U S Public Schools Minority Community and Parental Involvement

Running head: PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN MINORITY COMMUNITY IN U.S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN MINORITY COMMUNITY IN U.S PUBLIC SCHOOL 29

Parental Involvement in Minority Community in U.S Public Schools

Abstract

The socio-economic status of minority communities greatly impacts the residence choice and the schools where parents take their children, limiting their children’s educative process. This study examines parents’ involvement in minority communities in their children’s education process in public schools. A quantitative approach to the research study will be employed to explore the problem statement’s problem and allow the researcher to examine the variables identified in the literature review and the conceptual framework. The sample population involved (n=20) parents from two public schools, ten in each district. The study comprised ten men and ten women, where five men and women were selected from each school. The parent selected were distributed equally from African American and Hispanic ethnicity since they are the minority communities in Connecticut.

The data collection methods employed will involve using questionnaires and evaluating the children’s exam report to confirm the questionnaire’s validity. Multiple linear regression analyses will be conducted to determine the relationship between variables. The dependent variable in the analysis is the performance of the students. In contrast, the independent variables are the school’s initiative to involve parents, household income, and parent’s education level. Parents with a low literacy level might not assist their children in the learning process due to limited reading and speaking English or computing skills. Further, they might not generate enough income with one job and might be forced to take multiple jobs to support their family.

Chapter One: Introduction

Parents’ involvement in their child’s education plays a critical role in their preparedness for school activities by offering guidance, problem-solving, advice, and partnering with the educators where necessary. At the early developmental stages, children do not have the self-efficacy to judge what they want. They pursue these goals like early adults might make parents’ engagement in the educative process to identify their children’s capabilities and make interventions that contribute to their exploitation (Akif-Erdener, 2016). The school structuring and policies also influence how the parents are involved in the education process. While charter schools make this more possible, the strategies employed here are not mirrored in public schools where minority communities’ children from middle- and low-income communities are likely to attend.

Problem Statement

The problem that prompted this research is the disproportionate performance of children from minority communities compared to that of students who come from Caucasian communities. Children’s socio-economic status contributes to the development of the children’s stability. It affords the parents the ability to participate in the children’s education process by affording the time and resources to accomplish their academic goals. Parents in minority communities have limited resources and are often forced to work multiple jobs to meet the family’s basic needs denying them the time and dedication to participate in their children’s education process.

The parents’ involvement in the education process of their children is critical across different developmental stages. Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth (2014) posit that parents’ involvement in students’ education process results in the development of resilience and a fundamental understanding of the importance of the child’s proactive engagement at school. Notably, a student from minority communities experience challenges that might arise from their family or communal setting, limiting their ability to carry out their school responsibilities as expected. De Pedro et al. (2018), argues that children who do not have the parental support in their academic pursuits for more than one year are likely to suffer negative consequence in their education.

Purpose of the Study

A parent’s absentia leaves a large responsibility to the teachers that supersedes their role as an educator to partly parenting. At the same time, they are not familiar with the parenting approach of the parent. This study explores the nature of parents’ parental involvement in their child’s education at a micro-level, household factors, school structure and policies, and at a macro level, social-economic factors of minorities that influence the parents’ involvement in the education process of their children. The study will be based on Hartford schools and Connecticut public schools.

Research Questions

The general research question is: how are parents from a minority community in the U.S public schools involved in their children’s education, and what impact does it have on the children’s academic lives? The specific questions are as follows:

I. Are the children’s parents in public schools from minority communities involved in their children’s education process?

II. What are the factors that impact parental engagement in the education process?

III. How does the involvement of parents affect the academic life of their children?

Significance of the Study

As established, parents’ involvement in their children’s education process in public schools greatly impacts the child’s attitude, resilience, and academic performance. Minority communities are confronted by an array of challenges that might limit parents’ ability to be involved in their children’s education process due to their environment’s socio-economic factors. Examining these challenges is critical to determine how Hartford schools and Connecticut public schools’ policies can be improved to address these challenges.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Overview

Parents’ involvement in students’ educative process varies at different tiers, as discussed in Epstein’s Model of School, Family, and Community Partnerships De Pedro et al. (2018). The discussion of parental involvement in children’s educative will be examined based on Epstein’s model. The socio-economic status of minority communities greatly impacts the residence choice and the schools where parents take their children, limiting their level of involvement in the children’s educative process (Epstein et al., 2018). The federal legislation defines parent involvement as the two-way regular, meaningful communication about students’ academic and school activities that involve parents assisting the child’s learning, actively involved in school activities, and appropriate parents’ engagement in decision-making.

