over emphasized. The

stronger the relationship is, especially between the parents and their wards’ education,

the higher the academic achievement. 137

Adeyemo (2005) saw reason in this by stressing that there is need to foster home

school partnership. In his attempt to give more meaning to his contribution on parental

involvement and children’s education, (Epstein, 1997) put up a model in which he

analysed how children learn and grow through three overlapping spheres of influence:

family school and community. According to him, these three spheres must form

partnership to best meet the needs of the child. Epstein (1997) again identified six

types of involvement based on the relationships between the families, school and

community. These are: parenting (skills), communicating, volunteering, learning at

home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. He stressed it clearly

that these six types of involvement need to be included to have successful partnerships

(between the home and the school).

Baker and Soden (1997) remarked that much of the research that examined the

relationships between parent involvement and children’s education assesses parent

involvement by utilizing one particular measure, such as counting the number of

parents that volunteer, coming to meetings, or coming to parent-teacher conferences.

Other studies utilized measures that consists of a view closed-ended questions that

target particular aspect of parent involvement and often focus on the number of times

parents participate in some particular events (Goldring & Shapira, 1993; Griffith, 1996;

Grolnick & Slowiczek, 1994; Zellman &Waterman, 1998).

According to Baker and Soden (1997), this type of measure does not allow for a rich
138
picture of parent involvement, nor generate new ideas.

In this review so far, efforts have been made on what researchers have published on

emotional intelligence and parental involvement, and how these could impact on

academic achievement. It is the primary purpose of this study therefore to investigate

the significant impact of these two constructs (emotional intelligence and parental

involvement) on academic achievement of in-school adolescents. To effectively anchor

 this purpose, two hypotheses were tested for significance at .05 margin of error. They

are:

1-There will be no significant relationship between emotional intelligence, parental

involvement and participants’ academic achievement.

2-Emotional intelligence and parental involvement are not significant predictors of

participants’ academic achievement.

3. Method

Population and sample

The population of this investigation consisted of in-school adolescents who were in

high schools in Tehran, Iran. It was from this population that a sample of 300 (150

males and 150 females) adolescents was drawn through a randomized process from

10 high schools by multistage cluster sampling. The participants ranged in age

between 15 and 18 years.

139
Measures

This study used a questionnaire was in three sections. The section A of The contained

a personal data, the section B of the questionnaire contains items on emotional

intelligence which were adapted from the 33 items Emotional Intelligence Scale by

(Schuttle, Haggerty, Cooper, Golden & Dornheim, 1998) with a cronbach alpha of 0.90

for internal consistency and 0.78 test-retest reliability after two weeks interval.

The section C of the instrument is on parental involvement. This also contained a 10

item statement structured on a 4 point rating format. In this section using a split –half
 method, co-efficient alphas of 0.59 and 0.71 were returned for section B and C of the

instrument respectively.

Also, as part of measure, data on academic achievement were collected from the

schools’ record of students ‘scores in English Language and Mathematics of the term

preceding the administration of the questionnaires.

4. Results

The results of the analysis on the study are presented in the tables below:

Table 1 shows the results of first hypothesis that was there will be no significant

relationship between emotional intelligence, parental involvement and participants’

academic achievement.

Table 1: Mean, Standard Deviation and Inter Correlation Matrix of the

Independent and Dependent Variables

Variables No M SD Academic Achievement Emotional Intelligence

140
Parenting Involvement

Academic Achievement 300 14.2 3.4 1.00 0.42 0.57

Emotional Intelligence 300 52.7 6.9 0.42 1.00 0.007

Parenting Involvement 300 43.6 8.1 0.57 0.007 1.00 t=

2.576 p < 0.005

In table 1, the inter-correlation matrix of the independent (emotional intelligence and

parental involvement) and dependent (academic achievement) variables scores are

computed. In the table, there is a positive and significant

Milad Khajehpour / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 (2011) 1081–1086

1085

relationship of 0.318 between emotional intelligence and academic achievement, a

positive and significant of 0.3261 also existed between parental involvement and

academic achievement. While no positive relationship existed between emotional

intelligence and parental involvement.

