Parental Involvement and Students’ Academic

Achievement: A Quantitative Study

Taj Akbar,
M. Phil (Education)
City University of Science and Information
Technology, Peshawar
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
EMAIL: tajakbar.mphil@gmail.com
Cell Phone: 0312-9204503

Professor Dr. Mohammad Younes

City University of Science and Information
Technology, Peshawar

Professor Dr. Anwar Fazil Chishti

City University of Science and Information
Technology, Peshawar
 Parental Involvement and Students’ Academic
Achievement: A Quantitative Study
Abstract
This study aims at to find out whether parental involvement affects student academic
scores and whether or not children’s self-efficacy mediates between parental
involvement and students’ scores. The candidate explanatory variable Parental
involvement (PI) is found statistically significantly contributing towards the outcome
variable Students’ score (SS); these results help us to accept hypothesis that there is a
relationship between parental involvement and their children’s academic
achievement ( here students’ score). The contributions of PI variable has decreased
from c1 =107.251 (Step I) to c/1 = 92.875 (Step III); however, the value of latter c /1
has not become statistically insignificant, suggesting that, instead of complete
mediation, there occurs partial mediation. Mediating variable SE itself is statistically
significant, reinforcing that variable SE fulfills the condition of being a mediator, and
meanwhile the contribution of PI variable is still statistically significant, self-efficacy
(SE) variable is so partially mediating; these results help us to accept hypothesis that
self-efficacy (SE) of the students plays mediating role between the Parental
involvement and students’ academic scores. Computations for direct and indirect
mediational effects provide estimates of parental involvement exert 86.61 percent
direct effect and 13.39 percent indirect (meditational) effect through mediator self-
efficacy. Sobel test suggests that mediational effects of 13.39 percent are small but
statistically significant.

Keywords: parental involvement, students’ academic scores, mediation analysis,

Baron and Kenny (1986) model, Kenny (2012) model

“1. Introduction”
1.1 The parents who involve themselves in the education of children at home,
their children as a consequence, show good performance at school and as a result the
performance of the school also increases. Research proposes that those parents who
have involved in their kids learning process, their children shows good performance
like better grades, improved attendance and higher qualification rates (Catsambis,
2001; Epstein, 2005; Henderson & Mapp, 2002).
1.2 Parental involvement includes several different forms of parents’ taking part in
their kids schooling at home and in schools. Joyce Epstein and her colleagues have
created a suitable structure of “6” categories of parental involvement, containing
parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision-making and
collaborating with community (Peiffer, 2015); table 1 portrays how each of the
parental involvements of Epstein (1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011) model is defined.
 Table 1

Epstein’s Parental involvement

Type Definition
Parenting providing housing, health, nutrition, safety;
Parenting skills in parent-child interactions; home
conditions to support study; information to help
schools know child
Communication school-home/home-school communication

Volunteering in school help; in classrooms/events

Learning at help with homework, help with educational
home choices/options
Decision making membership of PTA/governors

Collaborating contributions to school

with community
Source: Epstein’s conceptual framework (adopted from Peiffer, 2015)

1.3 In addition to the stated six Epstein’s (1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011) Parenting
involvement factors, a seventh factor, namely Parental educational expectation PEE),
adopted from Lee and Bowen (2006) model constitute variable Parental involvement
(PI) for studying its effect on students’ academic achievement in terms of their
schooling score (SS). Students’ Self-efficacy (SE) has also been adopted from
Hoover- Dumpsy and Sandler (1995, 1997) Model and is used as mediator for
checking its mediating effects in this study.
1.4 Factors of Parental involvement
In contrast to the general definitions discussed in the preceding subsection
2.1.1, only recently the researchers have discovered the multi-facet nature of parental
involvement in the process of their kid’s education. Epstein is one of the latest
researcher which produced ‘6’ various kinds of parental approach, and they are
parenting, communication, volunteering, learning at home, decision-making, and
collaborating with community (Epstein, 1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011). Everyone
above mentioned type establishes the prominence of parental involvement to be
effective in child’s development and it also recognizes the diversity of actions needed
to be taken by parents in backing the process of child’s development as per details are
given in the following tabular form. The first half of the table provides definitions of
the six categories and the second half gives suitable examples.
Categories/types/factors of parental involvements