Typically, most people in minority communities have a limited supply of economic resources and low academic achievements; most have little or no tertiary level of education, limiting the extent to which they can contribute directly to their children’s educative process. However, Epstein’s Model of School, Family, and Community Partnerships has different tiers of parental involvement in the educative process that all parents can participate in (Epstein et al., 2018). The Epstein model is complementary to the children’s developmental stages as articulated in Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. This alignment ensures that the sociological development of children is complementary to their psychological and physical development. Parents’ engagement in different ways contributes to critical development at the core phases of the children’s growth.

Epstein’s Model: School, Family, and Community Partnerships

This model is used to examine the involvement of parents in school activities at different levels. The Epstein model is based on the overlapping home, school, and community in spheres in the child’s life that are critical in shaping children’s behaviors. The Epstein model is criticized for its school-based approach and Eurocentric (“Building Capacity,” 2021). However, the model’s applicability to this study is informed by acknowledging the parent’s involvement in children’s education takes many dimensions, including at school and home, that impact their academic achievement.

Epstein’s model has a six-part typology that details different ways that parents can be involved in their children’s education process. The type 1 involvement of the typology involves providing the child’s basic needs, such as health care, safety, provision of learning material, and affection (Epstein et al., 2018). Epstein suggests the creation of a home environment that encourages learning. This might involve providing a computerized environment as the education process now has integrated computing to communicate and learn. The parents might also participate in family literacy programs to acquire the knowledge necessary to assist their children in fundamental schoolwork.

Type 2 in the typology involves the parent meeting their obligation to the school, such as constant communication through phone calls, report cards, memos, and attending parent-teacher conferences. School policies for parents’ engagement are critical, such as employing translators to communicate with parents who do not speak English (Akif Erdener, 2016). Having spelled out school policies and programs for students’ engagement is essential for developing common communication (Epstein et al., 2018). Type 3 in the typology participates in volunteer activities to assist teachers in the classroom or school events attendance. This type of involvement requires the schools to create room for parents and family centers to conduct school activities and offer the necessary resources.

Type 4 involves assisting the children with their homework and covering the curriculum where they might encounter challenges. Schools might aid parents in this stage by stipulating how homework should be executed and parents’ role while assisting students. Type 5 is the parents’ involvement in the governance, decision making, and advocacy activities in school (Epstein et al., 2018). This contribution might involve participation in the Parents Teachers Association (PTA), membership in school committees, or involvement in any other leadership positions. Epstein suggests that the children should ensure the PTA is active and that other committees execute their mandate regularly (Epstein et al., 2018). Type 6 involvements in Epstein’s model involves networking and engagement of the students in the organizations that share the responsibility for the children’s education, such as the involvement in after-school programs and health services (Cotton & Wikelund, 2011). To help parents with information about programs in the community focused on health or culture or linked to education or developmental programs.

The Connecticut State Board of Education relied on the Epstein model (2011) to design its commitment to the parent framework of engagement. Between 2006 – 2011the state laid out its preferences regarding the K-12 education structure from the preschool through secondary levels. Part of the preferences stipulated was the parent and community’s engagement as a necessity for achieving the goals set forth. The state stipulates how leadership will be conducted and the promotion of partnership programs to foster all students’ success (Agronick, Clark, O’Donnell & Stueve, 2019). This in part involves the development of parents’ literacy skills in family literacy programs. Further, the plan aimed at ensuring the schools are safe was supportive of all school community members.

Role of Parental Involvement

Parental involvement has been attributed to various benefits: the increased positive attitude towards school work, retention rates, academic success, low absenteeism, low dropout rates, and high motivation among children. Parents’ role in their involvement in their children’s academic life (Akif Erdener, 2016). The parent’s direct involvement in their child’s learning process by offering assistance with their homework and tutoring, providing them the necessary materials and assistance to follow teachers’ instructions, eventually shows impressive academic results (Khajehpour & Ghazvini, 2011). The parent’s active involvement through active correspondence with the teachers and involvement in the school’s governance process has an overarching impact on the students’ lives by addressing school challenges.

