the influence of parental involvement practices on student self-regulation joan m. t. walker long...

The influence of parental involvement practices on

student self-regulationJoan M. T. Walker

Long Island University

and

Christa L. Green, Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey & Howard M. Sandler

Vanderbilt University

This research was supported by OERI Grant # R305T010673, “The Social Context of Parental Involvement: A Path to Enhanced Achievement”

http://www.liu.edu/

http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/index.html

Parental involvement Student learning and development

• Across cultures, parenting practices are vehicles for child socialization– Families have similar goals (Cole, 1996; Maccoby, 1992;

Rogoff, 1990):

• Providing shelter, food, a safe environment • Teaching skills, attitudes, values needed for productive adult

life.

• Within context of education, parenting practices are important resources for children’s school success (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001)

Parental involvement in homework

• Provides a useful context in which to observe parental influence on child learning– Common valued activity generalizable across

U.S. families– Narrow-band activity accessible to empirical

examination

How are parents involved in homework?

• Simultaneous efforts to help the child arrange the environment, manage time; monitoring of attention, motivation, and emotional responses to homework (Xu & Corno, 1998)

• Two categories of involvement practices (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001):– General efforts to create a supportive context

• Establishing structures, providing oversight; reinforcing and encouraging

– Cognitive involvement in homework tasks• Explicit teaching, creating a ‘fit’ between homework tasks and

student skill level; helping child understand how skills relate to achievement

• 4 major mechanisms (Martinez-Pons, 1996)– Modeling, Encouragement, Facilitation, and Rewarding

What child outcomes do parent involvement practices influence?

Autonomy support (encouragement of independent problem-solving);

Structure (clear, consistent guidelines and expectations).

Mother-child relationship quality and involvement routines

Emotional and cognitive support

Self-regulation, school grades and achievement (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989).

Children’s beliefs that they were responsible for their success or failure (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989).

Self-regulation (e.g., planning before acting, working toward goals; Brody, Flor & Gibson, 1999)

Persistence at difficult learning tasks; Fewer ability attributions (Hokoda & Fincham, 1995)

Self-monitoring and metacognitive talk (Stright et al., 2001)

How does the relation between parent involvement and child self-regulation

operate?• Social Learning (Bandura, 1986): Internalization of

external activity– Children bring an external product (parent behavior) into the

internal plane (child behavior)

• Sociocultural (Rogoff, 1990): Appropriation from shared activity– Shared activities are transformed and used by individuals

according to their understanding and involvement

• Interaction with skilled adults assists children in internalizing important skills and understandings:– Adaptation to new situations, structuring of problem-solving

efforts, and assumption of responsibility for problem-solving.

Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler (1995, 2005) Model of Parental Influence on Student

Outcomes

Modeling

Encouragement

Reinforcement

Instruction

Parental Involvement Mechanisms

Modeling

Encouragement

Reinforcement

Instruction

Strategy use Academic self-efficacy

Social self-efficacy

Intrinsic motivation

Student Self-Regulation

Child perceptions of

parent mechanisms

Mediator


Modeling

Encouragement

Reinforcement

Instruction

Our research questions

Across 2 studies we asked:

1. Are parental involvement mechanisms perceived differently by parents and children?• Examined parents’ self-reported practices and

children’s perceptions of those practices

2. Do involvement mechanisms appear to influence child self-regulation directly or indirectly?• Tested for mediation of parent involvement influence

via child’s perceptions of the parent’s practices

Expectations

1. Are parental involvement mechanisms perceived differently by parents and children? – Mechanisms will be perceived by parents and

children as independent but inter-related constructs– Parent self-reports and student perceptions will be

positively related at modest levels

2. Do involvement mechanisms appear to influence child self-regulation directly or indirectly?– Influence of mechanisms will be mediated by child

perceptions of the parent’s practices

Conditions for mediation


Student perceptions of involvement

mechanism

Student self-regulation

Parental Involvement Mechanism

Study 1: Participants and Procedures

• 6 elementary and 2 middle schools in public Metropolitan school system in mid-South of U.S.

• 421 dyads: one parent for each 4th-6th grade student (response rate = 33%)– 50% of students and 76% of parents were female– Majority of parents had some college, worked full-

time; average income $30K/year– 38% African-American, 37% White, 15% Hispanic,

6% Asian– 89% completed questionnaires in English; 11%

completed parallel Spanish questionnaires.

Parent MechanismsQuestionnaire assessing use of involvement mechanisms (based on Martinez-Pons, 1996; 28 items rated on a 6-point scale (1 = not at all true, 6 = completely true; = .93)

Modeling, 5 items ( = .80)

“We show this child that we like to learn new things.” Encouragement, 5 items ( = .83)

“We encourage this child to keep trying when things get difficult.”

Reinforcement, 5 items ( = .89)

“We show this child we like it when s/he explains what s/he thinks to the teacher.”

Instruction, 13 items ( = .87)

“We teach this child how to check his or her work.”