Parenting Communication Volunteering Learning Decision Collaboration

at home making With community
Assistance all Design effective Recruit and Provide information Include parents in Recognize and
families establish forms of school to organize parent and ideas to school decisions, integrate resources
home home and home to help and support in families about how developing parent and services from
environments to school the classroom to help students at leaders and the community to
support children communications, a home with representatives strengthen school
as students two-way homework and programs, family
communication forum other curriculum- practices, and
related activities student learning and
development
Examples
Support home Conferences with School and Information for Active PTA/PTO Information for
conditions that parents, work folders, classroom volunteer families on skills participation, active students and
are conducive to use of multiforms of programs, family required for participation in families on
learning, provide communication, use center or room in students at all advisory community health,
for child’s needs of language translator school, establish subject and grade committee, cultural,
of food, health, if parent needs it, avenues for parents level, information Independent recreational, social
basic parenting clear information to communicate on homework advocacy groups to support and other
skills distribution to parents with each other, policies and how to lobby and work for services,
on school policies and parent training on help with school reform, Information on
programs how to work with homework, district level community
students in school provisions of math, councils, activities that link
setting reading, and information on to learning skills
science activities, school elections, and talents
summer learning
activities
Figure 1.1: Adopted from School/Family/Community Partnerships: Caring for the Children
(Epstein, 1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011).
The initial participation of parents as acknowledged by Epstein (1987, 1995,
2001, and 2011) is itself parenting. In this type of parenting, she said aging core
practices should continue to fulfill the basic requirements of a student’s so that he/ she
can function at school. She reported that ninety-seven percent parents took the
responsibility of managing the school material for their children, and ninety percent
parents allocated a separate place for their children to study at home. She also says
that parents also manage the provision of other necessary facilities like security, meal,
clothing, and fee and expect their children show good results. It is why that child try
to give better results when they have all the aforesaid facilities and needs fulfilled.
The second category of Epstein typology is communication. In a study by
Epstein (1987), school communication was often merely an informational in nature.
The schools just provide parents with the child’s position in the test or examination,
school standard procedures, emergency measures, different occasion schedules and
correspondence about forthcoming events. According to Epstein (1986) survey, sixty
percent of parents never had a conversation with their youngster's instructor. Though,
it also suggests that despite low contact with teachers, still, the parents give due
importance to the views of teachers about their child, and also provide the required
feedback. This proposes the helpful assistances of educator can accomplish when they
make a meaningful communication with parents and suggest means the parent may
support with education.
An effective communication is strongly desired so that a child is able to have
better achievements at school (Epstein, 1987). A better two-way communication is
essential to increase the frequency of contact between the parents and school
administration. These communications should not be only ceremonial and diary
channel. It should cover every aspect of child’s information covering all ranges of
achievements. The better communication will make teacher and administration
convey effectively the rules and regulations to the parents besides providing
information regarding the student to the parents. However, Parents can watch the
mutual communication with educators and the parents as a sign of admiration,
because this one proposes that the rapport amongst home and teacher is not one that is
based on teacher dictation and domination. The communication from the teachers and
administration should avoid transcription like instructions and should also not be
merely a formality.
Epstein (1987, 1995, and 2011) observed the importance of a consistent back
to back communication among the parents and the institution. These contacts between
the parents and institution are important to enhance the relationship between the two.
She also stressed the significance to have many modes of communication with the
parents so that they have more chances of their participation in school affairs. It was
also emphasized by Epstein that all the feasible ways and means of communication to
ensure the better accessibility of parents. The contact with a parent should not only be
used by the teacher to inform school policies or rules but should give ample
information about the child’s progress. The relationship should be based on mutual
respect and not dictation by the teacher.
In some of the cases, the parents have deep involvement in the child’s school
and they offer their services to the school free of cost. In such way, they have more
interactions with the teachers, school administration, students and the parents. In the
third typology by Epstein (1987, 1995, 2011), she endorses the importance of parents
visit school and providing help in the activities of the school. She also reported that
only four percent of the parents were found very active by giving twenty-five days per
year to the school helping teachers and administrators in various activities. According
to Epstein (1986), the non-active parents were at forty-two percent, the reason being
their job location away from school and they could make it in school hours. The
administration and teachers can help encourage the parents for volunteering in the
school by providing an environment where the parents feel encouragement and
happiness at coming to school. At the same, if the parents are given due respect and
attendance, they feel worthiness and dignity and are more than willing to provide any
