Parent Involvement Is Needed
Rachel R, Lynch
Longwood University
SOCL- 345
Dr. Pederson
Abstract
When conducting evaluation research, we wanted to find out if family fun time activities improved family involvement. The methodology we used for this research, was to send home five activities to 99 families in hopes that these activities would encourage families to have more parental involvement. Once the activities were completed then a survey was sent home to the families to find out if there was an improvement in their family involvement. From the survey results, we found that enjoyment of the activities, simplicity of instructions, and appreciation of quality time spent together were common codes within the responses. These results from the surveys overall tell us that those who answered the surveys enjoyed the activities that were sent home and enjoyed doing them with their families. These results tell our researchers the activities that were sent home to the families did encourage family involvement.
Introduction
When conducting this evaluation research, we wanted to find out if families doing more activities with their children would improve the quality of time spent with their children. For our research, we sent home five fun activities to 99 families. These activities included crafts and an obstacle course for the family to participate in. Once the five activities were sent home and completed by the families. We then sent surveys out to the families who participated in the activities to find out if the activities had any affect on the family’s involvement. However, a gap in our research occurred when we only received 20 survey responses out of the 99 that were sent. The data that we collected from the surveys gave valuable data for our research. From the data we collected from the research respondents, we found common themes within the responses such as enjoyment of the activities, simplicity of instructions, and appreciation of quality time spent together were consistent codes found in the 20 survey responses. These common themes found in the survey responses tell us that the families that did answer the surveys did have an improvement in their family involvement. Supporting our research that the family fun time activities sent home to the families did improve family involvement.
Literature Review
There are many positive outcomes for children who have more parental involvement. In 2019, a longitudinal examination study was conducted to better understand the relationship between student grades and parent involvement. Focusing on if the increase in family involvement increased student grades specifically in high school. They found that family quality time spent with kids while in high school had the highest affect on their GPA. They found that consistent home-based involvement and school-based involvement did resemble a positive association with student GPA (James et al., 2019). Finding that more family involvement did improve student grades. This relates to two additional works in 2019 and 2015, with different approaches when focusing on student academic achievement that is associated with parent involvement. The first research in 2019, argued that the key to success with academic achievement is family involvement (Santana et al., 2019). The results found that the students who participated in the family activities connected to their curricular content in the class had an increase in overall math grade point average. The second article focused on the negative affects on student academic achievement when there is a lack of parental involvement. The research argued that children with a lack of parental involvement struggled academically and socially, finding that a stronger support system within the family creates a stable environment that is better for kids (Hoglund et al., 2015). The results in the three studies related to the coax that family involvement does have a positive outcome for student grades. Whereas a lack of family involvement resulted in the deterioration of academic achievement.
There have been studies conducted to better understand the benefits for kids when their parents are more involved in their adolescent years. For our research, conducting evaluation research will help determine if more family fun time will lead to an improvement in family involvement. In 2015, an Educational Longitudinal Study on tenth graders argued that parents who were more involved with their kids had a significant impact on their self-efficacy and academic achievements (Choi et al., 2015). The research suggested that having strong family support was the main contributor to a child’s success. These results were significant in comparison to other articles because their results found that parent involvement did not have a significant affect, but there was minimal statistical growth in students’ mathematical achievement and efficacy. The results of the study revealed that there was a change in student grades due to more family involvement in their grades. These general results reflect to a Longitudinal Study by Johnson et al., (2014) examining a kindergarten science class achievement growth and parent involvement, using a cross-classified growth model. They found no significant growth in the student’s scientific achievements. Revealing that more parent involvement didn’t always predict improvement in their science achievement. These are important when compared to other research in understanding more parental involvement won’t always improve children’s academics. However, the researchers believed these results could be due to the age of the participant’s cognitive skills, they believed the student’s competency in scientific concepts would grow over time. The researchers also considered the outcome of the results could be due to a curriculum or instructional issue (Johnson et al., 2014). This research’s results could be explained that the participants may have been too young to show true academic growth and change. Understanding the results of these studies conducted is important when reflecting and understanding each study could have very different outcomes resulting in possible flaws and negative results in research.
