An Investigation of Parental Involvement and Student Academic Achievement in Middle School

  • Laura Smokoska

Student thesis: Master's ThesisMaster of Science in Education (MS Ed)

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship between parental involvement and student academic achievement in middle school. Additionally, this study investigated whether there were patterns among parental involvement and student academic achievement among different ethnicities. The study was conducted in a diverse school in the Chicago suburbs to determine parental involvement levels and student academic achievement levels among different ethnicities. The study had 41 student and parent participants who took a survey about parental involvement at home and parental communication with the school. In addition to the surveys, students’ final English grades, final science grades, and English MAP scores were analyzed. The results of the study revealed parents of White students demonstrated the highest levels of communication with school and that White students had the highest levels of academic achievement compared to African American and Hispanic students. Pearson correlation revealed that there were two significant positive correlations between parental involvement and student academic achievement, which were parents signing weekly grade reports and parents initiating calls with the school, r = .586, p = .01, and parents signing weekly grade reports and parents returning calls from school, r = .479, p = .01. However, most of the data from the Pearson correlation revealed that there was not a significant correlation between parental involvement and student academic achievement, such as parents checking grades and parents returning calls from school, r =.202, and parents signing weekly grade reports and parents reading notes, emails, and texts from school, r =.054.
Date of Award2020
Original languageAmerican English
Awarding Institution
  • Eastern Illinois University
SupervisorSham'ah Md-Yunus (Supervisor)

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Education

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