help they can. These invitations to the parents help create a better image of the school
as a democratic institution and an entity belonging to the society. The idea behind the
practice of parents visiting the school that their presence in the school should be felt
and it may break the lack of communication between the home and school. As
observed by Catsambis (2001), when the volunteering by the parents in the activities
of the school update them about the school and rest of the happenings, thereby
making them able to guide their child in a better way to have academic successes and
be able to further higher education.
The parents are not only involved in school affairs of their child; this activity
is also done at their home, as per fourth typology of Epstein (1987, 1995, and 2011).
According to afore stated typology, the parent’s involvement at home has the most
effective impact on the academic successes of the child. In the same category, there is
a strong engagement of parents with their child’s learning activities at school. The
child’s learning at school can be expanded by parent’s guidance and sharing activities
of the lesson at home, and thus enabling the child and their parents set the future
academic goal of the child. This engagement at home constructs a partnership among
the child and the parents by giving support and active assistance in doing the
homework. In this way, the parents also develop a positive interest in the school.
Epstein conceptualizes a formation of a meaningful cooperation by making
parent and school active partners. She emphasizes that the parents should have a role
in school decision-making process and they must also be given chance to activities in
the classroom along with the school rules and regulations. Participation in decision-
making process is the fifth category of Epstein (1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011)
typology. In this typology, she states the procedure by which the parents can be
actively involved in the school policy making process. This say in the decision
making goes above the routine or day to day affair like the selection of eatables etc. at
the school canteen. Rather the process should make the parents feel a partnership in
school by involving them in real policy making and give them ample opportunities to
express and let their voice heard. This will also help them to have a scrutiny of the
policies which are concerned with the child and also contribute their own capacity
building regarding the decision making to improve the existing policies and practices,
this will develop a sense of responsibility in the parents about the practice decisions
taken by administration with their active feedback and enhance their interest and will
actively involve them in school affairs.
The parent participation in decision making at school is not too much different
from the parent’s collaboration with the community. Sixth and final category of
Epstein (1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011) forwards the idea of parent’s involvement and
collaboration with the community. When the parents have a role in decision making,
they form an agency for benefit of their children and this agency then moves out of
institute to the society. In this category by Epstein, parents by feeling the ownership
and honor given by the school, help in finding the needed resources from the society
and other stakeholders and help devise various beneficial programs for the children.
They become active advocates not only for their own children but for all. The parents
use their own social status to generate funds and finance new program for the children
at the school.
It is evident from Epstein (1987, 1995, 2001, and 2011) theory, that sixth
category is more related to the parental collaborating with the community, and that the
parents should have a close liaison with the community regarding the learning
experiences of their children. The parents should participate in the efforts of the
community to build extra facilities like rooms, laboratories and financing some
projects. At the same time, the parents should work together with the institute through
the community about the selection of learning experiences. According to this, the
communities, if active, can make a transparency of the school affairs. The fees and
other financial resources could be arranged, and to find out and assimilate assets and
assistance from the society to reinforce institute plans, family participation, and pupil
education & improvement. For example, awareness of pupils and parents on society
fitness, traditions, entertaining, societal provision, and on community events that
relate to learning services and aptitudes.
Various social aspects have been widely brought under discussion by Epstein
(2011) which explains the impact of parent’s involvement on child’s educational
achievements. As per her explanation vide six types the way parents have involved
that these six ways of involvement have a significant role in the better academic
achievement of their child. She maintains that the activities which support the
learning at home help reinforce the school curriculum and help enhance the
educational outcome of the child.
1.5 Parental Educational Expectation
The parents expect a lot from their child and these desires by the parents have
a lasting effect on the child. The child tends to come up to the expectations of his
parents. According to researches, the parent’s expectations are more predictive of the
future educational achievements of their child than other ways of parent’s
involvement, for example, attending school events (Fan, (2001); Jeynes, (2005, 2007).
The child may be influenced by the parent’s expectation in many ways. If the parent
and their child relation are closed and affectionate, it is more likely that the parent’s
expectations are fulfilled by the child (Moore, Whitney, and Kinukawa, (2009). The
degree of parent-child interaction increases with the degree of increase in parents
expectations (Singh, et. al. 1995). When the family has high expectation from a child,
they try to provide adequate chances of learning for him (Catsambis and Garland,
1997). It was also observed that those students were more regular in their attendance
whose parents had more involvement with them about the school matters. The child’s
own aspirations and expectations are also provoked by the parent’s involvement and
