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. 

Participants 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).

The 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.

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