Close involvement of parents in the school life of the parent and teachers is also critical in monitoring the children’s behavior and making sure they are aware of their children’s behaviors and capabilities, which is critical for developing a common understanding of these challenges. Children’s active involvement in the child’s educative process informs the parents of a home environment that they should cultivate at home to foster learning (Connecticut State Department of Education, 2018). Positive academic achievement is cultivated being cultivated at home that translates to the school environment. The development of a healthy and stable home environment coupled with instruction and guidance in the education process informs the student of the importance and role of their education to themselves and the community.

At-risk children, mainly from the minority communities, require the parent’s involvement more than the students from Caucasian communities that face a lower risk. Children who reside in inner cities are often delinquent and are at a high risk of dropping out of school. As will be discussed below, the population of minorities is low in Connecticut. It faces an array of challenges due to the low income compared to some of their peers from more stable families with a higher income than theirs (Erdener & Knoeppel, 2018). Some of the challenges that may result in this behavior are prolonged exhaustion due to working for long hours of physical labor, low esteem that might cause embarrassment and shyness, poor understanding, inability to express themselves due to poor linguistic skills, lack of information on the official school communication channels, or a feeling of not being welcome administrators and teachers, and the lack of interest by parents, teachers, and administrators.

While the crisis is a pertinent part of a child’s development, the parent’s involvement leads to the development of crisis management skills that overcome the difficulties of these changes, especially in teenagerhood. Minority communities that reside in disenfranchised parts of the community might infuse and causes trauma that is sustained in the crisis management strategies and the decision-making process. Espinosa et al. (2013) argue that delinquent behavior emerges from the trauma suffered at a young age that prevents individuals from adjusting to different social environments. As a result, their reasoning and judgment predicated on their traumatic events and rely on trauma-informed-systems that do not solve challenges but create more challenges. The involvement in programs designed to raise trauma awareness, build knowledge and skills into their social organization and eventually rely on their parents for guidance.

Involvement of Minority and Low Supplemental Education Service (SES) Parents

A minority group refers to people exempted from society from other people due to their unique cultural and physical characteristics. People who do not share similar ethnic backgrounds or races as the majority population in the country. Further, minority communities can be perceived as groups of people who have been disenfranchised economically, socially, and politically in the national discourse in the past that limits their agency today (Ali et al., 2013). As such, these people are treated differently without dignity and perceive themselves as subjects of collective discrimination.

In the U.S., these communities are mainly Hispanic, African Americans and immigrants from these communities, and Muslims. Historically, these communities have been disfranchised economically and alienated in the social and political discourse that has limited their contribution in the development of social systems and personal advancement in their social status (“Teachers view immigrant, minority parents as less involved in their children’s education,” 2018). These challenges limit parents’ ability to get involved in their children’s education due to multifaceted economic and social challenges in their neighborhoods, reflecting in children’s performance in school and their agency to pursue a career after that.

The social organization of the inner cities where minority communities reside challenges parents’ participation in their children’s education due to negative attitudes towards educational endeavors by holding the street and gang culture at high esteem than educational pursuits (Cotton & Wikelund, 2005). Parents who did not have parental and community support in their educational endeavors are less likely and willing to participate in their children’s education process than parents from a different background who had such support. This study seeks to examine parental involvement in the development of their children’s academic life.

Socio-Economic Status. Parents’ socio-economic status can affect children’s educational attainment since there are many stress sources for students. As a result, the student’s ability in the class is stunted, and their agency is limited. The neighborhood in which the student lives determines this factor. The family’s status also impacts the student, the family’s collective income, and the community’s socio-economic status also has an impact (Gordon, & Nocon, 2008). Such factors can positively or negatively impact the student in school by providing stability and support, instability, and lack of support if they are absent. The children’s social and economic status is positive and beneficial to the child’s educational attainment. Conversely, in the absence of a positive or a practical application of these same factors, it may hinder the student’s good performance.

The social-economic status index generated by Connecticut in 2014 highlights the marginalized communities and the nature of their social life, and the challenges common in this community. The population of African Americans and Hispanics is the main minority population in the state, with 1,077,574, which accounts for 21.9% of the population. The number of immigrants in the region who are non-English speaking is 755,297, which accounts for 22.2% (Connecticut State Data Centre, 2014). The African American, Asian, American Indian, and Hispanic account for 9.4%, 4.1%, and 14.2. The population that is less than 25-year-old with less than a college education accounts for 43% of the population disproportionately affecting the minorities. The total number of this population is 1,546,941, which is made up of 10.1% who have less than a high school certificate, those who graduated high school or a GED are 27.8 of the population, and those who attend some parts of college are 25% (Connecticut State Datacenter, 2014). Notably, this percentage is likely to increase with the age limit increase since the younger population is generally more educated than, the older generations.