Student perceptionsQuestionnaire assessing student perceptions of the parent’s use of involvement mechanisms; 47 items rated on a 4-point scale (1 = not at all true for me, 4 = very true for me; = .92)

Preceded by stem, “The person in my family who usually helps me with my homework…”

Modeling, 14 items ( = .70)

“…likes to learn new things.” Encouragement, 5 items ( = .69)

“…encourages me to keep trying when I don’t feel like doing my schoolwork.”

Reinforcement, 13 items ( = .87)

“…shows me s/he likes it when I explain what I think to the teacher.”

Instruction, 15 items ( = .81)

“…teaches me how to check my homework as I go along.”

Student self-regulationSelf-report questionnaire; 19 items rated on a 4-point scale (1 = not at all true for me, 4 = very true for me; = .84)

Intrinsic motivation to learn (4 items, = .67; Stipek & Gralinski, 1996)

“I want to learn new things.”Strategy use (7 items, = .64; Stipek & Gralinski, 1996)

“I go back over things I don’t understand.”Academic self-efficacy (4 items, = .65; Roeser et al., 1996)

“I can do even the hardest homework if I try.” Social self-efficacy for relating to teachers (4 items,

= .65; Ryan & Patrick, 2001)

“I find it easy to go and talk with my teachers.”

Results1. Are parental involvement mechanisms

perceived differently by parents and children?

Factor analyses with promax rotationParents: 4 clear factors emerged • some overlap between instruction and reinforcement

Children: No clear factors

Correlations between parent reports and children’s perceptions of the parent’s behavior:Modeling, r = .14, p < .01Encouragement, r = .16, p < .01Reinforcement, r = .16, p < .01Instruction, r = .16, p < .01

Correlations among mechanisms

.70**.72**.61** Instruction

--.75**.70** Reinforcement

--.67** ModelingEncouragement

Modeling

Reinforcement

.74** .71**.76**Instruction

-- .61**.82**Reinforcement

--.59**ModelingEncouragement

Modeling

Reinforcement

Parent self-reported use of mechanisms

Child perceptions of parent mechanisms

Do involvement mechanisms influence self-regulation directly or indirectly?


Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms

= .21; t = 4.48, p < .000

= .59; t = 14.99, p < .000



Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms = .20; t = 4.23, p < .000 = .58, t = 14.56, p < .000

= .08; t = 1.98, p < .05

Study 1: Conclusions

1. Parents and children appear to experience the parent’s involvement as a complex, co-occurring set of mechanisms

• Parent and child reports are not interchangeable

2. Influence of parent involvement mechanisms appears to be mediated by children’s perceptions of the parent’s practices

Study 2: Participants and Procedures

• 5 elementary and 4 middle schools in public Metropolitan school system in mid-South of U.S.

• 358 dyads: one parent for each 4th-6th grade student (response rate = 22%)– Females: 48% of students and 83% of parents– Majority of parents had some college, 21% had a bachelor’s

degree; 37% worked full-time, 43% worked part-time; average income $30-40K/year

– 28% African-American, 57% White, 7% Hispanic, 4% Asian– 89% completed questionnaires in English; 11% completed

parallel Spanish questionnaires.

Study 2: Measures

• Scales modified based on Study 1 results– Balanced number of items per subscale; made

items more parallel

Parent use of involvement mechanisms ( = .97)

Student perceptions of mechanisms ( = .95)

Student self-regulation ( = .86)

Study 2: Results

1. Are involvement mechanisms perceived differently by parents and children?

Factor analyses with promax rotationParents: 4 clear factors emergedChildren: no discernable patterns emerged

Correlations between parent reports and children’s perceptions of the parent’s behavior:

Modeling, r = .22, p < .01Reinforcement, r = .16, p < .01Instruction, r = .17, p < .01Encouragement, r = .14, p < .01

Correlations among mechanisms



--.54** Modeling Modeling .47** --

Reinforcement .68** .52** --

Instruction .72** .56** .75**

Encouragement

Modeling

Reinforcement



Encouragement

Modeling

Reinforcement



--.54** Modeling


.75** .56**.72**Instruction

-- .52**.68**Reinforcement

--.47**Modeling

Encouragement

Modeling

Reinforcement


Study 2: Mediation


Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms = .12, t = 2.26, p < .05

= -.01, t = .30, p = .76

= .69, t = 17.54, p < .000



Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms

= .19, t = 3.65, p < .05

= .69, t = 17.84, p < .000

Conclusions and implications

• Parent and child perceptions of involvement mechanisms are substantially different.– Investigations of parental influence on child development and

learning should include child perceptions of parents’ practices (Steinberg et al., 1989).

• Parental involvement appears to be influential via children’s attention, perceptions and processes.– Suggests that child self-regulation develops through a process of

co-construction• Child invitations to involvement

– More investigations of children’s experiences during parental involvement activities (e.g., Xu, 2006)

Next steps

• Developmental trends in children’s ability to attend to, perceive, or process the parent’s actions– Child and family characteristics as moderators?

• Triangulation of methods– Parent and child interviews– Naturalistic observation of parent-child interactions– Structured observation plus prompted recall

• Multiple indicators of child performance– Teacher ratings, child achievement data

the influence of parental involvement practices on student self-regulation joan m. t. walker long...

Documents