Table 2 shows the result of second hypothesis that was Emotional intelligence and

parental involvement are not significant predictors of participants’ academic

achievement.

Table 2: A Multiple Regression Analysis on Independent and Dependent Variables

D SS MS F

F
Regres 2 3241 16217. 95.190

sion 8.5 359 808

Residu 2 1945 1866.7

al 9 1.1 464

7
Total 2 5186 0.625

9 9.6
 141

9
F= 4.61 p < 0.01

A multiple regression analysis on the data obtained on independent (emotional

intelligence and parental involvement) and dependent (academic achievement)

variables were run. Table 2 shows that both emotional intelligence and parental

involvement made 62% prediction of academic achievement. From the analysis of

variance in table performed on multiple regression, it is seen that the calculated F value

= 95.19, P < 0.01 when the two variables were regressed with the academic

achievement. These indicate that both emotional intelligence and parental involvement

were good predictors of academic achievement of the participants.

5. Discussion and Conclusion 142

Analyses of relationship among emotional intelligence, parental involvement and

academic achievement in this investigation indicated that there is a positive and

significant relation among emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic

achievement of the participants. This suggests that emotional intelligence and parental

involvement could predict academic achievement. As predicted in hypothesis 1,

analyses have shown that emotional intelligence and parental involvement could

significantly predict academic achievement of high school students. This finding is

consistent with evidence of Parker et al (2001, 2002, and 2003), on the relationship

between emotional intelligence and academic success. Similarly, Abisamra (2000) had

reported that there is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and

academic achievement. Certainly and in consonant with the present finding, it can be
ascertain that emotional intelligence determines to a great extent academic

achievement among high school students. In the investigation, it was also found that

parental involvement as well predicts academic achievement .This finding is supported

by the studies of (Tella and Tella 2003; Campbell, 1995; Rich, 1987; Cotton &

Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000; and Van Voorhis, 2001). In these studies, it was

consistently reported that there is a positive relationship between the involvement of

the parents and children’s academic performance. Thus, it is not out of research

context to assert that the degree of parental involvement of the parents in the

education of their wards would determine the degree of their (children) academic

achievement. This assertion is consistent with the view of Schickedanz (1995) in which

he reported that children whose parents are passive perform poorly academically. So

also, the fact sheet provided by (The Children Aid Society, 2003) which stated that

higher parental involvement is associated with higher educational expectations,

enrolment in gifted and talented programs, and positive perceptions of schools, lend a

good support to the assertion. Regarding hypothesis 2, positive relationship was

observed for emotional intelligence and academic achievement, and as well for

parental involvement and academic achievement. The finding of this hypothesis is a

143
confirmatory of the finding of the first hypothesis earlier reported in the study.

These findings have some implications. First; parents could have to note that their

interpersonal relationships and direct interest in the academics of their children could

bring a better academic performance. Thus effort should be made by them to be

positively disposed to academics of their children. Two; both the home and the school

need to cooperate in making the learners to be well adjusted emotionally as this could
make or mar academic achievement. It is therefore, recommended that counselling

psychologists and school’s counsellors should work on the emotional well-being of

students in the school. Findings of the study have provided a further need on how to

improve upon the academics of students. In particular, the study has shown that

parental attention and emotional well-being cannot be over emphasized in academic

success.
 144

Emotional Intelligence, Parental Involvement and Academic Achievement

Majid Vahedi a* Hossein Nikdel b *

a
Educational Sciences Department, Payame Noor University, 19395-4697 Tehran,

I.R.of IRAN

Abstract 145

Academic achievement is undoubtedly a research after the heart of educational

psychologists. In their attempt to investigate what determines academic outcomes of

learners, they have come with more questions than answers. In recent time, prior

literature has shown that learning outcomes (academic achievement and academic

performance) have been determined by such variables as; family, school, society, and

motivation factors (e.g,Aremu &Sokan,2003) In the beginning, psychologists focused

on cognitive constructs like memory and problem solving in their first attempt to write

on intelligence. This did not last when researchers begun to challenge this orientation

and recognized that there are other non-cognitive aspects of intelligence. For

instance, Robert Thorndike wrote about social intelligence in 1937. And as early as