degree of expected achievement; for example, some studies have suggested a
moderate to strong effect on the child’s personal aims for his postsecondary studies.
In addition, the moderate and strong expected academic achievement desires by
parents are related to characteristics of parents, child and the community (Lippman, et
al. 2008). The parent’s educational expectations for their child are by far the most
important effect which is coming consistently across the studies. Higher parents
aspirations have a positive effect on student’s motivation to achieve better in primary
and secondary education. (Singh, et al., 1995).
1.6 Parental involvement and children academic achievement
Singh et al, (1995), have stated that the outcomes family practices with respect
to student’s achievement have a tendency to show variance by age and are strongest at
the elementary level. Whereas they suggest that there is no effect of parental
involvement on the scores of standardized test. However, the Lee, 1994 and Singh, et
al., 1995 researches show that it is important for the success of the children that their
parents should be totally involved in the secondary education of their children.
 The other types of parent’s involvement like the discussion on academic and
school matters also have positive effects on students’ academic score at secondary
levels, and general parental supervision and monitoring of student progress, as well.
The participation by the parents in other activities have less effect like parent-teacher
organization, volunteering and attending the parents-teachers conference (Ho-Chu &
Willms, 1996).
The parental involvement not only affects the academic achievement of a
student but also affects the change in behavior with positive effects. Brody, Flor, and
Gibson (1999) stated that the parental involvement also enhances the student’s ability
to self- regulation in the daily routine of life. The fact was more evident from a study
made on American Indian students Kratochwill, McDonald, Levin, Bear- Tibbets &
Demaray (2004) by finding that parenting contributed to the positive change in the
behavior of the students and it reduced the disruptive behavior among the Indian
students in and outside the classrooms; students showed less aggression.
1.7 Problem statement
There is sufficient theoretical and empirical evidence for the fact that there exists
positive rapport between parental involvement and students’ academic successes. This
assumption helps plan to find out the strength of the parental involvement, and its
varying effect on students’ academic achievements. Additionally, for this study, it is
further assumed that the strength of self-efficacy of children further substantiates the
impact of parental involvement on students’ academic achievements.
In other words, this research problem deals to search whether self-efficacy of
students mediates between parental involvement and students’ academic
achievements. More specifically, the main aims of this study were to perceive,
pursuing the following research questions and research objectives.
1.7.1 Research questions
1. Whether parents are properly involved in their children’s schooling?
2. Whether or not the parent involvement affects their children’s academic
achievements?
3. Whether children’s self-efficacy mediates between parental involvement
and children’s academic achievements?
1.7.2 Research objectives
1. To study how much parents are involved in their children counseling.
2. To measure the strength of various factors of parental involvement.
3. To find out the relationship between parental involvement and children academic
achievement.
4. To check whether self-efficacy of the children mediates the relationship between
various factors of parent involvement and their children academic achievements.
5. To suggest policy prescription based on finding of the study.
1.8 Significance of the Study
Parental involvement in the life and success of an individual is very much an
accepted norm. Perhaps it is the only difference between humans and rest of the
species. That’s why every religion has stressed the importance of parents on the only
grounds of guidance otherwise other species do go through the pain of delivery as a
human mother does. Similarly, after the parents, the next importance given to human
relation is a teacher because he is the completing agent of human development.
Academic accomplishment has been studied by education researchers to
conclude how to increase children achievement. Earlier researchers normally explored
student performance from the viewpoint of what educationists and parents may do for
their motivation. Though, some scholars have observed psychosocial aspects and
more self-efficacy that might be paying to children performance. The researcher has
studied at parent participation by means of parents and educationists as contributors.
This research will complement to the texts by using the idea of the significance of
parental involvement in the schooling of students, thereby giving a different
estimation.
There is a gap in studies on the rapport between high school pupils' outcomes, here
academic achievement, and parental involvement in their children education, and
determine whether these relationships strengthen by mediation here self-efficacy. This
study shall add to the literature by bridging the gap in the literature of psychology and
education by investigating all seven factors with 240 respondents of high school
pupils in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. The results of this study might contribute in bringing
positive social changes through parents who attend, educationists and professionals in
the psychological fitness, better understand the rapport between psychosocial variable
(self-efficacy) and academic achievement and the development of strategies and
curriculums aimed at help pupils in achieving the learning accomplishments.
II. Materials and methods
2.1 Data collected from respondent-students on the seven factors of variable
Parental involvement (PI), namely parenting (PT), parent-school-communication
(PSC), volunteering (VT), learning at home (LH), decision-making (DM),
collaborating with community (CC) and parental educational expectation (PEE) were
tested, and after finding Cronbach’s alphas of all factors in acceptable (0.70s) to good
and very good ranges (0.80s & 0.90s), as reflects from table 2, these factors were then
used to formulate variable Parental involvement (PI).
Table 2

