| Parental involvement in the education of their students has become a national priority of the federal government and a focus of local school districts. Research has shown that parental involvement has an impact on student performance. The primary research question addressed in this quantitative study asked,What is the relationship between parental involvement and student performance? Five types of parental involvement were examined, based on Epstein's (2001) framework: communicating, learning at home, parenting, decision making, and volunteering. (Decision making referred to parents consulting teachers and other experts about decisions regarding their children's education and placement.) Parents were asked to complete a survey regarding these types of involvement in the education of their children. In addition, archival data were collected from the school's records regarding the performance of these parents' children on the state-wide assessment and on third-quarter and fourth-quarter grades, in four subjects: mathematics, English language arts, science, and social studies. A correlation analysis was performed. The results of the study showed that three of the types of parental involvement investigated---communicating, learning at home, and parenting---were not significantly related to any of the student performance measures. Volunteering was the type of parental involvement that was most strongly related to student performance, even though parents reported spending less time volunteering than engaging in other types of involvement. Volunteering was significantly positively related to 11 of the 12 student performance measures. The decision making type of parental involvement was significantly positively related to two of the three mathematics measures of student performance. What volunteering and decision making have in common, in contrast to the other types of involvement that were studied, are that they involve both parent and school, as opposed to being limited to the home. The researcher concluded that contact between parents and schools is crucial for student achievement. |
