Degree Of Parental Involvement Research Articles

Families, Their Children's Education, and the Public School: An Historical Review

ABSTRACT This analysis focuses on parent involvement in public schooling within the United States of America from the colonial period to present. The analysis is framed by four major forces that influence the kind and degree of parent involvement: the cultural beliefs of families; the social structure of families; economic influences; and political pressures within the nation. The contemporary institutional and legal structure of schools tends to disconnect teachers and families. A tension appears to exist between professionals, on the one hand, who espouse the concept that they alone are qualified to make complex decisions affecting the education of our nation's children, and parents, on the other hand, who believe that they should have a voice in their children's compensatory public education.

A National Study of Nonrenewal in High School Coaching

JOPERD • Volume 77 No. 7 • September 2006 L ike those who hear the catch phrase on Donald Trump’s TV reality show The Apprentice, many coaches are hearing those dreaded words “You’re fi red!” On the reality show, the stakes are high because the eventual winner receives a position overseeing one of Trump’s multimillion-dollar business ventures and a six-fi gure salary. While the stakes for high school coaches may seem small in comparison, their jobs are arguably more signifi cant because of a coach’s ability to affect the lives and futures of the nation’s youths. American coaches’ jobs hinge on the results of competitive activities that are highly spontaneous and unpredictable (Edwards, 1973). “What makes the position of coach even more unique is the fact that these competitive activities are highly visible and the results of the competitions are publicly reported and discussed” (Coakley, 1994, p. 194). Though Coakley was referring to college coaches, we believe the analogy holds true for high school coaches as well. Of course, not all high school coaches face the same degree of pressure. Pressure to win may vary depending on factors such as the sport, school size, level of competition, school tradition, level of administrative support or community support, or the degree of parental involvement. In today’s hyper-competitive environment, parent-coach confrontations are becoming much more prevalent. Apparently parents think it is their right to have regular, sometimes inappropriate, contact with coaches. More often these confrontations go beyond their original intent, at times leading to violence. In Connecticut, the parent of a high school softball player clubbed the coach in the back of the head with an aluminum bat for suspending his daughter for missing a game. A few days before the Connecticut incident, a girls high school rugby coach in California was punched and kicked unconscious by a group of parents when the coach tried to break up a fi ght between a parent and a referee (Pennington, 2005). In Texas, a 45-year-old father, who had been barred from attending the local high school football games for shoving and verbally abusing his son’s coaches, critically wounded the head coach/athletics director at his son’s high school (CNN.com, 2005). It seems that a win-at-all-costs attitude has become common in high school athletics. Based on anecdotal reports, fans and parents often seem to have unrealistic expectations for the coaches of their children. Because the pressure seems to be increasing, it is important to closely examine patterns of nonrenewal and the reasons for it in high school coaching.

Working with families of adults with anorexia nervosa

The aim of this paper is to describe working with the carers (families) of adults with anorexia nervosa (AN), which is different from working with families of younger adolescents. The main difference is in the area of rights and responsibilities of both parties. Moreover, as AN in adults is often a chronic condition, the treatment goal may not focus on recovery, but instead on improvement in quality of life. Thus the spectrum of nature and degree of parental involvement in the treatment of adults with AN is much broader than in children and adolescents. Our framework for intervention is based on a clear model of carer distress, from which targets for intervention follow. The paper outlines some of the core components of this work.

Self- and Parental Monitoring of Homework in Adolescents: Comparative Effects on Parents' Perceptions of Homework Behavior Problems

ABSTRACT Reviews of empirical research typically conclude that homework is beneficial to academic achievement and learning. Unfortunately, inadequate homework completion and homework-related behavior problems are common among children and adolescents. Even parents of students who perform well academically report significant behavior problems and parent-child conflict surrounding the process of homework completion. Many empirically evaluated homework interventions may require a degree of parental involvement that is unacceptable for some adolescents. Self-management procedures such as self-monitoring may serve as an appropriate, alternative homework intervention for older students. This study compared the effects of two interventions for middle school students with homework problems: (1) parental monitoring and structuring of homework, and (2) adolescent self-monitoring and structuring of homework. Results indicate that Homework Problem Checklist (HPC) scores significantly improved for both interventions compared to the control sample, but were not different from one another. Additionally, parents rated the two treatments as highly acceptable.

