The influence of parental involvement practices on student self-regulation

1
The influence of parental involvement practices
on student self-regulation

• Joan M. T. Walker
• Long Island University
• and
• Christa L. Green, Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey
  Howard M. Sandler
• Vanderbilt University

This research was supported by OERI Grant
R305T010673, The Social Context of Parental
Involvement A Path to Enhanced Achievement
2
Parental involvement ? Student learning and
development

• Across cultures, parenting practices are vehicles
  for child socialization
• Families have similar goals (Cole, 1996 Maccoby,
  1992 Rogoff, 1990)
• Providing shelter, food, a safe environment
• Teaching skills, attitudes, values needed for
  productive adult life.
• Within context of education, parenting practices
  are important resources for childrens school
  success (Grolnick Ryan, 1989 Hoover-Dempsey et
  al., 2001)

3
Parental involvement in homework

• Provides a useful context in which to observe
  parental influence on child learning
• Common valued activity generalizable across U.S.
  families
• Narrow-band activity accessible to empirical
  examination

4
How are parents involved in homework?

• Simultaneous efforts to help the child arrange
  the environment, manage time monitoring of
  attention, motivation, and emotional responses to
  homework (Xu Corno, 1998)
• Two categories of involvement practices
  (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001)
• General efforts to create a supportive context
• Establishing structures, providing oversight
  reinforcing and encouraging
• Cognitive involvement in homework tasks
• Explicit teaching, creating a fit between
  homework tasks and student skill level helping
  child understand how skills relate to achievement
• 4 major mechanisms (Martinez-Pons, 1996)
• Modeling, Encouragement, Facilitation, and
  Rewarding

5
What child outcomes do parent involvement
practices influence?

• Autonomy support (encouragement of independent
  problem-solving)
• Structure (clear, consistent guidelines and
  expectations).
• Mother-child relationship quality and involvement
  routines
• Emotional and cognitive support

• Self-regulation, school grades and achievement
  (Grolnick Ryan, 1989).
• Childrens beliefs that they were responsible for
  their success or failure (Grolnick Ryan, 1989).
• Self-regulation (e.g., planning before acting,
  working toward goals Brody, Flor Gibson, 1999)
• Persistence at difficult learning tasks Fewer
  ability attributions (Hokoda Fincham, 1995)
• Self-monitoring and metacognitive talk (Stright
  et al., 2001)

6
How does the relation between parent involvement
and child self-regulation operate?

• Social Learning (Bandura, 1986) Internalization
  of external activity
• Children bring an external product (parent
  behavior) into the internal plane (child
  behavior)
• Sociocultural (Rogoff, 1990) Appropriation from
  shared activity
• Shared activities are transformed and used by
  individuals according to their understanding and
  involvement
• Interaction with skilled adults assists children
  in internalizing important skills and
  understandings
• Adaptation to new situations, structuring of
  problem-solving efforts, and assumption of
  responsibility for problem-solving.

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Hoover-Dempsey Sandler (1995, 2005) Model of
Parental Influence on Student Outcomes
Modeling
Reinforcement
Modeling
Reinforcement
Instruction
Instruction
Encouragement
Encouragement
Parental Involvement Mechanisms
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Our research questions

• Across 2 studies we asked
• Are parental involvement mechanisms perceived
  differently by parents and children?
• Examined parents self-reported practices and
  childrens perceptions of those practices
• Do involvement mechanisms appear to influence
  child self-regulation directly or indirectly?
• Tested for mediation of parent involvement
  influence via childs perceptions of the parents
  practices

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Expectations

• Are parental involvement mechanisms perceived
  differently by parents and children?
• Mechanisms will be perceived by parents and
  children as independent but inter-related
  constructs
• Parent self-reports and student perceptions will
  be positively related at modest levels
• Do involvement mechanisms appear to influence
  child self-regulation directly or indirectly?
• Influence of mechanisms will be mediated by child
  perceptions of the parents practices

10
Conditions for mediation
Student perceptions of involvement mechanism
Parental Involvement Mechanisms
Parental Involvement Mechanism
Student self-regulation
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Study 1 Participants and Procedures

• 6 elementary and 2 middle schools in public
  Metropolitan school system in mid-South of U.S.
• 421 dyads one parent for each 4th-6th grade
  student (response rate 33)
• 50 of students and 76 of parents were female
• Majority of parents had some college, worked
  full-time average income 30K/year
• 38 African-American, 37 White, 15 Hispanic, 6
  Asian
• 89 completed questionnaires in English 11
  completed parallel Spanish questionnaires.

