Does the family’s involvement in school activities and their children's education improves cognitive performance, and what type of activities? To what extent does it improve?

The relevance of the role of the family, and especially the parents, on  student’s learning and cognitive performance is an issue that has historically been present since research in education,  it has being appealing in recent decades (Mc Allister, 1993; Henderson and Berla, 1994, Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1995, 1997, Epstein, 2001; Reca and López, 2001; Cervini, 2002, Henderson and Mapp, 2002; López, 2005; Flamey, 2005, Murillo, 2007; Balarin and Cueto, 2008).

The literature recognizes that when parents are involved in their children's education, reduces attrition, improve school attendance and shows higher graduation rates, among other indicators (Epstein, 1992; Henderson and Berla, 1994, Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1995, 1997, Henderson and Mapp, 2002; Barnard, 2004). There is not consensus, however, regarding the family involvement contribution to the training process and learning outcomes.

A first and necessary step is to recognize the different ways of parental involvement in schools and in children's educational process. This ranges from the simple knowledge about basic information generated from school (activities, events, marks (succeed/fail) of the children), to support homework, to integrate into specific structures such as schools or families associations, to reach more involvement in collegiate bodies or joint management as school councils or boards (Epstein, 2001; López, 2005).

As a reference framework could be use the organization of Epstein (eg Epstein, 1995, Epstein and Salinas, 2004), that distinguishes six major types of parent involvement that are interwoven with the school and its purposes: socialization and upbringing; communication exchange with school, involvement as volunteers in various school activities, involvement in specific actions relating to home learning, involvement in decision making at school, and collaboration with the school and the community in the broadest sense of the word.

This research aims to determine family involvement incidence in children's academic performance. Such involvement considers various ways in which parents are involved in school, in it’s procedures and activities (extended meetings or individual, institutional and extracurricular activities), and the role they play in the home through the support given to homework tasks that must do their sons and daughters

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