14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper
Parents' Personal Characteristics as Predicting Parental Help-Giving to Children in Learning at the Home Arena
Yosi Yaffe1, Gal Harpaz2, Yael Grinshtain1,2
1Tel-Hai Academic College, Israel; 2The Open University of Israel
Presenting Author: Yaffe, Yosi
The present study investigates parental involvement in learning processes while focusing on the parent-child helping relations in the context of learning at home. The theoretical framework of this study is based on integration of educational and psychological perspectives that examine the effect of a parent’s personal characteristics while giving assistance to the child in academic matters at home. Much attention has been given in recent years to family-school collaboration and creating a partnership (Addi-Raccah et al., 2022; Epstein, 2018; Sheldon & Turner-Vorbeck, 2019). Epstein (2010) conceptualizes family involvement as occurring on multiple levels, considers the overlapping spheres of influence that families and schools have on students and how those spheres interact, and calls for a greater overlap between roles than often exist in schools as well as for greater partnerships between home and school. Studies conducted in recent years have supported the importance of this collaboration (Sanders-Smith et al., 2020) which have encouraged learning-at-home activities and a strong relationship between the home and school arenas (Erdener & Knoeppel, 2018; Ihmeideh et al., 2020) and have demonstrated the variety of ways that families are involved in children’s education as well as the positive outcomes in terms of better performance, better attitudes toward school, and higher graduation rates (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2012; Henderson et al., 2007; Sanders-Smith et al., 2020).
The parent-teacher-student relationship has been examined from different angles. Epstein (2010) distinguished between parental school-based activities, such as volunteering, communicating, decision-making, and collaborating and home-based activities, such as parenting or learning at home. Accordingly, Medwell and Wray’s research (2019) indicates that the vast majority of teachers felt that practice and learning assignments at home promoted partnership between the school and parents in regard to their child’s learning.
In the present study, we focus on the involvement of a parent in their children's learning processes at home and specifically, in parental help-giving with learning assignments and academic matters at home. The main goal of the present study is to examine a parent’s personal characteristics that are associated with the type of help the parent provides to their child in academic assignments. We see importance in understanding the helping relations in this area because of the impact of different types of involvement which may contribute to encouraging effective and proactive assistance for the child, in addition to the understandable importance of parental involvement in their children's educational processes.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedParticipants and Procedure
The research is based on 306 Israeli parents with at least one child in elementary school (156 females, 150 males) aged 27-59 (M=40.06; SD=5.90). After receiving approval from the research ethics committee, the sample was collected in December 2021 by online participants' recruitment surveys based on over 100,000 paid participants from Israel. The sample population were parents who had at least one child in elementary school.
Measures
Parents were asked to answer the next questionnaires:
Short Grit scale (Grit-S). Duckworth and Quinn’s (2009). Reliability of Cronbach α = 0.70.
The satisfaction with life scale (SWLS) (Diener et al., 1985). Cronbach α = 0.91.
Advice/affect management (Segrin et. al., 2012), subscales of Overparenting (Segrin et. al., 2012). Cronbach α = 0.88.
Parenting sense of competence scale (PSOC) (Gibaud-Wallston & Wanderson, 1978). Cronbach’s α = .85.
Parental help-giving orientations scale (P-HGOs) (Author et al., 2023). Sub-scale Autonomy help-giving orientation, Cronbach’s α = .81 and Dependent help-giving - parent as a student, Cronbach’s α = .83.
General background questionnaire includes gender, age, family status, number of children, children’ grades, socioeconomic status (SES).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe general correlations between the study variables initially confirmed our research hypotheses, as the independent variables of the parent’s personal characteristics (i.e., grit, advice/affect management, Subjective Wellbeing-SWB, and Parental Self-efficacy-PSE) were inversely associated with P-HGO (parental help-giving orientation) of parent as a student (i.e., negatively) and autonomy help-giving (i.e., positively). In the path analysis we established, a parent’s grit was negatively associated with parent as a student orientation, both directly and indirectly (via self-efficacy). A parent’s grit was also indirectly associated with parental autonomy help-giving, meaning that those two variables are positively associated due to the mediation effect of high PSE. Likewise, parental advice/affect management was found to be positively associated with parental autonomy help-giving both directly and indirectly (via PSE) and also negatively-indirectly associated with parent as a student. Parental SWB was associated with the P-HGO in a similar way (i.e., positively and negatively), as expected via PSE as a mediator. Taken together, our proposed model showed a good fit to the data, with the parental characteristics explaining proportions of 32% and 22% of variances of the autonomy help-giving and parent as a student variables (respectively). The present study aimed to advance the understanding of the relationship between parent’s personal characteristics and the kind of help given to a child in academic assignments at home. Generally, in accord with our primary expectations, the findings identified inverse links between a parent’s personal characteristics and the P-HGO of a parent as student (with negative associations), parental autonomy (with positive associations), with all of these observed effects to be at least partially mediated by the PSE.