Education. The population that has less than college-level education accomplishment and has poor health are 9.9% who have less than a high school certificate, those who graduated high school or with a GED and have poor health account for 4.25%, and those who have some college-level education account for 6.35% of the population that does not have good health. The population that lives below the federal poverty level is 384,167 that accounts for 10.7% of the population (Connecticut State Datacenter, 2014). The children below 65 years old who do not have a medical insurance cover are 321,972, while the children below 3.8% are 18 years old children and have health challenges. The population spending nights in a shelter is 4,506.

Figure 1: The image shown above shows the number of people with high blood pressure and corresponding educational attainment (Connecticut State Datacenter, 2014).

Figure 1 shows the inverse correlation between educational attainment and the prevalence of high blood pressure. The lower the educational achievement, the higher the rate of blood pressure diagnoses in the population. The population with lower education levels is disproportionately affected by poor health and lack of access to health care due to limited provision of health care in their areas of residence or the lack of health insurance cover (Connecticut State Datacenter, 2014). Notably, these challenges also affect the children and their performance at school if they do not have access to good health care as stipulated in Epstein’s model type 1 component. The Connecticut State Department of Education has made interventions that are aimed that remedying these challenges through community health programs that are aimed at making health accessible in the inner cities and promotion of common programs that target the provision of healthcare to the inner-city and marginalized communities (Connecticut State Department of Education, 2020). These programs’ marketing targets the at-risk communities and schools where children from families with low social the economic status might need these services.

Figure 2: Number of parents who have had a heart disease event by income (Connecticut State Datacenter, 2014).

Income. The population with a higher instance of heart disease is also the population with an annual income of less than $35,000. These challenges have been attributed to poor lifestyles that are caused by poor diets and lifestyle choices. Such parents often do not provide healthy nutrition to children that may reflect in their academic performance. These populations reside in inner cities. The environment in this region is also limited in the access to health care and the provision of information necessary to adjust one’s lifestyle choices to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Excessive intake of alcohol and smoking is likely to result in heart disease experiences. Notably, these challenges also are prevalent among low-income earners. The environment created with excessive use of alcohol and smoking and poor diets creates an unsuitable learning environment for the student, resulting in poor performance.

The family education programs initiated and given preference by the Connecticut State Department of Education aimed to create literacy among parents to avoid children’s subjection to the unsuitable learning environment at home. The education programs establish linkages that can help the parents access different facilities that they may not acquire, such as healthcare, since they are low-income earners (Connecticut State Department of Education, 2020). The state instituted these measures to ensure the children were not affected by a low-income family negatively to the extent of limiting their educational accomplishment.

Culture. The culture in minority communities might be contrary to the American K-12 education system’s contemporary norms. Some parents from some ethnicities are cynical about sending their children to kindergarten to fear being placed under too much pressure to interfere with their development. While some culture among the minority communities makes it difficult for the children to perform well at school, some cultures cultivate social, cultural and economic capital that is essential to empower the schools by bringing new resources, advocating for the schools, and supporting institutional school programs. Such a communal approach to collective challenges helps students’ academic achievements while acting individually limits students’ ability to meet the students’ requirements among low-income and minority communities.

The Latino community has fundamental principles that embrace working as a family and making sure conflict resolution effectively manages challenges. The principles that are great practices across generations include respect, families, simpatia, and personalismo. These principles encourage communal living that is suitable to solving challenges collectively. The application of these cultural practices has helped develop a community-based trauma-informed approach towards managing crisis (Araque et al., 2017). Children is a rough environment but with this commensal approach benefit since the focus on the child’s mental health issues. Diverting the attention to the child’s wellness eliminates the problems that the child might experience in their community, home, and school (Lester et al., 2016). Such cultural practices help overcome the challenges that the Latino community might experience unanimously by collectively addressing these challenges.