1943, David Wechsler proposed that the non-intelligence abilities are essential for
predicting ability to succeed in life. Imbrosciano and Berlach (2003) have remarked

that ‘’success’’ may be viewed in three main domains. A good student is often

referred to as being ‘’intelligent’’, or ‘’well behaved’’, or ‘’academically successful’’. On

parental involvement and academic achievement, studies have shown to date that the

two constructs seems to be positively related. Findings have demonstrated that

parent’s involvement in the education of the children has been found to be of benefit

to parents, children, and schools (Tella and Tella 2003; Campbell, 1995; Rich, 1987).

Rasinki and Fredrick’s (1988) concluded that parents play an invaluable role in laying

the foundation for their children’s learning; Zang and Carrasquillo (1995) also similarly

remarked that when children are surrounded by caring, capable parents and are able

to enjoy nurturing and moderate competitive kinship, a foundation for literacy is built

with no difficulty. Cotton and Wikelund (2005) ably capped it by asserting that the

more intensively parents are involved in their children’s learning; the more beneficial

are the achievement effects. Thus, it is believed that when parents monitor

homework, encourage participation in extracurricular activities, are active in parents –

teacher associations, and help children develop plans for their future; children are

more likely to respond and do well in school.

Key words: Emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic achievement

 10.

1.Introduction

Academic achievement is undoubtedly a research after the heart of educational

psychologists. In their attempt to investigate what determines academic outcomes of

learners, they have come with more questions than answers. In recent time, prior

literature has shown that learning outcomes (academic achievement and academic

performance)have been determined by such variables as; family, school, society, and

motivation factors (e.g.,Aremu & Sokan,2003;Aremu and Oluwole,2001;Aremu.2000).

In the same vein, Parker, Creque, Harris, Majeski, Wool, and Hogan (2003) noted that

much of the previous studies have focused on the impact of demographic and

sociopsychological variables on academic achievement. More recently, another

emerging dimension to the determinant of academic achievement is government

factor (e.g., Aremu & Sokan, 2003; Aremu, 2004). In spite of the seeming

exhaustiveness of literature on the determinants of academic achievement of

learners, there seems to be more area of interest to be investigated. This becomes

obvious in view of the continue interest of researchers and Educational psychologists;

147
and the continued attention of government and policy makers and planners.

Academic performance (most especially of secondary school students) has been

largely associated with many factors. Most students in secondary schools in Nigeria

are daily confronted with challenges of coping with their academics under serious

emotional strains occasioned by long walk to school, poor school environment, and

been taught by unmotivated teachers. Couple with this, is an ‘uncooperative’-to –

study attitude of parents who more often than toil to provide for the needs of the

family. These would definitely not augur well for academic success.It is therefore,
 instructive in the present paper to study the relationship among emotional intelligence,

parental involvement and academic achievement of student’s schools.

Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Definition

The publication of Daniel Goleman’s book on emotional intelligence (1995) has led to

widespread use of EI in business, industry training, and education. Our definition and

the positive assessment instruments we use to quantify emotional intelligence are

based on extensive research and application studies ranging from 1977-2004 in T r a

n formative Learning in Academic Excellence education. More than thirty-five

completed doctoral studies provide support for the educational applications of

emotional intelligence that we have suggested.

