Education is fundamental in imparting knowledge among students in the population. Aspects of appropriate leaning processes and effective methods of improving the leaning process are thus contentious topics in education. In this regard, educational enhancements over the years have involved various researches that seek to find better ways of learning. Studies on human psychology and on concepts of education have examined the education domain to understand ways of enhancing learning. It is also worth noting that the learning process transcends the conventional teaching and classroom activities. Students learn more through interactions with their environments than they do in class. The learning process is a long one and involves various stakeholders. Parents should be involved in education to ensure improved learning both in and outside classrooms.
Parental involvement in a child's education is a shared responsibility between teachers and parents in helping children achieve their academic goals. Training involves learning, which is a lifelong process, and is different as the child grows. Regardless of the level of education, parents should be more involved in their child's education through active participation in their learning process. The best predictor of a child’s success is neither their socioeconomic status nor the resourcefulness of a school but the attachment of the parent to the child’s education. Parental support provides children with both emotional and educational support in school-based projects and lifelong learning. The involvement entails the incorporation of parents and even guardians in learning through activities and the provision of information. Most of this information concerns children and their performance in school. With such involvement, a lot of goals in education can be realized appropriately.
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Literature Review
The essence of parental involvement in education has for a long time been a subject of discussion. Most of the educational programs involve the focus on education in the confines of the classroom walls. The method is only conventional in terms of how different schools understand learning. It is agreeable that learning takes place as much outside school as it takes place in class (Benner, Boyle, & Sadler, 2016). The challenges that face education are mainly based on the enhancement of methods.
Parental involvement is one of the trends in education. The trend entails engaging parents in activities occurring in school. There is more to education than learning inside the confinements of the walls. Learning in classrooms and outside classroom perimeters should be given equal concentration since they are both crucial in a child’s educational development. Education involves challenging and different experiences outside the classroom, which bakes a child into a complete future responsible citizen. These trends are common in our current education system. More events, however, occur outside of school. For instance, educators prefer that parents are given information that helps them to understand how the learning process works. The challenges that face education are more skewed to the social and emotional motivation of a child that it is to standard education procedures in school. In recent research, studies have revealed that when a parent becomes more involved in their children’s academic activities, the child will have improved results and increased motivations. The results were consistent in children regardless of their race, age, or financial status.
Intellectual capacitation is essential as the parents can understand and even be part of what the students are learning (Benner et al., 2016). Parents are able to help their children to understand different concepts by following what their children learn. Most of the time, there is also a need to provide information to parents on matters of school and the events or activities. The information is passed to parents in the form of school letters and teachers' comments. Mostly, school letters explain to parents what is happening at school. The messages are to notify parents of upcoming events, which include general meetings and even sporting events. It is essential to understand that school letters are crucial to keeping in touch with performance (Ule, Živoder & du Bois-Reymond, 2015). Arguably, a teacher may pass the information on a child's behavioral change to parents. The parent can understand the challenges of the student. This parent-teacher involvement increases the possibility of correcting erratic behaviors such as truancy, aggression through bullying, and depression.
When educators involve parents in the learning process, they enhance a child's adaptability to a new learning method. Parental involvement in a child's education may include family-school partnerships, which also enhances effective relationships between all members of the school community. Partnerships between parents and the school management increase students' competency and improve competency and social skills. School programs such as invitation of parents to the education system and devising ways to make them learn are critical in enhancing the educational growth of a student (Ule et al., 2015). Invitations of parents make them more comfortable with the school curriculum, and they are more probable to become involved in the system. Parental engagement in the school curriculum may include active participation in classroom and school activities within the institution. Useful resources supplied to parents offer correct guidance, which can be used at home to nurture kids' skills and talents further. By encouraging the engagement of parents within the institution, the community at large will help support children beyond their educational success. Children will learn that family plays a critical role in their education in the future, thus shaping their social skills (Benner et al., 2016).
