Sidney Marsh
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice Studies
Sociology 345: Social Research and Project Evaluation
Dr. JoEllen Pederson
November 29, 2022
Abstract
This article covers the importance of parental involvement in their children’s lives. The study was conducted in cooperation with Head Start, an organization to help children gain an understanding how much involvement parents are with their children. The study was also conducted to determine if the parents and their children completed the survey questionnaires through activities sent home with the children from Head Start and the Andy Taylor Center.
Introduction
“The home is the first place where kids exhibit their innate potential and learn new behaviors. Children are susceptible to outside influences due to their expanding social surroundings, personal and academic needs (DeLoatche, 2015)”. Studies have shown a link between parental involvement in a child’s upbringing and that child’s development through precious times like family fun-time activities. The likelihood that a child will succeed in school increases as parents get more involved with the child at the home front. However, whether the parents involve themselves by participating and completing voluntary time and activities with their children is the research question associated with this concept.
Maintaining a link built on trust that fosters family cohesion requires parental involvement, according to research (Ansari, 2016). Parent-child engagement and parental involvement are both widely acknowledged to be essential, but are they related? The literature review will also touch on personal growth, parental involvement, and family enjoyment. The purpose of this study is to determine the needs of the parents at Head Start and Andy Taylor Center in order to better understand the value of parental involvement and enjoyment with their kids. Parents may promote their children’s academic achievement and foster their innate learning potential by participating and engaging in family fun-time activities and helping with their homework.
Literature Review
It’s significant for parents to participate in their children’s life, education, and family time (Hilado, A. et al., 2013). The home and school environments of a child have an impact on their academic achievement (Hoover-Dempsey, 2005). An overall cognitive health is impacted by their experiences at home and at school, which can either benefit or impede their academic achievement and family cohesiveness. To provide the child more learning potential; growth, engagement, and involvement should be encouraged on the home front (Sink, C., et al, 2011). The importance of learning provided at home and outside of the classrooms is emphasized by the fact that a child may successfully apply it there. When a parent is capable of participating in activities with their children, they can learn this by taking part in and enjoying family activities, which is known as parental involvement (Badura, P., et al, 2017). Parental participation, being available to help and cultivating parents’ ability to help their children (Sink, C., et al, 2011).
The efficacy of a child’s educational endeavors is influenced by a wide range of elements. The extent to which the parent is involved in their child’s life, schooling, personal growth, etc., is perhaps one of the most essential aspects. Half of the day is spent in class, after which the children are dismissed and sent home with their parents. It makes the children wonder what to do once they’re home. Whether their parents ask how their day went or even can spare the time to indulge with some family fun-time activities. There are six main types of involvement, according to Epstein’s Model of Parental Involvement: Type 1 is parenting, Type two is communicating, Type three is volunteering, Type Four is learning at home, Type five is decision-making, and Type six is working with the community. The first type, according to this concept, “refers to the parenting from the family about school activities and kid’s performance” (Gugiu, P. C., et al, 2019)
According to Epstein’s approach, parents must keep up with knowledge and their child’s growth, hence the concept of participation and engagement between parents and their children is fundamental. Moreover, parents would benefit from increased interaction with their children, but it would also help the parents’ motivation. The purpose of this study is to examine various sources’ views on the connection between parental involvement and children’s growth.
Parental engagement is crucial, especially at home, and there are numerous ways that parents may support their child’s growth and development, including by helping with schoolwork and participating in family activities outside of the regular school day. Both of these choices have facilitated children’ success in and outside of the classroom.
Data and Methodology
Instrument
The students at Longwood University are conducting a social research and program evaluation designed survey questionnaire. The question attempted to be answered is how parents can participate in their child’s education and that learning shouldn’t just take place in the classroom. With both open-ended and closed-ended questions, the survey’s questions were created to assess the ‘SMART’ goals of each of the five activities that families had completed. Participants will be questioned about their experiences with the take-home activities, and demographic data about their households in addition to the programs’ stated goals. The dependent variable measuring these include family involvement of the activity with the child. The independent variable is measured by if the family completed the family fun-time activity.
Sample
The non-probability sample for this study was based on the 100 children (ages three to five). Seventy-nine children attend Head Start in three counties. Head Start is a federally subsidized preschool for families with economic need. Twenty-one children attend the Andy Taylor Center which is located on a college campus, where 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 the preschool the following school day. Teachers then sent a reminder home with children to return any outstanding questionnaires. This resulted in 20 questionnaires being returned. Overall, there was a 20 % response rate.
Quantitative Analysis
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 was your family involved in the activity?”. The answer choices for this item were on a “scale from 0-10. 0 being not at all and 10 being a great amount.” The independent variable for this study is parent/guardian involvement. The item for the questionnaire that was used to operationalize this was how much did your family enjoy this activity. The answer choices for this item was a scale from 0-10, 0 being no enjoyment at all, 10 being highly enjoyed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze these variables.