Emotionally intelligent behavior is wise behavior. To behave wisely requires the

synergistic effect of the emotional mind with the cognitive mind. Thinking and feeling

are not totally independent processes, and emotionally intelligent behavior requires a

harmony of the two minds. The emotional mind makes many positive contributions to

academic achievement, productivity, and mental/physical health. In the sections that

follow, we briefly describe some important educational applications of emotional

148
intelligence.

Emotional intelligence, as measured by our assessment instruments, is a series of

interrelated skills and competencies. In terms of construct validity, our instruments

provide valid and reliable measurements of interpersonal skills (assertive

communication), self-management skills (time management, goal achievement,

commitment ethic, and personal responsibility), and the intrapersonal skills of self-
efficacy and stress management. The general factors assessed may be thought of as

indicators of constructive thinking, goal achievement, and personal responsibility or

effective self-management.

It is important to note that the EI skills as measured by the assessment instruments

are general measures of effective cognitive functioning. Unlike traditional measures of

intelligence (scholastic aptitude, achievement) and traditional measures of

personality, the assessments provide information about how a student is actually

applying cognitive behavioral skills in daily life. The measured EI skills are extremely

important to academic achievement, retention or program completion, and effective

interpersonal and T r a n formative Learning in Academic Excellence intrapersonal

behaviors. Developing these skills will improve a student’s performance in school,

work, and life.

149
Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance

In the beginning, psychologists focused on cognitive constructs like memory and

problem solving in their first attempt to write on intelligence. This did not last when

researchers begun to challenge this orientation and recognised that there are other

non-cognitive aspects of intelligence. For instance, Robert Thorndike wrote about

social intelligence in 1937. And as early as 1943, David Wechsler proposed that the

non-intelligence abilities are essential for predicting ability to succeed in life.

Imbrosciano and Berlach (2003) have remarked that ‘’success’’ may be viewed in

three main domains. A good student is often referred to as being ‘’intelligent’’, or ‘’well

behaved’’, or ‘’academically successful’’. Arising from this are the questions: Are there
 any connection between these domains? Is there a strong connection, between

intelligence and academic achievement? Do students with high

Majid Vahedi and Hossein Nikdel / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 30 (2011)

331 – 335 333

intelligence behave better? These and many more questions underscore the

important place intelligence has been found to play in academic success.

Goleman (1995) gave a short of answer when he asserted that success depends on

several intelligences and on the control of emotion .Specifically, he stressed that

intelligence (IQ) alone is no more the measure of success. According to him intelligent

account for only 20% of the total success, and the rest goes for Emotional and Social

intelligences. Abisamra (2000) then queried that if this is found to be so, why the

teachers don’t begin to teach its components (i.e.., emotional intelligence) to students

at schools? He then concluded that if emotional intelligence affects student

achievement, then it is imperative for schools to integrate it in their curricula and

150
thereby raising the level of students’ success.

According to Salovey and Mayer (1990), Emotional Intelligence is being able to

monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them,

and to use this to guide one’s thinking and actions. Again, Salovey and Mayer (1993)

wrote that an emotionally intelligent person is skilled in four areas: identifying, using,

understanding, and regulating emotions. Similarly, Goleman also stressed that

emotional intelligence consists of five components: Knowing one’s emotions (self-

awareness), managing them, motivating self, recognising emotions in others

(empathy), and handling relationships.

In recent times therefore, social scientists and educational psychologists are

beginning to uncover the relationship of emotional intelligence to other phenomenon.

These are: leadership (Ashfort & Humphrey,1995); group performance (Williams

&Sternberg,1988); academic achievement (Abisamra,2000);and

policing(Aremu,2005).The foregoing attest to the significance of emotional intelligence

to all constructs(school achievement inclusive).As a matter of fact, emotional

151
intelligence (EI) has recently attracted a lot of interest in the academic literature.

