Different associations of parental involvement with children’s learning of Chinese, English, and math: a three-wave longitudinal study

Abstract

Due to the impact of COVID-19, children and their parents are spending more time at home, which increases parent-child interactions. The goals of the present study were to examine the mediating effects of children's learning engagement on the relationships of parental involvement in Chinese, English, and math performance and to investigate whether parent-perceived parental involvement and child-perceived parental involvement consistently affected children's academic performance. Data were collected from 253 Chinese primary school students (117 boys, Mage = 10.53) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We included parental involvement perceived by the parents and by the children to comprehensively describe parental involvement (in wave 2); we collected children's learning engagement (wave 2); and we compared children's Chinese, English and math academic performances before (wave 1) and after (wave 3) China's first wave of COVID-19 in 2020. The results showed that after controlling for gender, age, and SES, the parental involvement perceived by parents could be directly and positively related to children's learning engagement, and it also indirectly influenced children's learning engagement through the children's perceived parental involvement. Learning engagement was a mediator of the relationship between parental involvement and children's academic performance. Parental involvement significantly predicted children's Chinese and English performances through their learning engagement, while parental involvement failed to predict children's mathematics performances during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current research provides insights into the underlying mechanisms of how parental involvement affects children's academic performances during school closures and hopes to guide parents and schools to consider how to cooperate and continue to use rapidly developing digital education resources amid the long-term impact of COVID-19 to provide children using more effective and suitable guidance in the future.

The impact of Covid-19 on student achievement: Evidence from a recent meta-analysis

“…More teachers' guidance and training would have been needed. Using data on Chinese primary school students during Covid-19, Wang et al (2022) concluded that parental involvement had a positive impact on children's achievement in Chinese and English, but not in math. While parents are likely to be knowledgeable about the learning content of Chinese and English lessons, this may not be the case for math lessons.…”

Elementary School Teachers’ Readiness in Teaching Technology-based Literacy

“…Teachers' readiness in the literacy teaching process also includes an orientation to incorporating parents in literacy learning, particularly in forming reading habits. The involvement of parents plays a vital role in the success of student learning (Alharthi, 2023;Rousoulioti et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2023), especially when it comes to gaining English literacy (Mak et al, 2023;Padmadewi et al, 2018). As a result, teachers are encouraged to employ parental involvement in learning English literacy in schools, particularly for elementary school students who still require parental guidance and supervision.…”

Assessing Chinese primary mathematics teachers’ self-efficacy for technology integration: Development and validation of a multifaceted scale

“…This study aims to fill this gap by developing and validating a quantitative scale that assesses technology integration in primary mathematics education based on seven critical factors: Attitude, AI Utilization (AIU), Contextual Factors (CF), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge and Technological Content Knowledge (TPK_TCK), Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK), Educational Challenges (EC), and Parental and Community Involvement (PCI). These factors have been identified through a rigorous review of relevant theories and empirical studies and are deemed essential for a holistic understanding of technology integration in this context (Davis, 1989;Ertmer et al, 2014;Mishra & Koehler, 2006;Wang et al, 2023).…”

“…EC refers to the barriers and difficulties in integrating technology into primary mathematics classrooms (Ertmer et al, 2014). Finally, PCI recognizes the crucial role played by parents and the community in supporting and enabling technology integration in schools (Wang et al, 2023). Based on the seven dimensions, this study aims to develop a scale to offer educators and researchers a reliable and valid instrument to measure the complex dimensions of technology integration in primary mathematics education.…”