The communal approach’s objective to challenges is to offer the children support to overcome the traumatic experiences from chaotic home environments or instability in their household. The strategies emerging from communal living aim to help the children understand and nurture to maximize their potential. Otherwise, such a communal framework’s absentia could be stymied by their environment’s adverse effects (Espinosa et al., 2013). Since this approach creates communal strategies to ensure good mental health for children, many children often lack such support when their parents are not involved in their child’s educational life. Programs that are initiated by the school’s administration and the district’s education boards are designed to prevent children from developing delinquent behavior, neglect in parenting, and the onset of drug abuse (Whitesell, Bachand, Peel & Brown, 2013). The program initiated to foster mentorships such as Big Brother and Big Sister make is designed to offer motors to children who ate at risk while in school and are from minority communities.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework looks into the development of a framework to draw the correlation of core themes in the study and set a structure within which the study will be conducted. The minority communities, as discussed, encounter challenges, such as low income and low education levels of parents that harm the ability of parents to get involved in the education process (Akif Erdener, 2016). Further, parents’ limited ability to get involved in their children’s education process, according to the different tiers established in the Epstein model, negatively affects school performance. Children from minority communities suffer an array of challenges in adjusting to the school environment that limit their ability to execute school activities, such as class and homework, co-curricular activities, and social activities that contribute to academic success.

The Epstein model is complementary to the children’s developmental stages as articulated in Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. This alignment ensures that the sociological development of children is complementary to their psychological and physical development. Parents’ engagement in different ways contributes to critical development at the core phases of the children’s growth. Erdener (2016) posits that parents’ involvement in students’ education process results in the development of resilience and a fundamental understanding of the significance of the child’s proactive engagement at school. However, the lack of involvement leaves the child, who is yet to develop judgment, to solve some challenges they encounter in the educative process reflected through poor school performance.

The socio-economic status of parents has the potential to affect the educational attainment of children positively or negatively. Parents who have a low social, economic status have limited access to resources, which causes the students’ ability to be stunted and their agency. The neighborhood in which the student lives depends on this factor; its status also impacts the student. Minority communities mainly inhabit the residence with limited social amenities that negatively impact children’s living conditions (Whitesell, Bachand, Peel & Brown, 2013). Limited resource availability in marginalized communities limits the implementation of the Connecticut State Department of Education’s suggestions as interventions to help parents get involved in the education of their children. Consequently, parents who might be interested in their children’s education encounter barriers, such as linguistic challenges, that limit the extent to which they are involved in their children’s educative process.

Some of the parents lack the insight on the importance of their involvement in the educative process and employ coping strategies in their environment, such as abuse at school that create a poor environment at home for the child’s learning process. These poor feeding habits for the child and psychological development might be reflected by a negative attitude, lack of energy to engage in-class activities, or delinquent behavior (Akif Erdener, 2016). The level of education of parents among minority parents is mainly at the primary and secondary levels. It may limit their ability to engage in the educational process of their children.

The study’s dependent variable is the performance of a child at school. In contrast, the independent variables are the parent’s level of education, level of income, and school initiative in implementing strategies made by the Connecticut District Education Board. The children’s social and economic status is positive and beneficial to the child’s educational attainment. Conversely, in the absence of a positive or a practical application of these same factors, it may hinder the student’s good performance.

Chapter Three: Research Method and Design

This study examines parents’ involvement in minority communities in their children’s education process in public schools. This section of the study will describe the research design employed, research setting, data collection procedure and tools, description of participants, and the research questions. The approach that will be used in the data analysis will also be discussed herein. The researcher’s role in the study will be discussed, identifying the possible areas of bias.

Research Design

A quantitative approach to the research study will be employed to draw inferences from the data collected and deduce parental involvement in minority communities in public schools. Qualitative methods of research ideally answer the “how and “why” questions that are pertinent in this study to explain how parents from minority communities and why they might be involved or not. (Ruggiano & Perry, 2017). This approach facilitates exploring the problem identified in the problem statement and allows the researcher to examine the variables identified in the literature review and the conceptual framework. The use of a qualitative approach is justified by the realism doctrine that holds that research cannot be objective by an insider rather by an outsider of the subject of study.

Description of Participants

This position’s research role is to make observations free from biases within the study and report their results and make deductions based on the framework laid out in the study. As such, the objective of a qualitative study is to collect data, make observations from statistical analysis, understand, and report their findings and conclusion about the involvement of parents in minority communities in public schools in the education process of their children (Busetto, Wick & Gumbinger, 2020). The data collected in the study is categorical rather than continuous since it is coded to represent sociological components that are the independent variables in the study, including the level of education of the parent, level of income, and school initiative in the implementation in implementation of strategies made by the Connecticut District Education Board and the dependent variable that is the performance of the children.

