Teachers' Perspective on the Importance of Parents' Roles in Students' Academic Achievement Using School and Family Partnership Model (Epstein): A Qualitative Study

Abstract

This study aims to identify the importance of parental involvement in student academic achievement in Primary School in Selangor through school, family and community partnership from teacher's perspective. It focused on the involvement of parents based on six main aspects of Epstein's model i.e. parenting, communication, home-based learning, decision-making, community collaboration and volunteerism. These aspects enable parents' involvement and collaboration with schools and outside communities in order to improve students' academic achievement. This study used a qualitative method, where questionnaire and respondent interviews were used as the research instrument. Snowball sampling was used and a total of four primary school headmasters from high- and low-performing schools were interviewed using a naturalistic investigation technique with an open-ended semi-structured questionnaire containing 10 items in two domains. The purpose of this study was to obtain the information needed to understand parents' perceptions of the importance of their involvement in improving student academic achievement and the collaboration required among schools, families and the community. The data obtained was analyzed using Thematic analysis. The findings showed that, there was a significant positive relationship between parents' involvement and the improvement of academic achievement of the students, namely in the aspects of home teaching, parenting, decision-making and volunteerism. As a conclusion, some new suggestions were made to enhance the involvement of parents in the academic achievement of the Tamil school students.