Specifically, Finnegan (1998) argued that school should help students learn the

abilities underlying the emotional intelligence. This he believes could lead to

achievement from formal education years of the child. In a recent studies conducted

by Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan and Majeski (2001, 2002) they discovered that

various emotional and social competencies were strong predictors of academic

success. Similarly, Parker, et al...(2003) found emotional intelligence to be significant

predictors of academic success. In the same vein, Low and Nelson (2004) reported

that emotional intelligence skills are key factors in the academic achievement and test

performance of high school and college students respectively. Likewise, Abisamra

(2000) reported that there is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence

and academic achievement. He therefore canvassed for inclusion of emotional

intelligence in the schools ‘curricula. Petrides, Frederickson and Furnham in Cotton

and Wikelund(2005)argued that any investigation of the potential effects of emotional

intelligence on academic performance must be pursued in a specific context .In

 essence, the importance of emotional intelligence on academic achievement has

been found to be very significant .Nevertheless, and in spite of the studies reviewed,

there is still a need to further investigate the relationship of emotional intelligence to

academic achievement most especially in country like Nigeria, where most

researchers are yet to show interest in the construct.

Parental Involvement and Academic Performance

On parental involvement and academic achievement, studies have shown to date that

the two constructs seems to be positively related. Findings have demonstrated that

parent’s involvement in the education of the children has been found to be of benefit to

parents, children, and schools (Tella and Tella 2003; Campbell, 1995; Rich, 1987).

Rasinki and Fredrick’s (1988) concluded that parents play an invaluable role in laying

the foundation for their children’s learning; Zang and Carrasquillo (1995) also similarly

remarked that when children are surrounded by caring, capable parents and are able to

enjoy nurturing and moderate competitive kinship, a foundation for literacy is built with

no difficulty. Cotton and Wikelund (2005) ably capped it by asserting that the more

intensively parents are involved in their children’s learning; the more beneficial are the

achievement effects.Thus, it is believed that when parents monitor homework,

encourage participation in extracurricular activities, are active in parents –teacher

associations, and help children develop plans for their future; children are more likely to
152
respond and do well in school.

Based on the results of Sixty-six studies, Henderson and Berla (1994) were of the

opinion that repeated evidence has confirmed that the most accurate predictor of
student achievement is the extent to which the family is involved in the child’s

education, and not the family‘s level of income. As a matter of fact, McMillan (2000a)

noted that parental pressure has a positive and significant effect on public school

performance. This becomes particularly obvious when the exactness of the parental

pressure is brought to bear on the children’s academic performance.

Similarly, Schickedanz (1995) also reported that children of passive parents were

found to perform poorly academically. Valez in Ryan (2005) reported that academic

performance is positively related to having parents who enforce rules at home. The

obviousness of the research findings reported in this study is that family involvement

improves facets of children’s education such as daily attendance (e.g. Cotton &

Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000), student achievement (e.g. Cotton & Wikelund, 2001;

Sheldom & Epstein, 2001a, Simon, 2000; Van Voorhis, 2001) behaviour (e.g.Sheldom

& Epstein, 2001b; Cotton &Wikelund, 2001; Simon, 2000) and motivation (e.g. Cotton

& Wikelund, 2001; Brooks, Bruno &Burns, 1997). It is on this note that (Deutsher and

Ibe, n.d*) posited it was expected that parent involvement would have a large role on

children’s performance. The foregoing, have shown that one of the greatest barriers to

high academic achievement for a good number of students, is lack of parental

involvement in children’s education.

In sum, research has shown that parents do want to get along with their children’s

education knowing fully well that such involvement could promote better achievement.
153

However, parents need a better little direction as to how they can effectively do this.

