Session Information
99 ERC SES 03 I, Communities, Families, and Schooling in Educational Research
Paper Session
Contribution
Research background
Parents take the central part in all spheres of their children’s lives, including education. Historically, parents were the ones who educated their offspring or chose the governors for them. In the beginning of 20th century, with the expansion of formal education, however, schools became the primary places to cultivate knowledge and develop skills (Scully, Barbour, & Roberts-King, 2015). Since then, family-school collaboration underwent dramatic changes (Epstein & Sanders, 2002). Initially, there was a clear cut between the roles families and school performed: schools aimed at developing basic literacy, calculation, and sciences, whereas parents taught their children culture, moral and religion (Hill & Taylor, 2004). Today’s curriculum has further expanded to incorporate many aspects which were traditionally considered as a family responsibility to foster, leaving the majority of parents uninvolved (Scully et al., 2015).
Most commonly, parental involvement is identified as a critical factor to accelerate students’ academic achievements. A substantial body of research confirms the relationship between parental involvement and academic achievement (Castro et al., 2015; Hill & Tyson, 2009; Jeynes, 2012); however, the results vary greatly from low-moderate positive to negative and non-existent (Mattingly, Prislin, McKenzie, Rodriguez, & Kayzar, 2002; McNeal, 2001). The consistent positive effects of parental involvement, according to Borgonovi and Montt (2012), are most commonly noted in the US and the UK, where it has been most thoroughly researched. Parental engagement has also been investigated in such varied cultural contexts as Mexico, Korea, Egypt, Iceland, Greece, Hong Kong-China, Italy, New Zealand, Germany, and the Netherlands. However, empirical research on parental involvement in Central Asia is rather limited.
Research problem
OECD report on Parental Involvement in Selected Countries and Economies participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) states that parental involvement might be successfully used as a mean to ease financial pressure on the education budget through minimizing the number of students who fail to complete the annual academic program and need additional subsidizing from the government to repeat the year (Borgonovi & Montt, 2012). Parental involvement is also reported to increase the level of the school completion rate, which is pivotal for children’s future economic success, especially for those coming from low-income families (Barnard, 2004).
Parental involvement is beneficial to practically every group of stakeholders involved in education. Sung (2010), however, claims that effectiveness of parental involvement interventions is closely related to the cultural context it is taking place. A considerable number of countries and policies worldwide have acknowledged the value of parental involvement and committed to launching intervention programs (Domina, 2005), whereas engaging parents in education is still an unexplored terrain in Kazakhstani context. It is yet to be found out what the parental involvement beliefs and practices in Kazakhstan are, which factors affect parents’ choice to become involved in their child’s schooling and what the relationships between parental involvement and academic achievement are.
Aim of the study
The study aims to investigate how the concept of parental involvement is understood and practiced in Kazakhstani context as well as to determine the factors which affect the degree of parental engagement.
Research questions:
1. How is the concept of parental involvement understood by Kazakhstani parents in elementary school?
2. Which types of parental involvement are typically practiced in elementary schools in Kazakhstan?
3. What are the factors which affect the degree of parental involvement in these settings?
4. What is the relationship between parental involvement and students' academic achievement in elementary school in Kazakhstan?
Method
The nature of the research questions formulated in this study suggested a quantitative methodology to be applied. A non-experimental exploratory survey research design was employed to explore the nature of parental involvement in Kazakhstan, to study the relationship between parental involvement and students’ academic achievement, to investigate the factors which mediate them. Non-probability maximum variation sampling was chosen to collect data from parents who have their children in various academic settings, represent different family characteristics and come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. The research aimed to collect data from the parents who have their children in Grade 1 and 4 of the elementary school, to allow the comparison of parental involvement practices across the first and the last stages of primary education. Four primary schools in Semey were approached with the request to participate in the study. Selected schools varied in school location (SES-advantaged areas/SES-disadvantaged areas) and language of instruction. The research intended to collect data from 200 parents. The sample, however, comprised 172 parents aged 20 to above 50 years old. 85 percent of parents either had a Bachelor or a Master’s degree, while 42 percent graduated from vocational colleges or chose not to pursue further education after secondary school. This research used self-completion paper-based questionnaires to collect nominal data on respondents’ background and to measure parental involvement beliefs, parental involvement practices and students’ academic achievement. It consisted of 56 multiple choice questions and comprised five sections. To measure parental involvement beliefs (Section 1), a scale was developed based on the indices adopted from Catsambis (1998), Catsambis and Garland (1997), DePlanty, Coulter-Kern and Duchane (2007), Fan (2001). Three indices were chosen to represent each of the six parentail involvement dimensions. Section 1 included 18 items and utilized a six-point Level of Agreement Likert-scale. The same scale of indices as for parental involvement beliefs was employed to collect the data on parental involvement practices (Section 2). In Section 3 – Information about the child and his/her academic achievement – parents were asked to self-report on their child’s global academic and subject-specific achievement. Section 4 consisted of four close-ended questions about family demographics, which allowed collecting the information about family structure and the number of siblings the child had. Four close-ended questions in Section 5 aimed to collect data on family socioeconomic status: parents’ educational background, their employment schedule and family income.