A smooth flow of communication between parents and teachers increases the probability that the child will be more successful educationally. Positive parent-teacher communication of the events that take place in school positively impacts the quality of learning the child receives. Effective communication between parents and teachers can be maintained using emails, active phone calls, parent conferences, parent-teacher organizations, and many other ways. Notification of student’s performance, behavioral changes, and new mood patterns are among the crucial information that should be shared between teachers and parents (Ule et al., 2015). Proper communication flow should be maintained. Timeliness, consistency, and clarity are among communication strategies that should be adopted within the system. When adequate and effective methods are incorporated, cases of child misbehaviors are drastically decreased. A positive social, emotional, and academic achievement is achieved when all strategies are incorporated into the system.
Parental involvement in school activities enhances good relationships between parents. Parents' association is one example of a good school culture that has leveraged the importance of their participation in schools. Parent association is a structure within an institution through which guardians or parents can work together to improve the education of their children (Muller & Kerbow, 2018). Since education is a lifelong process and does not involve the school curriculum alone, parents can work together and device ways to improve their children's performance. Educational research shows that students achieve higher academic levels when parents work together to create a sustainable environment for learning. The association enhances learning processes by suggesting extra-curricular activities and advising the management board on issues that may require reviews of the school policy. Such policies may include bullying, behavior problems, safety, and even homework enrolment.
Parental involvement also occurs through activities involving parents at school. These activities that mainly focus on parents help the parents to interact among themselves. Consequently, parents get a platform to bond and exchange ideas amongst themselves and with teachers (Muller & Kerbow, 2018). Planning these activities is also an excellent way to understand the issues that parents face. Problems such as relationship squabbles negatively affect are detrimental to the performance of the students socially and even emotionally. The essence of these endeavors is to ensure that safer environments are created for the sake of better educational success. Additionally, it’s very significant to reconcile the learning environment for all the key stakeholders.
The involvement of parents in education leads to better social adjustment, motivations, and academic achievement among children regardless of the socioeconomic status, race, or age of the child (Barger, Kim, Kuncel, & Pomerantz, 2019). Parents should, nevertheless, be cautious about their involvement in children's education because of "Greater parental involvement in One children’s homework is linked with reduced academic attainment” (Barger et al., 2019). More engagement, nevertheless, does not interfere with the motivation of the children to learn (Barger et al., 2019). Barger et al. (2019) explored the impact of parental involvement in motivation, engagement, and academic achievement of children; their emotional and social functioning (self-esteem, prosocial and cooperative behavior), and delinquent acts (aggression and substance use). Barger et al. (2019) also investigated whether the type of parental involvement was vital, for instance, attendance of parent-teacher conferences or other events versus engaging in cultural or intellectual activities with children away from school. The study found a consistent impact of parental involvement across various kinds of parental involvement in which parental involvement positively affected academic performance, and emotional and social wellbeing (Barger et al., 2019).
Studies also show that parental involvement in education is vital as it leads to improved school attendance and completion (Ross, 2016). Ross (2016) examined "whether parental involvement factors that depict positive relation to student success also depicted positive relation to school completion”. The different types of parental involvement examined include family rules for supervising children at home, parental participation in school activities, parent communication to school about issues, school communication to parents, parent-school communication, parental advising, and involvement of parents in extracurricular activities of children. The results demonstrated that parental involvement positively affects school completions, especially their participation concerning the educational attainment of children (Ross, 2016). The study shows that parental involvement concerning the aspiration of parents for their children’s learning significantly determines student success in school — parents who have more significant or positive expectations about the educational achievement of children influence children to be successful.
The level of income affects parental involvement and attendance of school events. In 2016, the number of parents reported to have been attending events in schools showed a difference in wealth. For instance, 62 percent of the parents came from low-income families (Muller & Kerbow, 2018). On the other hand, 93 percent were from wealthy families. The information is crucial as it shows the differences in parental involvement in education. It is apparent that most parents from low-income families would avoid events in school in connection with the challenges that they face at home. The fear of exposing themselves and their children to societal ridicule may be the issue. The initiative, nevertheless, is a good one as parents can resolve their emotional and mental crises to allow children to learn better.