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Parent Mechanisms

• Questionnaire assessing use of involvement
  mechanisms (based on Martinez-Pons, 1996 28
  items rated on a 6-point scale (1 not at all
  true, 6 completely true a .93)
• Modeling, 5 items (a .80)
• We show this child that we like to learn new
  things.
• Encouragement, 5 items (a .83)
• We encourage this child to keep trying when
  things get difficult.
• Reinforcement, 5 items (a .89)
• We show this child we like it when s/he
  explains what s/he thinks to the teacher.
• Instruction, 13 items (a .87)
• We teach this child how to check his or her
  work.

13
Student perceptions

• Questionnaire assessing student perceptions of
  the parents use of involvement mechanisms 47
  items rated on a 4-point scale (1 not at all
  true for me, 4 very true for me a .92)
• Preceded by stem, The person in my family who
  usually helps me with my homework
• Modeling, 14 items (a .70)
• likes to learn new things.
• Encouragement, 5 items (a .69)
• encourages me to keep trying when I dont feel
  like doing my schoolwork.
• Reinforcement, 13 items (a .87)
• shows me s/he likes it when I explain what I
  think to the teacher.
• Instruction, 15 items (a .81)
• teaches me how to check my homework as I go
  along.

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Student self-regulation

• Self-report questionnaire 19 items rated on a
  4-point scale (1 not at all true for me, 4
  very true for me a .84)
• Intrinsic motivation to learn (4 items, a .67
  Stipek Gralinski, 1996)
• I want to learn new things.
• Strategy use (7 items, a .64 Stipek
  Gralinski, 1996)
• I go back over things I dont understand.
• Academic self-efficacy (4 items, a .65 Roeser
  et al., 1996)
• I can do even the hardest homework if I try.
• Social self-efficacy for relating to teachers (4
  items, a .65 Ryan Patrick, 2001)
• I find it easy to go and talk with my teachers.

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Results

• Are parental involvement mechanisms perceived
  differently by parents and children?
• Factor analyses with promax rotation
• Parents 4 clear factors emerged
• some overlap between instruction and
  reinforcement
• Children No clear factors
• Correlations between parent reports and
  childrens perceptions of the parents behavior
• Modeling, r .14, p lt .01
• Encouragement, r .16, p lt .01
• Reinforcement, r .16, p lt .01
• Instruction, r .16, p lt .01

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Correlations among mechanisms
Parent self-reported use of mechanisms
Child perceptions of parent mechanisms
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Do involvement mechanisms influence
self-regulation directly or indirectly?
Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms

• .59 t 14.99, p lt .000

b .20 t 4.23, p lt .000
b .58, t 14.56, p lt .000
Parental Involvement Mechanisms

• .21 t 4.48, p lt .000

b .08 t 1.98, p lt .05
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Study 1 Conclusions

• Parents and children appear to experience the
  parents involvement as a complex, co-occurring
  set of mechanisms
• Parent and child reports are not interchangeable
• Influence of parent involvement mechanisms
  appears to be mediated by childrens perceptions
  of the parents practices

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Study 2 Participants and Procedures

• 5 elementary and 4 middle schools in public
  Metropolitan school system in mid-South of U.S.
• 358 dyads one parent for each 4th-6th grade
  student (response rate 22)
• Females 48 of students and 83 of parents
• Majority of parents had some college, 21 had a
  bachelors degree 37 worked full-time, 43
  worked part-time average income 30-40K/year
• 28 African-American, 57 White, 7 Hispanic, 4
  Asian
• 89 completed questionnaires in English 11
  completed parallel Spanish questionnaires.

