Parental Involvement: What Works and For Whom?

1. Parental Involvement: What Works and For Whom? Tai A. Collins Evan H. Dart Louisiana State University

2. Parental Involvement • Intuitively appealing • Stakeholders (teachers, administrators, etc.) think that it’s critical to success of children in schools (Fan & Chen, 2001) • Not systematically studied until the 1980s (Fan & Chen, 2001)

3. Federal Legislation • 1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act • Parents should take a more direct role in their children’s schooling • Goals 2000: Educate America Act • Schools should promote parental involvement programs • No Child Left Behind (2001) • Schools must spend a portion of Title I funds on parental involvement programs

4. Defining Parental Involvement • 4 groups of researchers (Abdul-Adil & Farmer, 2006) • Aspirations & Expectations • Parent Behaviors (e.g. homework, attendance) • Parental Style • Others that failed to define parental involvement

5. Why do parents become involved in their children’s education? • Parent’s Role Construction • Extent to which parent thinks being involved in school is their responsibility • Parental Efficacy • Extent to which parent thinks they can successfully help their children • Influenced by: • Direct positive experiences with helping their children • Vicarious experiences (witnessing other parents help their children) • Verbal Persuasion (others tell them that they are important) • Emotional Arousal (how concerned they are about their child’s education) • Perceived Opportunities & Demands For Involvement • Extent to which their children, as well as the school & teacher(s) invite them to become involved Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995; 1997; 2001

6. How do parents influence their children? • Modeling • Activities that show that education is important to the parent • e.g. asking questions, attending events • Reinforcement • Providing praise & rewards for successful school behavior • Instruction • Closed-Ended: drilling facts; reviewing work • Open-Ended: problem solving, explaining Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995; 2001

7. Jeynes’s (2007) Definition • “parental participation in the educational processes and experiences of their children” • 7 Types of Parental Involvement

8. Previous Research • Inconsistent results, possibly because of different definitions of parental involvement (Fan & Chen, 2001) • Mattingly et al., 2002: reviewed 41 studies of parental involvement programs • Little empirical evidence

9. Previous Meta-Analyses: Parental Involvement & Academic Achievement • Fan & Chen, 2001 • Overall Cohen’s d =.52 • Jeynes, 2003 • d =.44 for African Americans; d =.43 for Asians & Latino Americans • Jeynes, 2005: Urban community • Hedges’ g = .70 • Higher for Expectations (g =.58) & Style (g =.35) • Lower for Attendance (g =.21) & Homework (g =.08) • Jeynes, 2007: Urban community • Hedges’ g =.50 • For parental involvement programs, g =.36 • Important types: Expectations (g =.88), Style (g =.35), Communication (g =.32), Homework (g =.38) • g =.46 for minorities

10. Purpose of the Current Study • To extend the previous research on parental involvement by: • Examining the most recent research (2000-2010) • Including more dependent variables (e.g. disruptive behavior, internalizing symptoms)

11. Methods: Literature Search • Databases: Academic Search Complete, ERIC, PSYCArticles, PsycINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection • Did not restrict to peer-reviewed journals • Publication Date: 2000-2010 • Written in English

12. Search Parameters Involvement Type Outcomes Population Characteristics

13. Searching • Initial Search: 6070 articles • Title & Abstract Search: 463 articles • Unique articles & further review: 263 articles • Coding: 91 articles • Interobserver Agreement: 90.6% (25% of studies)

14. Inclusionary Criteria • Parental Involvement as an IV • Must meet Jeynes’s (2007) definition of involvement: “parental participation in the educational processes and experiences of their children” • Academic Achievement or Behavior as a DV • Necessary data to compute an effect size • Participants were ≤18 years old

15. Coding

16. Study Quality Rating • 5-Point scale based on Jeynes (2007) • Did the study randomly assign participants to groups? • Did the study avoid the mono-method bias by assessing multiple independent variables? • Did the study avoid the mono-operation bias by assessing multiple dependent variables? • Did the study avoid selection bias? • Did the study provide a specific definition of parental involvement?

17. Effect Size Contrasts • Traditionally compared using Q statistic • Assumes independence of effect size sample studies • Assumption was violated in this study • Effect sizes were not mutually exclusive • Calculated 95% confidence intervals around effect sizes (Barel et al., 2010; Van IJzendoorn, Juffer, & Klein Poelhuis, 2005) • 95% certainty that effect size falls within a range • If confidence intervals of two effect sizes overlap, they are not significantly different • If confidence intervals do not overlap, they are significantly different

18. Results • 91 studies included • Overall weighted Cohen’s d = 0.22 • Range: -.34 to 2.48

19. Type of Involvement Relationships are the individual correlations upon which each effect size is based (e.g. 100 children reporting their parent’s involvement and 1 outcome = 100 individual correlations in the study)

20. General Involvement Bars of the same color indicate non-significant differences Bars of different colors indicate significant differences n = # of studies

21. Expectations

22. Specific Involvement

23. Parental Style

24. Attendance

25. Communication

26. Homework

27. Outcomes

28. Community

29. Study Design

30. Ethnicity

31. Gender of Child

32. Grade

33. Reporter

34. Reporting Target

35. SES

36. Study Quality

37. Discussion: Major Findings • Parental involvement is positively correlated with most outcomes • Highest effects found for: • Urban community • Experimental Studies • Teacher reports of involvement • Similar effects found for: • Caucasians & Latino Americans • African Americans & Asian Americans • Boys & Girls • Mothers & Fathers • Low & Middle SES • Negative effects found for: • Homework Involvement on Math, Language, Standardized, & Internalizing • Communication on Internalizing

38. Previous Research • Consistencies with previous meta-analyses: • Higher effect sizes for Expectations & Style • Higher effect sizes in Urban community • Inconsistencies with previous meta-analyses: • Overall d was lower than previous studies • Negative d for Homework • General involvement was most highly correlated with outcomes

39. Extending the Previous Literature • Summarized most recent research (2000-2010) • Did not restrict to peer-reviewed articles • May explain the lower overall effect size • Weighted by number of relationships • Previous studies do not specify • Broader scope of dependent variables & moderators • Included school behavior, out of school behavior, and internalizing symptoms

40. Limitations • Restricted publication date (2000-2010) • Previous meta-analyses have covered the prior literature • Nature of the studies • 88 out of 91 studies (96.7%) were correlational or longitudinal • Cannot infer causality • 3 out of 91 studies (3.3%) were experimental • Only 1 out of 3 (33.3%) collected treatment integrity data • 60 Regression & SEM studies were not included

41. Future Directions • More studies on Communication & Homework • More experimental studies • Collect Treatment Integrity Data • Greater specification of demographic variables • Report separate effects based upon demographic variables • Reconsider the types of involvement • Parental monitoring & discipline as a separate style • Reconsider the study quality rating system • Does it capture study quality or study complexity?

42. Thank You! • Questions?