The Relationships Between Parental Influence and Student Achievement in Seventh Grade Mathematics

Abstract

Parental influence has been identified as an important factor affecting student achievement, but the variables addressed by various parent‐school partnership programs vary, and lack literature support. This deficiency was ameliorated in this study through an analysis of a national data base from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY). AH parental variables investigated in LSAY were considered in this study, and significant variables of students' achievement in seventh grade mathematics were selected through the Backward Elimination Procedure in the Statistical Analysis System (SAS). The results show that those variables significant at α= .05 have accounted for around 22% variability of the student achievement. A further analysis of the empirical results seems to indicate that parent education and encouragement are strongly related to improved student achievement. However, parents should attempt to understand students' feeling, and expect students to take the full responsibility for their successes in the school.

The impact of socio‐economic status on participation and attainment in science

“…Shaver and Walls's (1998) study on eighth graders' mathematics and reading achievement, concluded that parental involvement, regardless of the child's gender or SES, was a positive influence on academic success. Wang et al (1996) show that parental education and encouragement are strongly related to seventh grade students' performance in mathematics. They obtained significant predictors of mathematics achievement using backwards elimination.…”

“…Many US studies have shown that, irrespective of a child's background, parental involvement has a positive impact on academic achievement (Wang et al 1996, Epstein et al 1997, Shaver and Wallis 1998, Dryfoos 2000, Starkey and Klein 2000. In a 4-month intervention experimental study using maths kits for home use, Starkey and Klein (2000) found that children in the experimental group whose mothers were taught how to use these kits developed greater maths knowledge and skills than those in the control group.…”

“…For example, Wang et al (1996) found that in the US parents' involvement with children's homework had a negative relationship with achievement. It is difficult to interpret this result if parents' educational background is not known.…”

Perceived Parental Influence on Mathematics Learning: A Comparison Among Students in China and Australia

“…The types of parental involvement studied can be generally categorised into two: direct assistance and indirect assistance (Cai et al, 1997). Direct assistance, such as helping children with mathematics difficulties and helping children with mathematics subject choice, was found to have a less important impact on students' mathematics performance (Cai et al, 1997;Wang et al, 1996). Indirect assistance, such as parental encouragement, parental expectation, and parents' attitudes towards mathematics, were frequently identified as having a significant impact on students' attitudes towards mathematics, students' participation in advanced level mathematics and students' achievement in mathematics (Ma, 2001;Poffensberg and Norton, 1959;Wang et al, 1996).…”

Parental Influences on Students' Self-Concept, Task Value Beliefs, and Achievement in Science

“…Moreover, parents' social status and students' perception of family learning environments were found to be related to students' achievement. In addition, Wang, Wildman, and Calhoun (1996) (1996) parental involvement in terms of discussion of schooling with children at home was found to be significantly related to academic achievement. Therefore, findings in the literature in general indicated that parental influences not only related to students' motivation but also their achievement.…”