Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.5 Parental involvement
2.5.2 Research on parental involvement and children’s achievement
The positive correlations between parental involvement and children’s academic performance have been proven completely (e.g., Fehrmann et al., 2001; Liu, 2006; Sattes, 1989). For example, Sattes (1989) proposed that high levels of parental involvement have greater effects on children’s learning and achievement especially meaningful parental involvement which is the most ideal parental involvement in children’s learning and has greater effects on children’s achievement. Sattes (1989) specified meaningful involvement as involvement from which parents can see a direct benefit to and impact on their children. Thus, in her study, Sattes (1989) concluded that parents may respond more positively to children’s studying if they knew something that was understandable, fun and possible to do. In
Fehrmann’s et al. (2001) study of home influences on school learning, they proposed that increased parental involvement contributes to higher grades; thus, parents have an important influence on students’ learning as well as on their grades. In addition, the effects of parental involvement are especially stable at elementary level. When studying the relationships between parental involvement in schooling and Taiwanese children’s results, Hung (2007) suggested that besides family social status, and family learning environment, parental involvement is related to children’s academic achievement; the findings suggested that schools should involve parents more intimately in taking responsibility for their children’s education. The positive correlations of parental involvement with children’s achievement are proven conclusively.
Other research into the cultural differences in relationships between parental
involvement and children’s achievement has been conducted (e.g., Gao, 2006; Pan, Gauvain,
& Cheng, 2006). Gao (2006) assessed the effects of parental involvement on Chinese parents and found that Chinese parents’ involvement have a deep impact not only on Chinese
students’ language learning attitude and motivation but also on the participant’s strategy use and learning beliefs, which are crucial to learner’s development. In Pan’s et al. (2006) study regarding mathematics learning, the conclusion reached is that compared to American parents, Chinese parents have higher expectations of their children’s academic achievement and that motivates parents to get more involved in their children’s academic learning and mathematics skills.
As for the factors that influence parental involvement, they are relatively few in number.
In Zhou’s (2006) book, he listed six factors that influenced parental involvement. The factors are parents’ socio-economic status, gender, educational level, race, expectations in children’s education and others. The study examines the correlations of parental attitudes towards English learning on parental involvement.
CHAPER 3 METHODOLOGY
This chapter illustrates how the study is designed and conducted. There are six parts making up this chapter. Part One presents the overall design of this study. Part Two explains the background of participants and how participants are chosen for the study. Part Three introduces the instrument used in this study. Then, the results and procedures of the pilot study are presented in Part Four. The detailed procedures of the whole study are incorporated in Part Five. Finally, the statistical methods used for data analysis in this study are explained in Part Six.
3.1 Research Design
This study aimed to explore parental attitudes towards English learning and to investigate its correlations with children’s English academic performance, parental
expectation of children’s English education and parental involvement in children’s English education. The research design was as follows:
Figure 3.1. Research design of the study.
Parental Attitudes towards
English learning Parental expectation of children’s English education
Parental involvement in
children’s English education Children’s English academic performance
3.2 Participants
The study explored parental attitudes towards English learning from the perception of parents themselves. The participants were 352 parents of the sixth graders in Wanhua District and Da'an District in Taipei City and there were 300 valid questionnaires in total. Three elementary schools in each district and two classes in each school were recruited in this study.
After deleting all incompletely filled questionnaires and any questionnaires not filled in by parents, the valid questionnaires numbered 300. In total 152 questionnaires were collected in Wanhua District with a return rate of 91% (N = 167). In Da'an District 160 questionnaires were collected and the return rate was 86.5% (N = 185). The total return rate was 88.6% (N = 352). Table 3.1 showed the number of participants in each district.
Table 3.1
Number of Participants in the Two Districts
Wanhua DistrictSchool Number Return Valid Invalid
Tung Yuan 55 53 52 1
Fu Shing 54 48 47 1
Shuang Yuan 58 51 49 2
Total 167 152 148 4
Da'an District
School Number Return Valid Invalid
Da An 59 48 47 1
Ming Chuan 65 57 53 4
Gu Ting 61 55 52 3
Total 185 160 152 7
The participants were chosen for the following reasons. First, after consultation with elementary school English teachers, the parents of sixth graders in Taipei City were selected.