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Study 2 Measures

• Scales modified based on Study 1 results
• Balanced number of items per subscale made items
  more parallel
• Parent use of involvement mechanisms (a .97)
• Student perceptions of mechanisms (a .95)
• Student self-regulation (a .86)

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Study 2 Scale Reliabilities Study 2 Scale Reliabilities
Parent reported use of involvement mechanisms (51 items) .97
Encouragement (13 items) .92
Modeling (10 items) .94
Reinforcement (13 items) .96
Instruction (15 items) .92
Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms (50 items) .95
Encouragement (12 items) .87
Modeling (10 items) .75
Reinforcement (13 items) .87
Instruction (15 items) .86
Student self-regulation (17 items) .86
Academic self-efficacy (3 items) .71
Intrinsic motivation to learn (3 items) .66
Strategy use (6 items) .61
Social self-efficacy for relating to teachers (5 items) .72
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Study 2 Results

• Are involvement mechanisms perceived differently
  by parents and children?
• Factor analyses with promax rotation
• Parents 4 clear factors emerged
• Children no discernable patterns emerged
• Correlations between parent reports and
  childrens perceptions of the parents behavior
• Modeling, r .22, p lt .01
• Reinforcement, r .16, p lt .01
• Instruction, r .17, p lt .01
• Encouragement, r .14, p lt .01

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Correlations among mechanisms
Encouragement
Modeling
Reinforcement
 
--
.54
Modeling
Modeling .47 --  
Reinforcement .68 .52 --
Instruction .72 .56 .75
--
.57
.59
Reinforcement
.55
.44
.50
Instruction
Parent self-reported use of mechanisms
Child perceptions of parent mechanisms
Parent self-reported use of mechanisms
Child perceptions of parent mechanisms
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Study 2 Mediation
Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms
b .69, t 17.84, p lt .000
b .12, t 2.26, p lt .05
b .69, t 17.54, p lt .000
Parental Involvement Mechanisms
b .19, t 3.65, p lt .05
b -.01, t .30, p .76
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Conclusions and implications

• Parent and child perceptions of involvement
  mechanisms are substantially different.
• Investigations of parental influence on child
  development and learning should include child
  perceptions of parents practices (Steinberg et
  al., 1989).
• Parental involvement appears to be influential
  via childrens attention, perceptions and
  processes.
• Suggests that child self-regulation develops
  through a process of co-construction
• Child invitations to involvement
• More investigations of childrens experiences
  during parental involvement activities (e.g., Xu,
  2006)

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Next steps

• Developmental trends in childrens ability to
  attend to, perceive, or process the parents
  actions
• Child and family characteristics as moderators?
• Triangulation of methods
• Parent and child interviews
• Naturalistic observation of parent-child
  interactions
• Structured observation plus prompted recall
• Multiple indicators of child performance
• Teacher ratings, child achievement data

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Purpose of the study

• Address complexity of parental involvement
  practices
• Focused on 4 mechanisms of parental influence as
  manifested in homework involvement
• Modeling, Encouragement, Reinforcement,
  Instruction
• Test theoretical perspectives explaining how
  these mechanisms may influence student
  self-regulation.

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Study 1 Scale Reliabilities Study 1 Scale Reliabilities
Parent reported use of involvement mechanisms (28 items) .93
Encouragement (5 items) .83
Modeling (5 items) .80
Reinforcement (5 items) .89
Instruction (13 items) .87
Student perceptions of involvement mechanisms (47 items) .92
Encouragement (5 items) .69
Modeling (14 items) .70
Reinforcement (13 items) .87
Instruction (15 items) .81
Student self-regulation (19 items) .84
Academic self-efficacy (4 items) .65
Intrinsic motivation to learn (4 items) .67
Self-regulatory strategy use (7 items) .64
Social self-efficacy for relating to teachers (4 items) .65