ReferencesAddi-Raccah, A., Dusi, P., & Seeberger Tamir, N. (2022). What can we learn about research on parental involvement in school? Bibliometric and thematic analyses of academic journals. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420859211017978
Author, Author, & Author (2023).
Dempsey, I., & Dunst, C. J. (2004). Helpgiving styles and parent empowerment in families with a young child with a disability. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 29(1), 40-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/13668250410001662874
Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of personality assessment, 49(1), 71-75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
Duckworth, A. L., & Quinn, P. D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (GRIT–S). Journal of personality assessment, 91(2), 166-174. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890802634290
Epstein, J. L. (2010). School/family/community partnerships: Caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 92(3), 81–96. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172171009200326
Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships in teachers’ professional work. Journal of Education for Teaching, 44(3), 397-406. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2018.1465669
Epstein, J. L., & Van Voorhis, F. L. (2012). The changing debate: From assigning homework to designing homework. In Contemporary debates in childhood education and development (pp. 277-288). Routledge.
Erdener, M.A., & Knoeppel, R.C. (2018). Parents’ perceptions of their involvement in schooling. International Journal of Research in Education and Science (IJRES), 4(1), 1-13.
Gibaud-Wallston, J., & Wandersman, L. P. (1978). Parenting Sense of Competence Scale (PSOC) [Database record]. APA PsycTests. https://doi.org/10.1037/t01311-000
Henderson, A. T., Mapp, K. L., Johnson, V. R., & Davies, D. (2007). Beyond the bake sale: The essential guide to family-school partnerships. The New Press.
Ihmeideh, F., AlFlasi, M., Al-Maadadi, F., Coughlin, C., & Al-Thani, T. (2020) Perspectives of Family–School relationships in Qatar based on Epstein’s Model of Six Types of Parent Involvement. Early Years, 40(2), 188-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2018.1438374
Medwell, J., & Wray, D. (2019). Primary homework in England: The beliefs and practices of teachers in primary schools. Education 3-13, 47(2), 191-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2017.1421999
Sanders-Smith, S. C., Smith-Bonahue, T. M., & Soutullo, O. R. (2020). ‘The parents are locked out’: policies, practices, and perspectives undermining family engagement. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 29(3), 250-273. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2020.1768881
Segrin, C., Woszidlo, A., Givertz, M., Bauer, A., & Taylor Murphy, M. (2012). The association between overparenting, parent‐child communication, and entitlement and adaptive traits in adult children. Family Relations, 61(2), 237-252. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2011.00689.x
Segrin, C., Givertz, M., Swaitkowski, P., & Montgomery, N. (2015). Overparenting is associated with child problems and a critical family environment. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(2), 470-479. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9858-3
Sheldon, S. B., & Turner-Vorbeck, T. A. (Eds.). (2019). Family, school and community relationships in education. Wiley Blackwell.
14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper
Hard-to-reach Parents? Parental Involvement in Case of Low SES and SEN Students.
Katinka Bacskai
, MTA-DE-Parent-Teacher Cooperation Research Group, Hungarian Academy of SciencesUniversity of Debrecen, Hungary
Presenting Author: Bacskai, Katinka
In an inclusive school, the parents are involved, in both the SEN and non-SEN students (Paseka & Schwab, 2020). Several empirical studies have examined the relationship between parental involvement (PI) and academic achievement (Domina, 2005; Driessen et al., 2005; Sheldon and Epstein 2005; Erdem and Kaya 2020; Naite 2020), however, neither the PI itself nor the relationship between the two factors is shared equally by the researchers in the studies (Boonk et al. 2018, Nyitrai et al. 2019). In families with low socioeconomic backgrounds, the PI volume is lower than in high SES families. Students with special educational needs are more likely to be impacted by the PI because of its relevance to them. We have a great deal of cross-sectional studies, which look at the school-family collaboration in families with low socioeconomic status and in the case of families with special needs students, but we have very little information about the longitudinal changes of the PI and its influence over time.
This study aimed to examine the association beetween the PI and the school sucess in inclusive classrooms using a longitudinal database. We aim to analyze how the PI has changed over time as the school years progress. In our analysis highlighted the low SES SEN students, whose parent’s are fare from the schoollife.
All students in the 6th, 8th, and 10th grades in Hungary take part in a process called the National Assessment of Basic Competencies (NABC), which is a kind of census. From the years 2015-2019, we have merged the three based databases based on Student IDs and built a longitudinal database that covers the 6th through the 10th grade. During the four years of the school's existence, we want to analyse and understand how to change the PI and the variables that describe the success of the school for low SES and SEN students during the four years.