According to a magazine reports (2002),six types of programs could be utilized by

schools to build strong parental skills .These are: one, school can assist families with
parenting and child-rearing skills; two, schools can communicate with families about

school programs and students progress and needs; three, school can work to improve

families as volunteers in school activities; four, schools can encourage families to be

involved in learning activities at home; five, schools can include parents as

participants in important schools decisions, and six, schools can coordinate with

business and agencies to provide resources and services for families, student, and

the community. The importance of these programmes further attest to the fact that

student’s academic performance is dependent upon the parent-school bond. Thus the

importance of parental involvement on academic performance cannot be

overemphasised. The stronger the relationship, especially between the parents and

their wards’ education, the higher the academic achievement . 154

Adeyemo (2005) saw reason in this by stressing that there is need to foster home

school partnership. In his attempt to give more meaning to his contribution on parental

involvement and children’s education, (Epstein,1997) put up a model in which he

analysed how children learn and grow through three overlapping spheres of influence:

family school and community .According to him, these three spheres must form

partnership to best meet the needs of the child. Epstein (1997) again identified six

types of involvement based on the relationships between the families, school and

community .These are: parenting (skills), communicating, volunteering, learning at

home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. He stressed it clearly

that these six types of involvement need to be included to have successful

partnerships (between the home and the school).Baker and Soden (1997) remarked

that much of the research that examined the relationships between parent
involvement and children’s education assesses parent involvement by utilizing one

particular measure, such as counting the number of parents that volunteer, coming to

meetings, or coming to parent-teacher conferences. Other studies utilized measures

that consists of a view closed-ended questions that target particular aspect of parent –

involvement and often focus on the number of times parents participate in some

particular events (Goldring &Shapira,1993;Griffith,1996;Grolnick & Slowiczek,1994,

Zellman &Waterman ,1998).According to Baker and Soden (1997),this type of

measure does not allow for a rich picture of parent involvement, nor generate new

ideas.
 155

Relationship between Parental Involvement/ Attitude and Children’s School

Achievements

Daniela Porumbuª*, Daniela Veronica Necúoib

Transilvania University of Brasov, Eroilor Street, No. 29, Brasov,

500036, Romania

Transilvania University of Brasov, Eroilor Street, No. 29, Brasov,

500036, Romania

Abstract 156

Societies in general, and educators, in particular, consider that family and parental

involvement are the main factors responsible for many successes but also for

many ills in education today. The purpose of this study was to review the research

literature on the relationship between parental involvement or attitude and

children’s academic achievement. Some of the variables that define parental

involvement or attitude found in the literature were: parenting style, parental

expectations and aspirations, home rules and parental supervision, communication

between parents and children, children’s home activities, parental attitude towards

school (checking children’s homework, parents’ communication with teachers, and

parental involvement in children’s school activities). The review process consisted

of gathering and reviewing articles, meta-analyses, and reviews relating to the

parental involvement and its influence on children’s school achievement at the

middle and highschool levels. Findings from the review revealed several variables

that are consistently associated with high levels of academic achievement: an

authoritative parenting style, parental high and clear expectations and aspirations

for their children’s school results, communication between parents and children

about their school activities and plans for the future, parents’ communication with

teachers regarding their child’s progress or difficulties. In the end we discuss some

of the main limitations of the studies that include the following: the use of non-

experimental research designs, inconsistency in defining the concept of parental

involvement in different studies, inconsistency of the results across cultures,

neglecting the moderating role of some socio-demographic factors as family

structure or socio-economic status, number of children in the family, etc. The

findings from this review highlight the importance of parental influence on children’s

academic achievement. Therefore, in designing educational policies and different

educational interventions we should be more aware of the intervention of this major

factor in children’s success. Schools should re-examine their policies regarding

parental involvement and develop an educational strategy in which family and

teachers assume mutual responsibility for children’s outcomes.

 11.

1. Introduction

Family is a fundamental factor which contributes to child development. For a child,

family is the first social and educational environment. Therefore, a right beginning

is the one that makes the most important part of child’s education. Educational

influences of families on children may manifest either directly - through more or

less directed actions, or indirectly - through behaviour models offered by family

members and through the existing psychosocial climate in the family. The more or

less conscious educational strategies of families largely determine personality

development and educational achievement of children. The educational practices

of parents and their impact on the future intellectual, social and emotional

development of the child is one of the variables that have been extensively studied

in the literature.