For our research choosing activities to send home to 99 children will help determine what factors could improve quality time with families. Recent works by Deloatche et al., (2015) and Goshin et al., (2021) relate to each other by both proposing studies to determine if parent involvement encouraged kids to be more involved educationally and in extracurricular activities. Their goals estimated the impact of parent involvement with home-based activities to determine growth. The study in 2015, focused specifically on “(…) pre-literacy skills, acquisition of mathematical skills, well-developed social skills, and positive attitudes toward school” (Deloatche et al., 2015). Whereas the study in 2021, focused primarily on extracurricular involvement. In research explaining communication practices Deloatche et al., (2021) used activities such as communication practices and fun learning activities to bring home to parents to actively engage families with their kid’s learning curriculum. Whereas Goshin et al., (2021) study focused on getting parents to be more actively engaged with their kids. Both results determined that there were positive improvements in home-based activities and found that parent engagement generally improved student involvement, unlike unengaged parents. These results were useful to prove that direct parent involvement encouraged learning more than in-school activity involvement.
Studies with consistent findings that strong family involvement correlated with strong academic outcomes (Puccioni, 2018). Examining past research results and interpreting how they are related to our evaluation research will help actively build our research understanding. By examining past research results with family involvement and fun activities we can compare and improve our research. This will target growth within children and increase parent involvement with their children. Understanding the results of previous studies conducted is important when reflecting on and comparing the results of our research.
Data and Methodology
Instrument
A survey questionnaire was created by the 50 members of the Social Research and Program Evaluation team/class at Longwood University. The survey asked both open-ended and close-ended questions. Items on the survey were designed to evaluate SMART objectives of five activities that were completed the previous week by Head Start and Andy Taylor Center Families. Items were included that also addressed demographic information, enjoyment of the activities, family involvement, and completion of the activities. Hard copies of the questionnaire were delivered to Head Start and Andy Taylor Center.
Sample
The non-probability sample for this study was based on 100 children (ages three to five years old). Seventy-nine children attend Head Start in three counties. Head Start is a federally funded subsidized preschool for families with economic needs. Twenty-one children attended the Andy Taylor Center which is located on a college campus and families apply and pay for their children to attend. Attached to the questionnaire was a children’s book to incentivize families to return the survey. Guardians of the children were asked to complete the survey and return it to eh preschool the next day. Teachers sent a reminder home with children to return the outstanding questionnaires this resulted in 20 questionnaires being returned. Overall there was a 20.2% of response rate.
Quantitative Analysis
Quantitative analysis of the returned surveys was based on close-ended questions. For this study, the dependent variable is family involvement. The items from the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was, “how involved was your family throughout the activity?” The attributes for these items were on a scale from one to ten, zero being none at all and ten being a great amount. For this study, the independent variable was “did your family complete the family activity? The attributes for this item were Yes, started but did not complete, and No.” Descriptive statistics were used to analyze these variables.
Qualitative Analysis
Qualitative analysis of the returned surveys was based on open-ended questions. The open-ended questions on the surveys were, “What did your family enjoy the most about these activities? Why?”, “What did your child learn from these activities?”, “What recommendations would you suggest for making these activities better?” To answer the research question, “How do Family Fun Time activities affect family involvement?”, inductive open coding was used to determine reoccurring themes in the respondents’ responses.
Quantitative Findings
My dependent variable for this survey is; “how involved was your family in this activity on a scale of 1-10?”, 1 being not at all, 5 being a little, and 10 being very involved. It is coded on a 0-10 scale. For this study, my mean is 9.36. My standard deviation is 1.08. My independent variable in this survey is; “Did your family complete the family activity?” – Yes, started but did not complete, or no. From the data collected, 93.3% of participants did complete the activity, and 6.7% of participants said they started but did not complete it. Looking at our independent variable and our dependent variable we found that the mean in our independent variable had an involvement score of 9.53 and our dependent variable was 7.00. This data shows that if the participants said yes and completed the activity, they had a higher involvement score.
Qualitative Findings
The goal of sending five activities home to 99 families was to find out if family fun time activities would improve family involvement. Examining the survey respondents of enjoyment of the activities, simplicity of instructions, and appreciation of quality time spent together were common themes found in the sixteen survey responses. These common themes found in the survey responses tell us that sixteen out of the 99 families did have an improvement in their family involvement.
In the findings, a common theme found in the surveys was the enjoyment and fun they had participating in the activities. The data found that nine out of the sixteen responses mentioned having enjoyment in the activities and having a fun time participating in activities together with their family. For example, a respondent mentioned, “It’s fun when you want to do something fun & enjoyable for kids & family” (speaker five). This relates to another respondent who mentioned, “We enjoyed putting all different shapes together on the pizza…” (responder seven). Showing that activities that were sent home to families were enjoyable. These findings also relate to a respondent who explained “Yes my family and son enjoyed doing the little thing he was doing together” (responder twelve). Illustrating that the families enjoyed doing the activities that were sent home to the families and encouraged surveys to be sent back. These findings tell us that most of the families that answered and sent back the surveys did enjoy those activities. Showing that the family fun time activities did improve some family enjoyment and involvement.