We found that students from low SES and those with special needs are at high risk of dropping out, but the amount of involvement they receive at school can help counterbalance this risk. When compared to the average population, the volume of the PI is higher in the case of the SEN students, but in the case of the low SES families with SEN students, the correlation is not valid. As a result, one of the main conclusions from the study is that access to the hard-to-reach parents is very important for the schools in order to improve the educational opportunities students have in their schools.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn this study, we built an longitudinal database. The database used for the research was created by merging data at the student level. Our baseline year was the 2015 NABC measurement in Year 6, with Year 6 students as the base. We first merged the student and institution databases, and then repeated this step for the 2017 grade 8 and 2019 grade 10 databases. We then compiled a database based on the individual identifiers of Year 6 students, which can track students' achievements and backgrounds over four years in the case of an unbroken learning pathway. Our initial database contains 91956 students, the final merged database of data from three different years contains 104110 rows, i.e. the number of students with measurement IDs. The discrepancy between the two numbers indicates the problem that our response gap will be very high for many questions. The construction of the database is based on the fact that students who appear in one of the three years with their individual identifiers are included, i.e. they may have dropped out, repeated a class and thus dropped out or entered our database.
A special attention was paid to students who could not be identified in the subsequent databases and therefore could have dropped out.
The low SES and SEN student cathegory is recorded administratively in the central database.
We used descriptive statistics and 2-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (student nested in school).
Since both academic achievement (Beta=0.34) and parental involvement (Beta=0.13) are strongly correlated with social background, we used the residuals of the regression for the descriptive statistics.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur expected outcomes are at different levels. Our results show that the percentage of SEN pupils in the total population in Grade 6 is 5.9%. If we calculate the percentage by social background, it is distributed in a ratio of 1:2, i.e. the proportion of SEN pupils in the cumulatively deprived group is twice as high as in the non-deprived group. At higher grades, however, the proportion of non-deprived SEN pupils does not decrease to the same extent, i.e. it is more likely that pupils from the deprived groups crumble and disappear from the database. The proportion of SEN pupils who are not severely disadvantaged is 4.2%, while the same figure for the severely low SES group is 11%.
In general, parents of SEN children are more involved and parents in low SES families are less involved. Less involvement is also typical for parents of SEN children if the family is disadvantaged. However, when we look at students who have an unbroken learning path, i.e. who have not dropped out but have fulfilled the requirements of the school system up to the age of 16, we see a different correlation. For successful (not dropped out) students, parents of disadvantaged SEN students show increasing levels of involvement. As a result, one of the main conclusions from the study is that access to hard-to-reach parents is very important for schools to improve the educational opportunities students have in their schools.
References- Boonk, L., Gijselaers, H. J. M., Ritzen, H., & Brand-Gruwel, S. (2018). A review of the relationship between parental involvement indicators and academic achievement. Educational Research Review, 24, 10–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.02.001
- Domina, T. (2005). Leveling the home advantage: Assessing the effectiveness of parental involvement in elementary school. Sociology of Education, 78, 233–249.
- Driessen, G., Smit, F., & Sleegers, P. (2005). Parental involvement and educational achievement. British Educational Research Journal, 31(4), 509–532. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920500148713
- Sheldon, S. B., & Epstein, J. L. (2005). Involvement Counts: Family and Community Partnerships and Mathematics Achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 98(4), 196–206. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOER.98.4.196-207
Kuru Cetin, S., & Taskin, P. (2016). Parent involvement in education in terms of their socio-economic status. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 66, 105-122 http://dx.doi.org/10.14689/ejer.2016.66.6
- Paseka, A., & Schwab, S. (2020). Parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education and their perceptions of inclusive teaching practices and resources. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 35(2), 254–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/08856257.2019.1665232
- Schwab, S. 2019. “Inclusive and Special Education in Europe.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Accessed 13 June 2019. https://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-1230
- Xu, M., Benson, S. N. K., Mudrey-Camino, R., & Steiner, R. P. (2010). The relationship between parental involvement, self-regulated learning, and reading achievement of fifth graders: A path analysis using the ECLS-K database. Social Psychology of Education, 13, 237–269. https://doi.org/ttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-009-9104-4
- Lavan, A.; Reiter, S.; Heiman, T. Educational Involvement of Parents of Mainstreamed Special Needs Children. Contemp School Psychol 2019, 23 (4), 401–411. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40688-018-0202-1.
- Gedfie, M.; Getahun, D. A.; Negassa, D. Parent’s Involvement in the Education of Their Children with Disabilities in Primary Schools of Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia: Voices of Parents. IJSE 2021, 35 (1). https://doi.org/10.52291/ijse.2020.35.6.
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