Results of reliability test

Variables Cronbach’s Alpha
Parenting (PT) .79
Parent-school communication (PSC) .72
Learning at home (LH) .89
Decision making (DM) .90
Volunteering (VT) .79
Collaborating with community(CC) .81
Parental Educational Expectation (PEE) .90
Self-efficacy (SE) .88
Sources: Estimated by the researchers
2.2 The so generated explanatory variable Parental involvement (PI) has then been
used along with mediating variable Self-efficacy (SE) to find their effects on students’
academic score (SS), using the Baron and Kenny (1986) and Kenny (2012 models
(Figure 1).
Mediator (M)
a (Step II) b (Step III)

Explanatory variable X c/ (Step IV) Outcome variable Y

c (Step I)
Figure 1: Conceptual model of mediation (Adopted from Baron and Kenny, 1986)
Baron and Kenny (1986) model involves 4 steps. In Step I, it is required to
express that some preliminary explanatory variable (X; PI in our case) is correlated
with the outcome/dependent variable (Y; SS in our case):
Y (or SS) = c0 + c1X (or PI) +e1 (2.1a)
In Step II, it is tried to correlate explanatory factor (X; PI in our case) with the
mediator (M; SE in our case):
M (or SE) = a0 + a1X (or PI) + e2 (2.1b)
 In Step III, the effect of mediator (M; SE in our case) on outcome variable (Y;
SS in our case) is tried while explanatory variable (X; PI in our case) is used as
control variable:
Y (or SS) = c/0 + c/1X (or PI) + bM (or SE) + e3 (2.1c)
Step IV helps decide whether M-variable (SE in our case) fully mediates the
X-Y (PI-SS) association or partially; it fully mediates if c/ – the coefficient of X (or
PI) in equation (2.1c) reduces and becomes insignificant and b - the coefficient of M
(or SE) turns out statistically significant. In case of partial mediation, coefficient c /
may reduce in magnitude but remains statistically significant.
Kenny’s (2012) model, instead of putting emphasis on the level of significance
of the coefficients (c, a, b & c/), advocates to measure total effect c and its
decomposition in to direct effect c/ and indirect (mediational) effect ab (product of
ab), using the following formula (Kenny, 2012; Shah, Hashmi & Chishti, 2013).
c = c/ + ab (2.1d)
Kenny (2012) suggests that product term a*b, which measures mediational
effect, be tested for its statistical significance applying one of the following three
ways (Shah, Hashmi & Chishti, 2013).
1. Testing a & b separately
2. Applying Sobel test
3. Bootstrapping
Using values from equation (2.1d), one can compute direct and indirect/
mediational effect of X on Y in percentage terms, as follows.
Direct effect (%) = (c//c)*100 (2.1e)
Indirect (mediational) effect (%) = (ab/c)*100 (2.1f)
III. Results and discussion
3.1 According to the three research questions designed earlier for this study, the
researcher need to test the following hypotheses:
H1: There is a relationship between Parental involvement and their children’s
academic achievement.
H2: Self-efficacy (SE) of the students plays mediating role between the Parental
involvement and students’ scores.
The Barron and Kenny (1986) and Kenny (2012) models, as specified in the
preceding section on materials and methods, are estimated, and the results thereof are
provided, as follows.
Step 1:
SS = - 24.064 + 107.251 PI
(58.594) (14.825) (std. error)
(- .411) (7.235) (t- statistics)