This paper examines the research literature on the relationship between parental

involvement and academic achievement. Therefore, in this review four questions

emerge. First, how parental involvement is defined in the literature? Second, to

what degree is parental involvement associated with higher levels of school

achievement among students from middle and high-school levels? Third, what

specific aspects of parental involvement help students the most? Finally, does the

relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement hold across

different groups?
 12.
2. Method

To answer the four research question we reviewed the existing literature on the

topic. To obtain the studies used in this review, a search was performed using

social science research databases, to find studies examining the relationship

between parental involvement and the academic achievements of students. The

search terms included: parental involvement, parenting style, parental support,

parental expectations, academic achievement, and several other terms. Reference

sections from journal articles on parental involvement were also examined to obtain

additional research articles. Finally, 26 documents were included in the review. We

selected articles, metaanalyses, and reviews that were relevant to the discussed

subject, were focused on secondary school level, and described the relevance of

specific variables of parental involvement.

3. Literature review results

Parental involvement – conceptualization

To answer the first research question, we analysed the way parental involvement is

defined in various studies. Singh et al. [7] identified four components of parental

involvement, namely: parental aspirations for children’s education (parents’ hopes

and expectations for the child’s continuing education), parent-child communication

about school; home-structure (the degree of discipline exerted by the parents), and

parental participation in school related activities. 159

Jeynes [5] performed a meta-analysis examining the relationship between parental

involvement and secondary school student academic achievement and concluded

that parental involvement is defined as parental participation in the educational

processes and experiences of their children. In addition, the Jeynes study uses

specific parental involvement variables such as: general parental involvement

(includes the overall measure of parental involvement), specific parental

involvement (includes a specific measure of parental involvement, as distinguished

from other measures of parental involvement used in the study), parental

expectations (the degree to which a student’s parents maintain high expectations

of the student’s ability to achieve at high levels), attendance and participation

(whether and how frequently parents attend and participate in school functions and

activities), communication (the extent to which parents and their children

communicate about school activities and report a high level of communication

overall), homework (the extent to which parents check their children’s homework

before the child handed it in to his or her teacher), parental style (the extent to
160
which a parent demonstrates a supportive and helpful parenting approach).

In their review of the relationship between parental involvement and secondary

school students’ academic achievement, Shute and her colleagues [6] made a

comprehensive description of the parental involvement variable. They grouped the

specific aspects that refer to parental involvement in two main categories: home

activities and school activities. The first category includes: parent – child discussion

about school (conversations between parents and their children relating to school

activities, programs, school plans), parental aspirations and expectations (the

degree to which parents presume that their children will perform well in school),

parenting style (a complex set of behaviours and/ or attitudes by which parents

demonstrate and communicate the values, behaviours and standards that their

children are expected to adopt), reading at home (parental modelling and support

of child’s reading activity), parents checking child’s homework, home rules and

supervision. The second category includes specific variables such as: parent –

teacher communication, parents attending school organisations, parents

volunteering at school.

The impact of parental involvement (overall construct and its specific dimensions) on

school achievements . Most of the reviewed literature has consistently

demonstrated the importance of parental involvement in facilitating academic

achievement of children [4-6]. Parental involvement dimensions were proved to

be stronger predictors of school achievement than some family socio-

demographic characteristics [1-3]. 161

Among the specific aspects of parental involvement influencing school outcomes,

parenting style and parents’ expectations and aspirations proved to be the most

important variables. In their meta-analysis of 25 studies, Fan and Chen [8]

performed average correlations between parental involvement (overall construct

and specific aspects of it) and school achievement. Parental involvement variables

included parental aspirations and expectations for their children education,

communication with children about school-related matters, parental supervision,

and parental participation in school activities. The results showed that the largest

correlation was between parents’ aspirations and expectations for children’s

education (average r = .40), and the smallest correlation referred to parents’

supervision of the child’s activities (average r = .09). Similarly, Jeynes [5], in his
meta-analysis of 52 studies, found that the effect size for parental expectations was

the largest (Hedges’s g = .88, p<.0001) among all the other variables (parenting

style, g = .40, p<.05; communication between parents and child, g = .32, p<.05;

parents checking homework, g = .38, p<.05). Analyzing 74 documents (journal

articles, book chapters, reports, extensive literature reviews, and meta-analyses),

