A study to determine the effects of direct parental involvement on students' mathematic achievement in grades three through five

The purpose of the study was to determine if direct parental training would effect third, fourth, and fifth grade students' academic performance in the area of mathematics. Mathematics is an important subject in elementary education. The major emphasis of the activities involved was on reinforcing computational skills.;Those interested in the formal education of students, both in the K-12 arena and also teacher education programs at universities should find the analysis of the effects of parent-school involvement an important area of study.;Parents who volunteered for the study were randomly assigned to one of three study groups. Treatment Group A consisted of direct parental training in the area of mathematical activities concentrating on computational skills which were played at home with their children. Treatment Group B only received the mathematical activities which were played at home with their children. Group C was the Control Group.;Based upon this research, parental involvement does not make a difference with third and fifth grade students' mathematical achievement test scores. There was however, significance with the fourth grade students' mathematical achievement test scores. Further analysis revealed that at the third grade, those students who returned log books scored significantly higher on the mathematic achievement test scores than those students who did not return the log books. There was no significance found for the fourth and fifth grades with respect to the log books. Additionally, at the third grade, females played more of the mathematical activities than did the males. At the fourth grade, the males played more of the mathematical activities than the females, at the fifth grade, the males played approximately twice as many mathematical activities as the females. There was no significance found at the third and fourth grades with respect to gender, however, significance was found at the fifth grade.