Another common theme that was found in the data, was respondents mentioning the enjoyment of spending quality time with their family. In the findings, five out of the sixteen responses mentioned how much they enjoyed spending time together as a family when participating in the activities. Having this as a common theme found in the responses is beneficial to our goal of sending these activities home with the families. Illustrating that there was an increase in family involvement within some of the 16 responses. For example, a respondent mentioned “Doing them together. Child says she loves doing things with mom and dad” (Respondent ten). This particular response mentioned the child also enjoyed the activity relating to another respondent who mentioned: “Yes my family and son enjoyed doing the activity the little thing we was doing together” (Respondent 12). These two survey responses were beneficial in learning that the kids were affected and enjoyed the increase in parent involvement with them. This relates to a respondent that mentioned “Yes we enjoyed making the finger friends the most. Spending time together doing something educational is always fun” (Respondent 15). This response Illustrated that the family enjoyed doing something together but also enjoyed that the activity had educational benefits when participating. These results show that the surveys sent home with the families created a fun activity to do with the family
A common theme that was found in a few of the survey responses was how easy and simple the instructions were to follow. When creating a survey, it being simple is crucial for respondents to be encouraged to participate in the survey. If the survey is simple and easy to follow, respondents are more likely to finish the surveys and send feedback. From the survey respondents, the data showed that three out of the 16 respondents mentioned in their feedback that they enjoyed how easy the activities were to follow. For example, one respondent mentioned, “Our family really enjoyed how simple the activities were (…)” (Respondent 3). This feedback relates to two other survey responses explaining they enjoyed the activity and “Also how easy the directions were” (Respondent 16) and the information was “Easy to follow instructions” (Respondent 1). This data proves that part of the enjoyment in the activities was being able to understand what they were supposed to do for the activity. This potentially illustrates that if the instructions weren’t as clear the families may not have had fun and enjoyed the activities.
When sending home five activities to 99 families we wanted to find out if family fun time activities would improve family involvement. Looking into the survey responses and how the families felt about the activities we can assume that the activities that were sent home did improve quality time within the family. The common themes found within the surveys were enjoyment of the activities, simplicity of instructions, and appreciation of quality time spent together. These common themes were found to support the assumption that the family fun time activities sent home to the families did improve family involvement.
Conclusion
In conclusion to our research evaluation families who are more involved in their children’s lives has shown to have great improvement in the quality of children’s lives. For our evaluation research, we wanted to find out if family fun time activities would improve family involvement. Hence, we sent five fun activities home to 99 families in the hopes there would be an improvement in family involvement. Once the activities were completed, to find out if the families had an improvement in their quality time, we sent surveys home to the families who participated. This was in hopes to find out if there was more family involvement due to the activities. However, we received 20 surveys back out of the 99 that were sent out. This did not trouble our results, however. From the survey responses, we found overall most of the families did enjoy the activities that were sent home. We found common codes within the responses such as enjoyment of the activities, simplicity of instructions, and appreciation of quality time spent together. These themes found in the survey responses tell us that the families that did answer the surveys did have an improvement in their family involvement. Supporting our research that the family fun time activities sent home to the families do improve family involvement.
Work Cited
Choi, et al., (2015). A structural model of parent involvement with demographic and academic
variables. Psychology in the Schools, 52(2), Pages 154-167.
Deloatche, et al., (2015). Increasing parent involvement among head start families: A
Randomized Control Group Study. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(4), 271-279.
Goshin, et al., (2021). The strategies of parental involvement in adolescents’ education and
extracurricular activities. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 50(5), 906-920.
Hoglund, et al., (2015). The evocative influence of child academic and social-emotional
adjustment on parent involvement in inner-city schools. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(2), 517-532.
James, et al., (2019). Longitudinal examination of relations between school- and home-based
parent involvement and GPA across ethnic groups. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 28(11), 3000-3010.
Johnson, et al., (2014). Parent involvement and science achievement: A cross-classified
multilevel latent growth curve analysis. Journal of Educational Research, 107(5), 399-409.
Puccioni J, (2018). Parental beliefs about school readiness, home and school-based involvement,
and children’s academic achievement. Journal of Research in Childhood Education,
32(4), 435-454.
Santana, et al., (2019). Having fun doing math: Text messages promoting parent involvement
increased student learning. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 12(2), 251-273.