The study participants will be parents selected from Bloomfield and Harford districts that are urban, where 56% of the population is African American, and 5.33% of the population is Hispanic. The African American population at Hartford is 47.84%, while Hispanics are 54.47%. Bloomfield and Harford’s median income is $73,519 and $29,313, respectively (Quick, 2016). Notably, these are the two districts with the leading population of Hispanic and African communities and happen to have the middle-income median for Bloomfield and low-income for Harford according to each household’s federal standards.

The sample population involved 20 parents from two public schools, ten in each district. The study comprised ten men and ten women, where five men and women were selected from each school. The parent selected were distributed equally from African American and Hispanic ethnicity since they are the minority communities in Connecticut (Connecticut State Department of Education, 2020). The parents were selected in either school were required to have a child in the K-12 grades of the school and willing to engage in the study. A simple random sampling approach was employed to select the parents who would participate in the study across different grades.

Procedure

The before recruitment of the sample population, permission will be sought from the school administrations. After permission is acquired, the recrements will be conducted, and the population selected for the study will involve the issuance of questionaries to the participants. The responses on the level of education attained and the student’s grades will be encoded to conceal the actual responses. The participants’ names will also be kept anonymous to avoid revealing the name of participants in the study. The questionnaires will be issued at a parent meeting to determine whether the respondent is conversant with the study’s purpose. Communication of the study’s purpose will also be done at the meeting to encourage participation. The filled questionnaires will be collected after a week after being delivered to the parents’ teachers while picking up their children or their parents.

I. What is your level of education? (primary, secondary, or tertiary)

II. What is your household’s annual income?

III. On average, what grade does your child attain?

IV. Do you feel the school takes appropriate measures to involve in the education process of your child? (yes/no)

Data Collection Techniques

The data collection methods employed will involve questionnaires and evaluation of the children’s exam report. In this section, the procedures used to perform these two methods will be discussed in detail.

Questionnaire

The data collection will involve using semi-open-ended questionnaires administered to the parents to collect their demographic information. The use of questionnaires is essential to capture the respondents’ perceptions and their factual information about their social-economic status (Busetto, Wick & Gumbinger, 2020). The use of questionnaires and other data collection methods, such as reviewing the parent’s children’s results, confirms the validity of the questionnaires’ information. Table 1 represents the focus on the participant’s social status by evaluating their age, ethnicity, marital status, level of education they have attained, and the number of children they have at K-12 grades.

Table 1: Participant Questionnaire

Demographic Information Questions

1. Age:

1. Ethnicity:

1. Married:

1. Level of education earned:

1. The number of school-aged children currently in the household:

The ethnicity will be encoded as 1 for African Americans and 2 for Hispanic respondents. The education level will be encoded as 1 for primary level, 2 for secondary education, and 3 for tertiary level education. Since the study examines the sample population’s sociological phenomena, this information’s encoding will be critical in categorical data for the data analysis process.

The dependent variables in the study inform the second questionnaire. This questionnaire will help build insights about the parent involvement in their children’s educative process in the selected schools. According to Rosenthal (2016), understanding the participants’ perspective in a qualitative study is essential to make proper inferences from the data analysis of the data collected. Table 2 is a questionnaire that will also be issued to the selected parents for the study.

Table 2: Semi Open-Ended Questionnaire Questions

Questions

Opening Questions

1. What grade does your child (select one if there several at school) score on average?

1) F

2) D

3) C

4) B

5) A

2. How much income does our household generate annually? (tick where applicable)

1) A maximum of $15,000

2) A maximum of $30,000

3) A maximum of $45,000

4) A maximum of $60,000

5) Above $75,000

3. How would you rate tour school efforts in engaging you in the education process of your child? (tick where applicable)

1) None

2) Poor

3) Good

4) Very Good

4. Do you think your participation is sufficient? (tick where applicable)

1) Yes

2) I could do more

3) I like to do more but don’t have the time

Examination of the Result Slips

The parents who volunteer to participate in the study will be requested to provide a photocopy of their children’s result slips while submitting their filled questionnaires. The average score of the study will be conducted to determine the performance of the student. This average score will then be matched to the parent’s responsibility to confirm the parent’s response veracity.

Data Analysis

The qualitative approach to the study will examine the relationship between the variables identified in the study. The encoding of the data is critical to enables the attachment of a numerical variable that can be factored into the statistical analysis. Excel data analysis tool pack will be applied in the conducting of the analysis. The imaginative variation component of phenomenology will be applied to interpret the relationship between the study variables and deductions from the observation made in the data analysis (Busetto, Wick & Gumbinger, 2020). Since simple coding was applied in the data collection process, the comparison of the variable’s level will be made to the study’s reference level.