Shute et al. [6] concluded that academic achievement associates with variables

like: discussions about school activities between parent and child (positive

correlation), parents’ aspirations/ expectations for their children (positive

correlation), and parental styles, particularly authoritative style (positive correlation)

and authoritarian and permissive styles (negative correlation). 162

Speaking of parenting style, a number of studies have also indicated that

authoritarian and permissive parenting styles are associated with low academic

achievement [9-13] and higher levels of school problems [9]. But, the majority of

studies analysing the relationship between parenting style and children’s school

achievement have consistently shown that children have better school outcomes if

their parents are more authoritative [5, 6, 13-19]. Authoritative parenting style is

defined by parents who develop and maintain close, warmth relationships with their

children, while at the same time providing supervision and guidelines and granting

psychological autonomy to them. Parents manifesting this educational style also

demonstrate trust and approachability toward their children, aspects which

encourage children to discuss school issues and school expectations with the

adults. Durkin [20] sets out three reasons which stand for the relationship between

authoritative parenting style and academic achievement: first he argues that

parents with authoritative style provide emotional security to their children, giving

them a sense of calm and autonomy, and also, they assist their children to be

successful in school activities. Secondly, these parents explain their children the

consequences of their actions. Thus, children acquire a sense of knowledge and

understanding of their parents’ principles, desires, and goals which are associated

with school activities. Thirdly, he sustains that authoritative parents are involved in

reciprocal contact with their children. They support their children, encourage them

to perform well in school, and explain the need for education in order to become a

successful adult. 163

Although each parental involvement dimension described above has a clear

relationship with students’ academic achievement, the issue is more complex than

that. For instance several studies have indicated that there are some family

characteristics (e.g. parents’ educational level, parents’ socio-economic status,

family size, family structure, the place of the children within the family) which can

intervene as predictors of academic achievement. Some conclusions were that

children from lower income, less educated, single parent and large families perform

less well in school than those from higher income, better-educated, two-parent and

small families [21-24]. Predominantly, the educational level of parents predicts

more of the variability in academic achievement than do other family demographic

characteristics [3, 24]. Other studies have attempted to demonstrate the

moderating effect of family variables on school achievement. Some studies showed

that the relationship between parental dimensions and children school achievement

can be generalised trough various socio-economic levels and family structures,

 which suggests that family characteristics do not have a moderating role in this

relationship [3, 5, 25]. On the contrary, Dearing et al. [26] argued that the

relationship between parental involvement and school achievement is influenced

by mother’s level of education.

4. Conclusions

Our review supports the evidence that parental involvement (in terms of overall

construct but also in terms of specific dimensions) is positively associated with

school achievement. Findings suggest that variables that are consistently

associated with high levels of academic achievement are: an authoritative

parenting style, parental high and clear expectations and aspirations for their

children’s school results, communication between parents and children about their

school activities and plans for the future. Therefore, in order to enable parents to

grow in their ability to help their children get the best education possible, parental

involvement has to be viewed as a process rather than a one-time event [6]. This

means that schools have to re-examine their policies regarding parental

involvement and develop an educational strategy that leads to the multiplication

and diversification of interpersonal interactions between families and school’s

members, a strategy in which family and teachers assume mutual responsibility for

children’s outcomes. In order to understand and to answer to family needs,

teachers may need to rethink their professional role. For instance, it is clear that

they are not only teachers but they are also psycho-pedagogical counsellors for the

families they serve.

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