(. 682) (.000) (P- Values)

F = 52.339 (p = .000) R2 = .183 R2Adjusted = .179 (3.1a)

Step 2:
SE = 2.477 + 0.423 PI
(.365) (.092) (std. error)
(6.787) (4.585) (t- statistics)
(. 000) (.000) (P- Values)

F = 21.023 (P = .000) R2 = .082 R2Adjusted = .079 (3.1b)

Step 3 & 4:
SS = -108.173 + 92.875 PI + 33.954 SE
(62.787) (15.159) (10.280) (std. error)
(-1 .723) (6.127) (3.303) (t-statistics)
(. 086) (.000) (.001) (P- Values)

F = 32.733 (P = .000) R2 = .219 R2Adjusted = .213 (3.1c)

Where
SS = Student score
PI = Parental Involvement, consisting of net-effects of 7 sub-scales.
SE = Self-efficacy
3.2 The estimated model (3.1a) is statistically significant (F = 52.339; p = .000)
and explanatory variable Parental involvement (PI) is found statistically significantly
(t = 7.235; p < 0.01) and has the contribution (c1 = 107.251, p < .01).
The estimated model (3.1b) is statistically significant (F = 21.023; p = .000)
and explanatory variable Parental involvement (PI) is found statistically significant (t
= 7.235; p < 0.01) and has the contribution (a1 = 0.423, p < .01).
The estimated model (3.1c) is statistically significant (F = 32.733; p = .000).
According to Step 3, the contribution of SE is statistically significant (b = 33.954, p =
0.001). In Step 4, with the inclusion of variable self-efficacy (SE), the contribution of
PI variable has decreased to c/1 = 92.875, p = .000.
3.3 According to mediation analysis modeling proposed by Baron and Kenny
(1986) and Kenny (2012), the contributions of PI variable has decreased from c 1
=107.251 (Step 1) to c/1 = 92.875 (Step III); however, the value of latter c/1 has not
become statistically insignificant, suggesting that, instead of complete mediation,
there occurs partial mediation. Mediating variable SE itself is statistically significant
at p < 0.01, reinforcing that variable SE fulfills the condition of being a mediator, and
meanwhile the contribution of PI variable is still statistically significant, SE variable
is so partially mediating.
These results help us to accept hypotheses that;
H1: There is a relationship between parental involvement and their children’s
academic scores, and
H2: Self-efficacy (SE) of the students plays mediating role between the Parental
involvement and students’ scores. However, the first one is fully accepted while the
latter one partially.
3.4 As elaborated in section on materials and methods, Kenny’s (2012)
contemporary mediation analysis requires putting values of c / and a and b coefficients
in model 2.1 (d), and solving it for total effect c, and then decomposing the total effect
in to its direct (c/) and indirect effects (ab), using formulas given in 2.1 (e & f).
The values of c/, a, and b, required for substituting in models 2.1 (d – f), are
already available in estimated models 3.1 (a – c); however, it should be noted that the
contribution of variable PI appear extremely significant (not equal to zero), in the
estimated models 3.1 (a - c), and variable PI appear extremely significant. Table (3)
uses formulas 2.1 (d – f) and provides estimates of direct and indirect effects,
suggesting that variable PI apparently exert 86.61 percent direct effect, while the
indirect (meditational) effect of ‘self-efficacy’ relative to these variables estimates at
13.39 percent.