Multiple linear regression analyses will be conducted to determine the relationship between variables. The study’s dependent variable is the performance of the students. In contrast, the independent variables are the school’s initiative to involve parents, household income, and parent’s education level. Since regression analysis requires numerical data, the decoding of the variables will make the relationship between the variables and how they influence parents in public schools in their children’s educative process (Uyan?k & Güler, 2013). The inferential approach to the study will make it possible to correlate the main them identified in the literature review and make deductions as their impact on the parental involvement in the educative process within the construct of the conceptual framework.

The equation applied for the study is:

yi?=?0?+?1?xi1?+?2?xi2?+...+?p?xip?+?

where, i =n observations:

yi?= Child’s performance at school (dependent variable)

B0 = the y-intercept value when all independent variables are 0

?1 = the first independent variable

xi?= is the impact increasing value of the independent variable has on the predicted explanatory variables

?p= slope coefficients for each explanatory variable

?=the error that cannot be accounted for in the regression model

For each independent variable, hypothesis testing will be conducted using test statistics in the regression analysis results in excel. The rejection rules for the null hypothesis establishing a relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. The hypothesis is H0: ?1= 0, and the null hypothesis is H0: ?1? 0. Where the ? value is 0 at the y-intercept (Uyan?k & Güler, 2013). The statistical test will be obtained from the outputs in excel from the regression analysis. The alpha value selected for the study is (0.05). Still, since it is a two-tailed t-test, the alpha value that will be applied is 0.025 for the critical value under the sample population’s degree of freedom to confirm if they lie within the critical value P-value the regression result in excel.

The multiple R2 in the output in excel indicates a positive or negative relationship of the independent variables, where a positive value indicates a positive correlation and a negative relationship indicates a no relationship (-1?r?+1). Descriptive analysis will examine the parents’ socio-economic status in the study (Busetto, Wick & Gumbinger, 2020). The mean age of the parents, their level of education, and the number of children will be critical to determine the parents’ ability to provide a suitable learning environment for their children. Other factors that can be confirmed from this study are the physiological impact on the children and the consequent impact on the children’s performance.

Chapter Four: Research Results

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of the social-economic status of the participants.

  Age

  Number of School-aged children

  Level of education earned

Mean

Mean

Mean

Standard Error

Standard Error

Standard Error

Median

Median

Median

Mode

Mode

Mode

Standard Deviation

Standard Deviation

Standard Deviation

Sample Variance

Sample Variance

Sample Variance

Kurtosis

Kurtosis

Kurtosis

Skewness

Skewness

Skewness

Range

Range

Range

Minimum

Minimum

Minimum

Maximum

Maximum

Maximum

Sum

Sum

Sum

Count

Count

Count

Largest (1)

Largest (1)

Largest (1)

Smallest (1)

Smallest (1)

Smallest (1)

Confidence Level (95.0%)

Confidence Level (95.0%)

Confidence Level (95.0%)

The respondents’ mean age was 33.1 years with an average of two children and had at least a secondary education level. the standard deviation for age is 9.9, o.6 for the number of children, and 0.7 for education level. While the distribution of the population in age is highly dispersed, their skewness in the number of children and the level of education does not vary very much.

Table 3: Regression Analysis

SUMMARY OUTPUT

Regression Statistics

Multiple R

R Square

Adjusted R Square

Standard Error

Observations

ANOVA

df

SS

MS

F

Significance F

Regression

Residual

Total

Coefficients

Standard Error

t Stat

P-value

Lower 95%

Upper 95%

Lower 95.0%

Upper 95.0%

Intercept

household income

School Interventions

level of education

The valuable independent X1, which is the household income, directly impacts the child’s performance, holding all the other independent variables constant. The rejection of the null hypothesis is above 0.025 since it is significant 2.39 and has a P-value of 0.029, which falls in the test’s non-rejection area. The school intervention, which is the second independent, has a significant impact on the child’s performance. It has a P-value of 0.044 lies within the two tails; therefore, it does not reject the null hypothesis. The level of education also has a significance on the child’s performance since the P-value is 067, which also lies within the two tails; therefore, the null hypothesis is not rejected. As a result, all the study results show that all the independent variables impact the child’s performance.