Does Parent Involvement Really Make a Difference?
Laura Chianese
Parent-child involvement Home supervision Educational aspiration for children School contact Participation Communication with children about school Checking homework Having high expectations for children’s success Encouraging children to read outside of school Attending school meetings Household rules about school Supportive environment
What does parent involvement entail?
Fan and Chen (2001) looked at 25 studies between parent involvement and student achievement. Results indicated a small to moderate relationship between
parent involvement and student achievement (0.25 effective size)
Fan and Chen found a strong relationship with parents’ aspiration and expectation for children’s academic achievement, but a weak relationship with parents’ supervision of children at home.
Stronger relationship when the area of achievement was broadly defined.
Success rate of academic achievement = 30% These findings make a good case for the positive influence of
parent involvement on students’ academic achievement.
What studies have shownFan and Chen (2001)
Parent involvement on minority children's academic achievement Analyses yielded an overall finding that parental
involvement had a positive effect on the academic achievement of the minority groups studied.
Effect sizes ranged from 0.43 – 0.62 All measures yielded statistically significant correlations coefficients.
Jeynes (2003)Effects of Parent Involvement on populations
that experience low rates of academic success
Involvement during children’s kindergarten years had “stable, promotive effects” on the literacy performance of all children throughout the elementary years
Strongest effects noted for children of less educated mothers High levels of family involvement correlated with more positive
feelings about literacy Motivation effects were greatest with children of less educated
mothers Parent involvement works in both a compensatory and
facilitative fashion.
Dearing et al. (2004)Relationship between family involvement during
kindergarten through fifth grade
Found a consistently positive relationship between parent involvement and outcome variables
Parent involvement correlates with: greater interest in learning greater self-efficacy greater persistence in challenging situations greater satisfaction with school work
Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, Holbein (2005) The relationship between parent involvement and
students’ attitudes and motivation
Sheldon and Epstein (2005) returned to this study and found: Significant gains in students’ reading
or language achievement test scores Sheldon and Epstein argued that the
findings that were originally reported were the result of an analysis that was overly broad in its definition of parent involvement.
Mattingly et al. (2002)Relationship between parent involvement and a
targeted academic area
Combined results of these meta-analytic students and critical literature reviews support that parent involvement has a positive impact on student achievement
This relationship holds true across different ethnic and income groups, different grades and ages, and among parents of different levels of education
The answer is Yes!