Factors Affecting the Assessment of Student Achievement

To what extent do expectations, disconfirming information, and degree of parental involvement in schooling affect teachers' judgments about a student's growth and achievement? This study manipulated these variables with 147 preservice teacher candidates as they assessed the progress of a student named Chris in language arts over a 10-week period. As predicted by social cognition findings, these results showed that early expectations and differential growth patterns were substantial contributors to differences in this student's reported final grade. For example, these assessors were impressed by their student's socioeconomic background and other contextual data, and this early information affected the grade awarded him or her weeks later. In addition, the pattern of achievement exhibited by Chris was also significantly related to the report card grade. If Chris seemed to improve, the grade improved, but if he or she remained steady or even fell behind, the grade was unaffected. The implications of these findings for assessment practice are discussed briefly in the conclusion.

Factors Affecting the Assessment of Student Achievement.

To what extent do expectations, disconfirming information, and degree of parental involvement in schooling affect teachers' judgments about a student's growth and achievement? This study manipulated these variables with 147 preservice teacher candidates as they assessed the progress of a student named Chris in language arts over a 10-week period. As predicted by social cognition findings, these results showed that early expectations and differential growth patterns were substantial contributors to differences in this student's reported final grade. For example, these assessors were impressed by their student's socioeconomic background and other contextual data, and this early information affected the grade awarded him or her weeks later. In addition, the pattern of achievement exhibited by Chris was also significantly related to the report card grade. If Chris seemed to improve, the grade improved, but if he or she remained steady or even fell behind, the grade was unaffected. The implications of these findings for assessment practice are discussed briefly in the conclusion.

Parental attributions as predictors of involvement and influences on child achievement.

This study, which was conducted in Cyprus, combines the theoretical framework of attribution research with that of parent involvement literature. Its aim was to investigate the role of parental attributions as predictors of parental involvement in their child's educational process and to examine the influence of both of these factors on the child's actual school achievement. The parents of 473 sixth grade students in 22 public elementary schools participated in the study. Data were also collected from students and their teachers. Participating parents completed questionnaires regarding their attributions of their child's achievement and their own degree of involvement in his/her life. It was found that parents who believed that their own role was important for their child's achievement tended to be more controlling and to be keener in developing the child's interests. Also, the parental attribution of the child's achievement to the child's own effort was positively related to the child's actual achievement results. Finally, it was found that the child's actual school achievement was directly related to the parental interest-developing behaviour, but it was not significantly related to the parental controlling behaviour. Through a structural equation model and a path analysis procedure, it was shown that a line of influence exists between parental attribution style, the type and degree of parental involvement and the child's actual academic achievement.

An Effective Career Development Program for Parents

This article is a comparative review of career development programs in Switzerland and the United States, with emphasis on the degree of parental involvement. Investigators visited schools and interviewed parents in both countries. This article offers ideas for improving the effectiveness of career development programs in the United States. Among the useful ideas from Switzerland are greater use of community resources such as departments of employment services, specific career training in schools, and school‐based job placement programs.

Low Socio-Economic Status Children are Disadvantaged in the Provision of School-Based Child Protection Programmes

Although child sexual abuse affects all social classes, there is evidence to show that the risk of abuse is higher in lower socio-economic status (SES) groups. Data from a research project to evaluate the school-based child protection programme taught in New Zealand show that, prior to exposure to the programme, children from the lower SES group were potentially at greater risk of sexual abuse due to their lower knowledge and skill base. After the programme, the low SES children were found to have gained less than their middle class peers and these differences persisted when children were retested 12 months later. The observed SES differences in benefits obtained from the child protection programme can be at least partially attributed to differences in the degree of parental involvement across social class. Children from low income families were the ones least likely to have parent representatives at meetings relating to the programme. Their parents were the least likely to reinforce safety concepts at home and low SES children were the ones least likely to trust their parents to provide protection. The low level of parental involvement was associated with lower levels of teacher commitment to child protection in low SES areas. The effectiveness of child protection programmes is likely to be enhanced if parents can be enticed to attend information sessions where the benefits of their involvement can be emphasized. The particular challenges remaining are how to interest the lower SES parents in education for child protection, ensure their cooperation with school-based teachings and raise the interest and commitment levels of child protection educators in low SES environments.

Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortion Decisions

In a 1991 study based on a nationally representative sample of more than 1,500 unmarried minors having an abortion, 61% of the respondents said that one or both of their parents (usually the mother) knew about the abortion. Only 26% of the respondents said their father knew about the abortion; furthermore, 57% of the mothers who knew about their daughter's pregnancy did not tell her father. In this study, which was conducted in states without parental involvement laws in effect, about 75% of the parents who knew about the pregnancy had been told by the daughter herself, and the great majority supported their daughter's decision to have an abortion. Among the minors whose parents found out without being told by the minor, 18% said their parents were forcing them to have an abortion and 6% reported physical violence, being forced to leave home or damage to their parents' health. Minors who did not tell their parents were disproportionately older (aged 16 or 17), white and employed. The minors' most common reasons for not telling their parents were wanting to preserve their relationship with their parents and wanting to protect the parents from stress and conflict. Of those who did not tell their parents, 30% had experienced violence in their family, feared that violence would occur or were afraid of being forced to leave home. Among minors whose parents were unaware of the pregnancy, all consulted someone other than clinic staff about the abortion; most frequently, they consulted their boyfriend (89%), an adult (52%) or a professional (22%).

Listening to our clinical partners: Informing researchers about children's fears and phobias

We surveyed a national sample of clinical psychologists to expand on Graziano and De Giovanni's ( Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1979, 17, 161–162) findings that 6.8% of clinically referred children present with problems with fears and/or phobias. The survey was also conducted to assets how clinicians could inform researchers about current needs for investigations in this area. Questions involved epidemiological, demographical, and treatment characteristics of cases recently seen by therapists. The percentage of referred cases for fears/phobias in children was determined to be similar over time. In addition, types of fears, length of history of fear, intensity of fear, length of treatment, types of treatments used, and degree of parental involvement were measured and reported. The results were found to suggest a substantial degree of heterogeneity among types of fears and treatment methods for this population, as well as important lines of future research. They also suggest the need for controlled studies to assess the efficacy of a number of widely used treatments that lack an empirical base.

Effects of Family Structure and Parental Involvement on Adolescent Participation in Family Decisions

synopsisThis study examined factors relating to adolescent participation in family decisions. Type of family (one or two parent, intact or blended), family adaptability and cohesion, and degree of parental involvement in decision making were tested for their influence on adolescents’ reported involvement in 15 family decisions. Data were gathered from a sample of 304 adolescents, aged 12-16 years, living in a country town in South Australia. Female adolescents were involved in more family decisions than male adolescents. A non-significant trend was found for adolescents in one parent families to be more involved in family decisions than in two parent families. No significant age or social class differences were found relating to adolescent participation in family decisions. Family adaptability was associated with high parental involvement in decision making and was associated with greater adolescent participation in family decisions. A similar, but non-significant, trend was found for family cohesion.

The efficacy of early intervention programs: a meta-analysis.

This article reviews primary research studies investigating the efficacy of early intervention with handicapped preschoolers. Meta-analysis techniques were employed to integrate statistically the findings from 74 studies. Findings indicate that: (a) early intervention with handicapped populations produces a positive sizeable effect size; (b) longer, more intense programs are associated with efficacy; and (c) little support was found for commonly held beliefs about early intervention, such as the importance of age at start and the degree of parental involvement. Implications for future research are discussed.

The Efficacy of Early Intervention Programs With Environmentally At-Risk Infants

Abstract The efficacy of early intervention programs for environmentally at-risk infants was examined using meta-analysis techniques. Questions relating to both short and long-term effectiveness and the influence of important variables such as age at which intervention begins, the relationship of parental involvement to intervention effectiveness, and the degree of structure in the intervention program were investigated. The analysis revealed that early intervention has an immediate positive effect of about one-half of a standard deviation. The analysis failed to find long-term benefits and failed to relate degree of parental involvement to intervention effectiveness. Some support was found for the notions that degree of structure and training of intervenor are positively related to effectiveness.