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Correlates of Parent Involvement in Students’ Learning: Examination of a National Data Set

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Abstract

Parent involvement in students’ learning has been recognized as an important aspect of children’s education and is empirically related to students’ academic performance and engagement. In the present study we constructed a measure of parent involvement, drawing on items from the 2012 National Household Education Surveys (NHES) Program. Survey items included in the measure addressed parent participation in school activities, participation in school meetings, learning activities at home, learning activities in the community, and parent involvement in homework. The resulting measure of Parent Involvement in Children’s Learning (PICL) was used to investigate predictors associated with variation in parent involvement. Following a review of the literature on parent involvement, potential predictor variables were selected from the NHES data set, including child characteristics, family demographics, school characteristics, the child’s school experience, and parent satisfaction with school services. Preliminary multivariate linear regression models were created to screen potential predictors and the final multivariate linear regression model identified significant predictors of parental involvement. We consider how the correlates contribute to the evolution of the construct of parent involvement in children’s learning.

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Funding

Support for this project was provided in part by the Virginia Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities program, with funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (T73MC00040).

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Correspondence to Donald P. Oswald.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

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Oswald, D.P., Zaidi, H.B., Cheatham, D.S. et al. Correlates of Parent Involvement in Students’ Learning: Examination of a National Data Set. J Child Fam Stud 27, 316–323 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0876-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0876-4

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