Table 3
Total, Direct and Indirect Effect
Coefficient PI
a. 0.423
b. 33.954
c/ 92.875
Ab 14.363
c = (c/ + ab) 107.238
/
Direct effect (c / c) 0.86607
% 86.6068
 Indirect effect (ab / c) 0.13393
% 13.3932

Whether the variable ‘self-efficacy’ (SE) significantly mediates towards the

respective total effect of the variable parental involvement (PI), Kenny (2012)
suggests to check the statistical significance of their respective indirect effects ‘ab’,
using one of the following measures.
a) Testing a and b separately
b) Using Sobel test
Testing a and b separately
3.5 As one way to test H0: ab = 0, is to test a = 0 and b = 0; according to Kenny
(2012), and a number of other researchers, including Fritz and MacKinnon (2007) and
Fritz, Taylor and MacKinnon (2012) strongly urge that researchers use this test in
conjunction with other tests, such as Sobel test.
Hypothesis H0: a = 0 has already been tested in Step 2; estimated model (3.1b)
indicates that p-value of a1 which relates to variables PI is .000, is statistically
significant at p < 0.01.
Hypothesis H0: b = 0 has been tested in Step 3; estimated model (3.1c)
indicates that p-value of b, relating to mediation-variable self-efficacy (SE), is 0.001.
On the basis of this approach, the indirect/mediational effect (ab) of variables PI
appear to be strongly statistically significant.
Sobel test
3.6 To check H0: ab = 0, Sobel test uses the following test statistic.
Test: Zab = ab / Sab (3.1d)
Which follows Z-distribution, that is, ab/sab falls within ±1.96 interval for an
ab = 0; otherwise, it falls outside of the stated interval. Where s ab has to be computed,
using the formula:
sab =√(a2s2b+ b2s2a) (3.1e)
Where sa and sb are the standard errors of a and b, respectively. Table 4 provides
comprehensive computations done for Sobel test, using formulas 3.1 (d & e). Statistic
Zab, computed for mediational effect (ab) of SE on variables PI, falls outside of the
±1.96 interval, suggesting that the mediational effects in respect of the variable PI is
statistically significant.
Table 4
 Computation for sobel test
Sobel test computation PI
a2 0.1789
b2 1152.8741
sa 0.092
sb 10.280
s2a 0.00846
2
sb 105.678
a2s2b 18.9089
2 2
bsa 9.75793
sab 5.354144
zab 2.682510

4. Conclusions
4.1 The results discussed help us to draw the following conclusions.
i. Explanatory variable Parental involvement (PI) is found statistically
significantly contributing towards the outcome variable Students’ score (SS).
ii. The contributions of PI variable has decreased from Step 1 to Step III;
however, the value of latter c/1 has not become statistically insignificant, suggesting
that, instead of complete mediation, there occurs partial mediation. Mediating variable
SE itself is statistically significant, reinforcing that variable self-efficacy (SE) fulfills
the condition of being a mediator, and meanwhile the contribution of PI variable is
still statistically significant, SE variable is so partially mediating.
iii. Computations for direct and indirect effects (mediational effect) provide
estimates of PI exert 86.61% direct effect, whereas the indirect (meditational) effect
of ‘self-efficacy’ in relation to these variables estimates at 13.39%; Sobel test
suggests the mediational effects of 13.39% are statistically significant.
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