It is also important to create parental information resource centers through legislation to enhance education. In such a case, the parents’ involvement is to ensure that there is an intentional effort with the aim of ensuring that children that are graded as ‘in need of improvement’ acquire help. (Ule et al., 2015). Slow students need their parents to show them that their efforts are critical and that their learning habits need to improve.
One of the theories that support parental involvement in education is the cognitive development theory. The theory emphasizes the various stages of development of children. Despite its unique focus on children rather than learners, the approach is crucial as people develop in stages, including the operational and even the formal and logical steps (Ule et al., 2015). It is vital to understand that as children grow, they develop cognition based on what and who is around them. Children in their earlier stages may seek the attention of their mothers by doing what seems to attract attention to them. Parents are also crucial to the development of cognition. Families play a significant role in the imparting of knowledge in which logical thinking occurs even in the formal stage, and the purpose of the family is to guide understanding and to improve the experience.
The ecological systems theory is another critical model for addressing the parental involvement subject. The theory cites various ways in which environments contribute to the knowledge of a child (Benner et al., 2016). Apart from the place of families, the approach adds that other agents such as the media also contribute. The theory supports various factors such as learning at home in which parents learn and assist the students in learning if they are provided with enough information. The theory also posits that the availability of communication is a crucial factor in the education of a child, which highlights the importance of communication between parents and teachers. Communication creates knowledge of the abilities of a child and the rate at which a child develops cognitively (Castro, Expósito-Casas, López-Martín, Lizasoain, Navarro-Asencio & Gaviria, 2015). The theory also suggests that children may be able to improve decision making through parental involvement. Since children also learn from observation, parental leadership in institutions brings forth the idea of decision making. Children see the place of parents in arrangements such as parents-teachers associations as the representation of decision making.
It is vital to ensure that parents and teachers work in coordination to ensure that there is a proper improvement in education. Interactionists such as Jean Piaget consider parents to be the center of a child's learning. The use of families to go beyond just life skills is essential. In this case, families may contribute directly to the development of education by helping in decision making. For instance, after the assessment and determination of children's abilities, the parents may take the initiative to design appropriate methods to enhance learning for the child.
Research Design
The research design involves a myriad of methods that can be used for finding and analyzing crucial information. Design models include types and subtypes, which all describe the method that may be needed (Yin, 2017). Research design depends on what the researcher intends to address in their study. The kind of information that the researcher needs to acquire is also a determining factor. It is important to clarify the purpose of the study before choosing a research design.
Parental involvement is a vast topic of study based on the various intrigues of education. Two research designs can be used in the present study – descriptive study design and the systematic review research design. In the descriptive design, information is gathered through mostly observatory skills (Patten & Newhart, 2017). The use of both observation and case study may work best in this design. Observation is crucial in collecting descriptive data, such as what parents do for their children in various situations.
A descriptive research design was a method adopted in parental involvement since the study was aimed at depicting participants in an accurate way. The study based its findings on describing parents and students who were to take part in the survey. Observatory subtype was an essential method to be used since it viewed and recorded participants, qualitative data necessary in the study. Under the observational research design, the naturalistic way was commonly used to observe children and parents in their natural setting. A naturalistic design is a qualitative research approach whereby the observer is a witness of what is happening in the specified context, and the observations are not manipulated or staged by any factor. Yin (2017) suggests that qualitative research provides an accurate explanation of a research problem. The study offers anecdotes, observations, descriptions, and conversations about how teachers, parents, kids, and the administration deal with their issues. The quality in the design comes from the extent and depth of observations Ross, 2016). Data was collected by visiting schools and homes of children and observing their characters. At home, various representations were recorded, including a child's communication skills, emotional intelligence, and the relationship with their parents. The child's parental behavior and their involvement with the child's educational progress were vital variables that were recorded. These qualitative data collected in a natural setting, at home and school, were carefully stored for further analysis. The time of collection of data was also natural, that means that observers would go and attend classes, parent association meetings, and be at home to accurately describe the relationship between the two variables.