Expected Outcomes
The purpose of this study was three-fold: first, to study how the concept of the parental involvement is understood and practiced by Kazakhstani parents within the Epstein’s (1995) theoretical framework. The second aim of the research was to investigate the factors which affect parents’ decision to become parentally involved. Finally, the study was targeted to examine the relationship between parental involvement and student’s academic achievement, thus adding to the ongoing debate in the field. A non-experimental exploratory survey research design was applied to answer the research questions. A self-report paper- based questionnaire was utilized for the data collection. The analyses of the mean scores for each of the six parental involvement dimensions revealed that beliefs and practices of the home-based activities (Type 1, Type 3, Type 4) were prevalent in the Kazakhstani society. Parents’ beliefs about and practices of Parenting dimension were found to be particularly strong, whereas Decision Making dimension scored the lowest. Although the majority of the factors this study scrutinized did not prove to be significant predictors of the parental involvement beliefs and practices in the Kazakhstani Elementary schools, the research was able to confirm the role of the child’s gender on the range and frequency of the parental involvement practices parents tended to adopt. Parental involvement was also found to be affected by the mothers’ employment working schedule as well as child’s grade and the language of instruction employed at the school. Pearson correlation analysis of the relationship between six parental involvement dimensions and students’ general academic achievement, achievement in math and reading did not yield many strong connections between the variables.
References
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179-211. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). Contexts of child rearing: Problems and prospects. American Psychologist, 34(10), 844-850. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.34.10.844 Brown, M. C. (1994). Parental involvement as a variable in reading readiness: A review of related literature. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.: ED 384850. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED384850.pdf Catsambis, S. (1998). Expanding the knowledge of parental involvement in secondary education: Effects on high school academic success (CRESPAR Report 27). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University. Chen, J. J. L. (2005). Relation of academic support from parents, teachers, and peers to Hong Kong adolescents' academic achievement: The mediating role of academic engagement. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 131(2), 77-127. doi:10.3200/MONO.131.2.77-127 Epstein, J.L. (1995). School/family/community partnerships: Caring for the children we share. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(9), 701-712. doi:10.1177/003172171009200326 Fan, X. (2001). Parental involvement and students' academic achievement: A growth modeling analysis. The Journal of Experimental Education, 70(1), 27-61, doi:10.1080/00220970109599497 Hill, N. E., & Taylor, L. C. (2004). Parental school involvement and children's academic achievement pragmatics and issues. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(4), 161-164. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00298.x Hoover-Dempsey, K., & Sandler, H. M. (1997). Why do parents become involved in their children’s education? Review of Educational Research, 67(1), 3-42. doi:10.3102/00346543067001003 IAC (Information-analytic centre). (2014). OECD Review of Policies to Improve the Effectiveness of Resource Use in Schools: Country Background Report for Kazakhstan. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/school/CBR_Kazakhstan_english_final.pdf IAC. (2015). Osnovnye pokazateli doshkolnogo, obshego srednego, tekhicheskogo i professionalnogo obrazovaniya 2015-2016 [Core indicators of pre-school, secondary, technical and vocational education 2015-2016]. Astana, Kazakhstan: Information-Analytic Center. IAC. (2016a). National report on the state and development of the educational system of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2015. Astana, Kazakhstan: Information-Analytic Center. Nurbek, S. (2017, October). Values in Kazakhstani Society: Their impact on Education. Paper presented at IX International Research-to-Practice Conference of AEO Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools “Values, Wellbeing and Innovation for the Future of Education”, Astana, Kazakhstan. Pons, A., Amoroso, J., Herczynski, J., Kheyfets, I., Lockheed, M., & Santiago, P. (2015). OECD Reviews of School Resources. Paris, France: OECD Publishing. Scully, P. A., Barbour C., & Roberts-King, H. (2015). Families, schools, and communities: Building partnerships for educating children. London, UK: Pearson Sung, H. Y. (2010). The influence of culture on parenting practices of East Asian families and emotional intelligence of older adolescents: A qualitative study. School Psychology International, 31(2), 199-214. doi:10.1177/0143034309352268
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