A Longitudinal Assessment of Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Children's Education and School Performance

Abstract

This study examines the ways in which parental involvement in children's education changes over time and how it relates to children's social and academic functioning in school. Teachers provided information on parent involvement and school performance for 1,205 urban, kindergarten through third‐grade children for 3 consecutive years. They rated the following four dimensions of parent involvement: frequency of parent‐teacher contact, quality of the parent‐teacher interactions, participation in educational activities at home, and participation in school activites. As predicted, the frequency of parent‐teacher contacts, quality of parent‐teacher interactions, and parent participation at school declined from Years 1 to 3. Every parent involvement variable correlated moderately with school performance and parent involvement in Years 1 and 2, and accounted for a small, but significant amount of variance in Year 3 performance after controlling for initial performance level. Participation in educational activities at home predicted the widest range of performance variables. Results suggest that enhancing parental involvement in children's schooling relates to improvements in school functioning.