Surveys could also be considered in the study. The survey involves brief discussions and interviews with parents, children, and teachers about their involvement in the education system. The selection of a representative sample that would be used to make conclusions would be very critical. In the survey method of collecting data, parents would be interviewed and asked questions regarding how informed they are about their children's curriculum. Children could be asked about their performances and how they might relate to their relationship with their parents. Teachers could also be surveyed, and their relationships with parents investigated. Surveys could be an effective method of collecting data, combined with a natural observational approach.
It is also possible to consider a few cases and use them to deduce a general view. A case study for this study may entail children who perform well and a group of others that do not, and a comparison of cases, such as low-income families and more affluent families. The information of interest in these cases is the involvement of parents in the children’s institutions. The case study subtype in the descriptive design is very crucial as it is through a case study that the researcher understands the effects of parental involvement in the education of the students.
A case study is an in-depth analysis of a small group of participants. A comprehensive review of parents and their involvement in their child's education could be carried out in this study. In the case study, the consideration of the two variables was deeply analyzed. Case study designs help researchers fully understand the research question hence accurate summary and recommendations of the findings (Ross, 2016).
Another essential design is a systematic review. A systematic review provides detailed information on how parental engagement influences a child's educational performance. The report would be created after reviewing and combining information about the effect of parent involvement in a child's education. The data could be from a published or unpublished source and summarizing its findings. The systematic review is essential since it provides reliable and more accurate studies. Evidence-based sources from the report are cheaper requires new time since there are no further studies conducted. Previous research conducted on parent involvement in education was very important sources, and findings could be generalized. The systematic review is a vital type of research design, and it involves the use of other researches and written analyses as an integral part of the study. The systematic review helps the researcher to understand the view and approaches of other researchers (Yin, 2017). The theories, such as cognitive development by Piaget, may be crucial sources for analysis. The previous works of Piaget are essential in the systematic review. Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience that deals with how children develop in the process of gaining mental knowledge. Children mentally develop from observations and experimentations to learning sophisticated mental knowledge such as basic conversations and communication skills. According to the study, there are four stages of a child’s development. Sensorimotor, the first stage of a child's development occurs between birth and two years. Here, the child perceives the world through physical interactions. They develop the ability to separate individuals from objects in their surroundings.
After two years to seven years, the child moves to the second stage of development, which is the preoperational stage. During this period, the child starts to think symbolically and represents objects using words. They also struggle to think about other people's perspective since they are egocentric. The third developmental stage, according to the cognitive study, is the concrete operational stage. Logical thinking and understanding of the concepts of a conversation are the significant characteristics in this stage. Children begin thinking in an organized manner, and their reasoning leans towards a general principle. The formal operational stage occurs to children above 12 years. They start using deductive reasoning and think more about moral, social, and ethical issues. The systematic review helps in analyzing previous researches which were conducted and saves time for researchers while they are performing their studies.
In Piaget’s cognitive research study in regards to the survey, one can evaluate how the involvement of parents could help a child's education in several ways. The environment influences a child's mental ability. Children learn by how they perceive the environment, and when parents actively grow their child's logical reasoning, their mental knowledge grows. When a parent becomes more involved in the activities of the child, the child learns that a family is critical towards their knowledge growth. Their ability to perceive the environment and think logically enables children to learn new skills and develop positive emotions. Education involves school-based learning processes and life-long social developments assessed by morals and emotional responses. The design enables the researcher to have various logic to form an argument.
Educational Measurement
Educational measurement involves the use of assessments, evaluation, and analysis of scores and data from schools to establish a level of educational understanding and competence of a child. Educational measurement is used as a metric to measure the abilities of a child in skills such as reading, writing, and comprehension. Educational measurement is primarily concerned with data analysis from tests and other educational assessments. Teachers becoming more involved in data-driven instructions and other educational assessment data will help them develop better decision-making capabilities on how they teach. Through evaluation of assessment metrics, teachers can know what their students know and what they do not. When conducting education measurement, term definitions such as measurement, assessment, and evaluation play a critical role in understanding evaluation.