Qualitative Analysis
Qualitative analysis of the returned surveys was based on the open-ended questions. The open-ended questions on the survey were “What did your family enjoy most about these activities? Why?”, “What recommendations would you suggest to make these activities better?” and “What did your child learn from these activities?”. To answer the research question, if families participate in these activities, then what is their level of involvement with their children? Inductive open coding was used to determine reoccurring themes in the participant’s responses.
Qualitative Findings:
Qualitative analysis of the returned surveys is based on the open-ended questions. The open-ended questions on the survey were “ How much family involvement was there in the family fun-time activities?”, “What recommendations would you suggest to make these activities better?” and “Did the family complete the family fun-time activity?”. Sixteen surveys were coded, in each survey there was an open question that was coded. That question was “How much family involvement was there in the family fun-time activities?” Through coding, three themes were identified. The themes that were identified are family involvement, learning and growth, and family enjoyment.
Three of those respondents to the sixteen surveys answered the first question with “seeing her help me with the activities and having a good time” or a phrase to that effect. Based on this statement, being able to spend time and seeing her child having fun was made simple for this responder by these activities. Respondent 4’s comment, “helped with their mood, and being patient”. This means that this activity helped with their relationship between mother and daughter. Whereas, respondent 11 stated that “emotion flip book helps the child understand emotions without sound and it helps them know the meaning of emotions,” clearly references how the child understands when and where to enact those emotions. The parents are telling the researchers that the activities made it possible for them to spend time with their child or children. Respondent 11 had also talked up how these activities had given her family time to bond. Spending time together is equated with “seeing her helping me with the activities and having a good time” by Respondent 14. This indicates that the respondent valued the opportunity provided by this family fun time activity to spend time with their family.
The second theme, involvement, was used multiple times in these surveys that were collected. Respondent 11 uses being more involved in “We did each activity at least twice. Enjoyed watching [childs name] complete these activities while I assisted her.” This respondent is saying that their family found these activities to be fun and that their family were participating. Respondent 9 includes having fun in their response “learning colors, shapes, creativity in a fun way, and numbers.” With this response it can be inferred that because the rest of the family was interested in participating, that they found these activities to be fun. Respondent 10’s response incorporates having fun with simply, “Having fun.” This tells us that Respondent 10 having fun was a big part of these activities to them.
The responses that were accumulated through the question “ How much family participation was there in the family fun time activities?” Elicited many responses but the themes of many of them were, enjoying time with family, learning and growing with one another, and family involvement. These activities were vessels for families to spend time together, open windows for children to learn new things, and ways for both children and parents to have fun putting things together, finding certain things, like for instance through creating an emotion flipbook. Overall, the responses that were returned with the surveys were positive, meaning that very little change is required in these activities to get more involvement.
Conclusion
A child’s academic progress and self-growth is influenced by parents’ involvement. A child’s capacity for learning can be significantly enhanced by a parent’s ability to participate in these family fun-time activities. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways through initiatives like Head Start and Andy Taylor Center. In either case, it is crucial for a student’s academic and psychological wellbeing to have the chance to learn outside of the classroom. Because only 20% of parents responded to the survey, response rates were not optimum. This can be a result of the fact that parents of Head Start students either lacked the time or were preoccupied to participate in these activities.
Moving forward, offering an incentive other than a kid’s book might result in more people filling out the survey or turning it in. Making the survey a little shorter would be another improvement that may be made, as its length may have discouraged parents from completing the forms. Last but not least, rather than relying on kids to be able to communicate and deliver the surveys and survey information, Head Start may possibly send a daily email to the parents to remind them or alert them that these surveys are being sent out.
Reference List:
Ansari, A., & Gershoff, E. (2016). Parent involvement in head start and children’s development: indirect effects through parenting: parent involvement in head start. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(2), 562–579. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12266
Badura, P., Madarasova Geckova, A., Sigmundova, D., Sigmund, E., Dijk, J. P., & Reijneveld, S. A. (2017). Do family environment factors play a role in adolescents’ involvement in organized activities? Journal of Adolescence, 59(1), 59–66.
DeLoatche, K. J., Bradley-Klug, K. L., Ogg, J., Kromrey, J. D., & Sundman-Wheat, A. N. (2015). Increasing parent involvement among head start families: a randomized control group study. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(4), 271–279. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-014-0660-7
Gugiu, P. C., Gugiu, M. R., Barnes, M., Gimbert, B., & Sanders, M. (2019). The development and validation of the parental involvement survey in their children’s elementary studies (pisces). Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(3), 627–641. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1294-y
Goshin, M., Dubrov, D., Kosaretsky, S., & Grigoryev, D. (2021). The strategies of parental involvement in adolescents’ education and extracurricular activities. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 50(5), 906–920. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01399-y
Hilado, A. V., Kallemeyn, L., & Phillips, L. (2013). Examining understandings of parent involvement in early childhood programs. Early Childhood Research & Practice, 15(2).
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Sink, C., Bower, H., & Griffin, D. (2011). Can the epstein model of parental involvement work in a high-minority, high-poverty elementary school? a case study. Professional School Counseling, 15(2), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.5330/PSC.n.2011-15.77