This survey was conducted for a handful of reasons and trying to understand if the amount of time spent with children stimulates involvement is one of them. The quantitative analysis of the returned surveys is based on the close-ended questions. For this study the dependent variable is parent involvement. The item from the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was “How much did your family enjoy this activity”. The answer choices for this item were a scale 0-10; 0 = not at all and 10 = a great amount. The independent variable for this study is an increased amount of time. The item from the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was the increased amount of time that the participants talked with their chil who attended Head Start. The answer choices for this question were “Yes”, “No” and “Unsure”. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze these variables.
For the quantitative findings, the following variables were examined using descriptive statistics.The independent variable being “Did this activity increase the amount of time that you talked with your child?” The answer choices were: “Yes”, “No” and “Unsure”.The overall meaning of this data would be to simply identify who’s time spent with their child got increased in results of the activity. The data indicated that eight respondents that completed the survey with their child noticed an increase in their time spent with their child. Two respondents that completed the survey with their child did not notice an increase in their time spent with their child. And two respondents did not complete this part of the survey.
The independent variable is “What is your relationship to your child/children who attend Head Start ?” and from the data collected the majority of the respondents noticed an increase in their time spent with their child and only two other respondents circled the option “No”.
The quantitative findings, the following variables were examined using descriptive statistics.The dependent variable being “How much did your family enjoy this activity?” The respondents had to answer the question with a zero to ten scale with zero being not at all, and ten being a great amount. One respondent rated their enjoyment at a six, one respondent rated their enjoyment at a seven and eight respondents rated their enjoyment at a ten.The overall meaning of the data is to show the amount of enjoyment that the repondants plus their child had during activity four. The positive correlation from both independent and dependent variables is “How can parent/family encouragement stimulate children’s involvement” through the activities provided.
Table 1
Increased Amount of time Talked with Child
| Mean | Medium | Mode | |
| Yes | 8.3 | 8 | 10 |
The dependent variable is “How much did your family enjoy this activity?” shows that eight respondents had an enjoyment rate placed on ten, repondant seven enjoyment rate was a six and repondant eight enjoyment rate was a seven.
The bivariable analysis from both independent and dependent variables correlate towards each other based on parent involvement.The chart below shows that out of all the participants their relationship choice to the child/children was mother and the rate of how enjoyable the activity was, got to a 9,3.
Table 2.
T-test for description of household.
| Household Description | Mean | t-statistic |
| Single Parent | 8.6 | 5.34*** |
| Others | 10.0 |
Note: p<.05*, p<.01**, p<.001***
Results
The table above takes into analysis the independent variable of participants’ households along with the dependent variable of how much the families enjoyed the activity provided. The mean for single parent’s answers is 8.6 and all other answers amounted to a mean of 10.0. The results achieved with the t-test were of 5.3262 which means there is a true difference in means between the group single parents and all others and it is not equal to zero. With these results we can conclude that there is a 95 percent confidence interval of the mean falling between 0.87 and 1.93. Finally, by analyzing the results of the t-test of 5.3262 < .05 we can also conclude that the null would be rejected, and the hypothesis would be retained because of the significant difference between the means.
Table 3.
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of involvement by time spent with a child.
Increased amount of time Mean of Involvement F-value
spent with child
Yes 8.1 1.2
No 10.0
Note: p<.05*, p<.01**, p<.001***
The dependent variable for this ANOVA was involvement within the activity. This was asked on a 0-10 scale. The independence for this ANOVA was an increased amount of time spent with children. Respondents chose either, “yes”, or “no”. The mean of involvement for yes was 8.1 out of 10. The mean of involvement for no was 10. According to the ANOVA results (F=1.2) there is no significant difference between these means.
Therefore, having an increased amount of time spent with your child does not influence their involvement.
In conclusion, after all the tests conducted and after analyzing the data collected from the survey, the answer to the question “does the amount of time spent with children stimulates involvement” is no it doesn’t. After reviewing all the data, having an increase on the amount of time the respondents spent with their child did not affect or stimulate their involvement.