Measures of education are used in determining attributes of knowledge. The standard test in school includes raw score data, standard scores, and percentile ranks of students (Conley, 2016). Assessment, one of the primary measurement tools in education, is an essential element in education assessment. A teacher gathers educational information by giving children tests, conducting a consistent interview, and monitoring child behavior. Assessment tests should be prepared adequately and carefully to enhance its validity and reliability. Children's assessments should provide consistent results and must be accurate. This means that an evaluation conducting the effect of parental engagement on a child's performance should provide accurate and precise results.
Evaluation in educational measurement is a process of using measurements gathered in assessments. The creation of valid and reliable evaluations plays a critical role in the accurate analysis of educational data. Researchers use evaluation data to judge the relationship between the involvement of parents in child education and their educational results (Barger et al., 2019). The provision of tests in assessing education is not a reliable tool. Education has various parts, and students may be demoralized when tests are used as a unit of measure of their level of understanding. Test-based assessments have a negative motivational effect on some students, particularly students who perform poorly in class. Careless implementation of child tests used in assessments may have negative consequences, especially when the needs of special education children are not considered. Educators argue that using the written test as the only formal method used in assessment does not provide the actual overall picture of the students’ achievement (Conley, 2016). Students who perform best with both oral and visual skills will be misinterpreted in written tests. Basing performance of children on standardized test scores will not represent actual results and mental capability of a child. Excellent quality education involves both written and oral exams, which should be considered while conducting education measurements.
Therefore, Educational measurement and also the evolution of students are crucial components of education. The analysis involves the use of assessment tests to grade the abilities of a child. The interest lies in finding out the unique skills of the child and their intelligence. It is also essential to understand how much the student can know. Measurement in education is essential as it enables the quantification of the ability of students appropriately. Quantification is based on marks or grades or even percentages that identify the knowledge level of the students (Benner et al., 2016). It is also important to identify bits of intelligence among learners. Bits of Intelligence shows the ability of students in specific domains. These include the ability to deal with logical expression or the ability to read or create good speeches. These abilities may help improve the quality of education. The focus due to the discovery of bits of intelligence must be on how to ease learning by focusing on the areas a student is good at.
These bits of intelligence are only discoverable through educational measurement. The students are taken through a series of tests involving random, organized, and planned tests. Educators, however, argue that the use of tests and examination is detrimental to the excellent quality of education. The argument is that examinations may fail to assess the actual ability of a student (Conley, 2016). The concept of the exams eliminates logical and critical thinking that a practical assessment may exhibit. The method of measurement is highly relevant in analyzing the ability of a student. The educational measurement may also be both positive and negative.
Summary
Education creates a good base of knowledge and is a continuous process in learning. The setup is an important aspect of being formal or informal. The coordination of the methods of education is also very significant. The involvement of parents is crucial in ensuring that there is a collective responsibility. It is important to consider that parents need to be actively involved in the learning process. The family is the first unit of socialization for children. There are various mechanisms that parents use to accomplish the goal of socializing children. For instance, through observation, the children may learn skills from their parents. Reinforcements such as grounding and punishment also contribute in the children’s learning process. In the same way, parental involvement helps to reinforce the mechanisms of teachers. The parents being closer to the students can work on the behavior of the children and understand what they are taught by practicing with them.
Parental involvement is a crucial way to deal with various problems in school. The issues may range from the use of drugs, behavior change, inability to comprehend, special needs, and truancy. Challenges may sometimes emerge due to the behavior of the parents. Strained relationships at the family level may have negative impacts on the children’s educational outcomes. These challenges can be mitigated by designing a comprehensive parental involvement program in schools, in which the parents, teachers, and students will be allowed to air their grievances and concerns. Parents need to be made aware and understand that constant disagreements and chaos affect the performance of their children. A well-thought out research design can be paramount in disseminating this information.
References
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