The impact of parent involvement on student academic engagement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation between parent involvement as reported by parents and students and student emotional and behavioral engagement in the classroom. Survey data were collected from 167 students in 3^rd, 4^th or 5^th grade, their teachers and their primary caregivers in three Midwestern schools. Parent participants completed the two subscales of the Family Involvement Questionnaire (Manz, Fantuzzo and Power, 2004) and an author-developed demographic questionnaire. Student participants completed the Talking With My Parents subscale of the ClassMaps Survey (Doll, Spies, LeClair, Kurien, & Foley, 2010). Teacher participants assessed student engagement using the two subscales (Behavioral and Emotional) of the Teacher Report of Student Engagement Survey (Skinner, Wellborn, & Connell, 1990). Path analysis was used to describe the relation between parent involvement and student emotional and behavioral engagement in the classroom. Results indicated that there was a significant relation between parent involvement as reported by students and emotional engagement in the classroom as reported by teachers. The results were non-significant for the relation between parent involvement as described by parents and student behavioral and emotional engagement in the classroom. These findings suggest that students who report having conversations with their parents about their grades, what they are learning in school, ways to do well in school and academic/social problems display more emotional investment in the classroom. Future research directions and implications for practice are discussed.