Parental involvement in middle school: A meta-analytic assessment of the strategies that promote achievement.

Abstract

Early adolescence is often marked by changes in school context, family relationships, and developmental processes. In the context of these changes, academic performance often declines, while at the same time the long-term implications of academic performance increase. In promoting achievement across elementary and secondary school levels, the significant role of families, familyschool relations, and parental involvement in education has been highlighted. Although there is a growing body of literature focusing on parental involvement in education during middle school, this research has not been systematically examined to determine which types of involvement have the strongest relation with achievement. The authors conducted a meta-analysis on the existing research on parental involvement in middle school to determine whether and which types of parental involvement are related to achievement. Across 50 studies, parental involvement was positively associated with achievement, with the exception of parental help with homework. Involvement that reflected academic socialization had the strongest positive association with achievement. Based on the known characteristics of the developmental stage and tasks of adolescence, strategies reflecting academic socialization are most consistent with the developmental stage of early adolescence.Keywords academic achievement; family-school relationships; meta-analysis; middle school; parental involvement in education Early adolescence and entry into middle school reflect change on multiple levels. The middle school years coincide with key changes in adolescent development, including biological and cognitive growth, social development, and renegotiations of family relationships, especially the parent-adolescent relationship (Adams & Berzonsky, 2003;Grolnick, Price, Beiswenger, & Sauck, 2007;Keating, 2004;Lerner & Steinberg, 2004;Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Daddis, 2004;Steinberg & Silk, 2002). Further, the middle school context reflects a significant change compared to elementary school, including a larger, more bureaucratic system with many more teachers, peers, and curricular choices (Dauber & Epstein, 1989; Eccles & Harold, 1996;Hill & Chao, 2009). In the context of such changes and development, adolescents' academic performance often declines (Barber & Olsen, 2004;Eccles, 2004;Gutman & Midgley, 2000), while at the same time, the long-term implications of achievement for educational and occupational attainment increase (Eccles & Harold, 1993). The confluence of these developmental and contextual changes at early adolescence increases the risk that students may not reach their potential and heightens the need to identify sources of support. © 2009 American Psychological AssociationCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nancy E. Hill, who is now at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Larsen 703, 14 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138. hillna@gse.harvard.edu. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author...

The Need to Distinguish Between Quantity and Quality in Research on Parental Involvement: The Example of Parental Help With Homework

“…That is, research has shown that homework help may have not only positive but also detrimental effects on students' academic development (H. Cooper, Lindsay, & Nye, 2000;Desimone, 1999;Pomerantz, Wang, & Ng, 2005;Xu, 2004). In line with these findings, Hill and Tyson (2009) reported in their meta-analysis that homework help was the only type of involvement that was not consistently related to academic achievement. Similarly, in a metaanalysis by Patall, Cooper, and Robinson (2008), focusing only on parental homework involvement, the authors concluded that it has "at best a slightly positive overall impact on achievement" (p. 1062).…”

“…Although a large number of authors have criticized the heterogeneous conceptualization and poor measurement of parental involvement (e.g., Fan & Chen, 2001;Gerber & Wild, 2009;Harris & Goodall, 2008;Hill & Tyson, 2009;Jeynes, 2003), the field still has not overcome some of its conceptual and methodological limitations. With the present study, we wanted to advance research on parental involvement by showing how the results differ depending on the measures and control variables used.…”

“…In both meta-analyses, the highest associations were observed for parents' expectations and the lowest for homework supervision. The most recent meta-analysis on the effects of parental involvement was conducted by Hill and Tyson (2009). The authors focused on middle school students and investigated 50 different studies.…”

“…It is widely believed that parents' involvement in their children's academic life has positive effects on children's academic achievement. Therefore, it is not surprising that the promotion of parental involvement has featured prominently in educational policies in recent years (No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and that a number of meta-analyses have been published in the last decade showing that parental involvement may indeed have positive effects on children's academic development (Fan & Chen, 2001;Hill & Tyson, 2009;Jeynes, 2003Jeynes, , 2005Jeynes, , 2007Jeynes, , 2012. However, despite the number of studies on parental involvement, there is still no clear consensus of how strong its effects are and whether parental involvement is always a good thing (Pomerantz, Moorman, & Litwack, 2007).…”

Literature Review

“…One of the explanations for the mixed results is the complexity of the parental involvement concept (Fan and Chen 2001;Hill and Tyson 2009;Castro et al 2015). Both the meta-studies and our literature review indicated that measurement of parental involvement dimensions differed considerably among studies.…”