Since sixth graders in Taipei City have learned English in school for at least three years since they were in the third grade, their parents should have more experience in instructing and getting involved in their English schoolwork and education. Second, the parents of sixth graders were chosen to ensure that all the participants have English learning experience. Most of them had received formal English education in junior high school since the Taiwanese government implemented English education programs in junior high schools from 1968 onwards; they were thus able to respond to questions about parental attitudes towards English learning.
Finally, as for the reasons behind selecting Wanhua and Da'an Districts in Taipei City, the discrepancy in household income and educational level between the two districts was the main factor. According to statistics data sourced from the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics in Taipei City Government in 2007, the number of people possessing college education level or above was highest in Da'an District and lowest in Wanhua District. That is, residents in Da'an District had higher education level than residents in Wanhua District.
Furthermore, when referring to household income, Wanhua District had the highest percentage of people with the lowest family income, namely NT 521,008 per year. On the contrary, Da'an District had the highest percentage of people with the highest family income, which was NT 2,408,287 per year. The discrepancy in these districts may cause discrepancy in parents’ background or their social-economic status. Due to such discrepancy in parents’
background, the study aimed at exploring parental attitudes towards English learning in these two districts and any subsequent correlations with children’s English academic performance, parental expectation of children’s English education and parental involvement in children’s English education.
3.3 Instruments
In this study, the main instrument was the questionnaire for parents, with children’s
English academic performance being focused on in the study. The questionnaire was used to elicit not only parental attitudes towards English learning but also parents’ expectation of English education and parents’ involvement in children’s English education. The
questionnaire included four sections, namely, (a) demographic information, (b) parental attitudes towards English learning, (c) parental expectation of children’s English education, and (d) parental involvement in children’s English education. The designs of the four parts were specified as follows.
Children’s English academic performance in this study was represented by their English final scores in the fall semester of the 2008 academic year. Due to different scoring policies in different classes, schools and even districts, the scores were standardized and transformed into T scores before analyzed in this study.
3.3.1 Demographic information
The questionnaire started with parents’ demographic information. There were six questions regarding parents’ (a) gender, (b) education level, (c) occupation, (d) relationship with learners, (e) time starting learning English, and (f) total time of receiving formal English education.
3.3.2 Parental attitudes towards English learning
In this section, parental attitudes towards English learning were elicited by a
thirteen-item five-point Likert scale and one open-ended question. Based on Oskamp (2005), there were five ways of studying attitudes: description, measurement, polls, theories and experiments. The study aimed at quantifying and scaling attitudes so Likert’s scale was used in this study to measure parental attitudes towards English learning.
The five-point Likert scale was graded with comments of strongly agree 5, agree 4, no comment 3, disagree 2, strongly disagree 1. The higher the score; the more positive the
statement. There were thirteen items including two factors: feelings of ease about English learning and overall feelings about English learning. Questions 1 to 9 were questions about parents’ feelings of ease about learning English and English skills such as listening, reading, speaking, writing, grammar, pronunciation, culture and vocabulary. Parents were asked whether it was easy to learn these English skills or not. On the other hand, Questions 10 to 13 were related to parents’ overall feelings about English learning including feelings of
achievement, fun, happiness and the like. Question 14 was an open-ended question. It ran as follows: “According to your past or current English learning experience, what is the most difficult part of English learning for you? Or what assistances or resources do you need most during the process of learning English?”
3.3.3 Parental expectation of children’s English education
Following the scale of parental attitudes was another scale used to measure parents’
expectation of children’s English education. Based on Liu’s (2006) and Chen’s (2004) questionnaires in their studies, a ten-item five-point Likert scale ranging from always 5, usually 4, sometimes 3, seldom 2, to never 1 was designed. The higher the score was, the higher the parental expectation was. The questions were about parents’ actual actions and requirement in children’s (a) current school work, (b) learning situation and (c) future plan for studies and career.
3.3.4 Parental involvement in children’s English education
The final part of the questionnaire including twelve items in a five-point Likert scale and two open-ended questions were used to explore parental involvement in children’s English education. The twelve-item five-point Likert scale with responses of always 5, usually 4, sometimes 3, seldom 2, and never 1. The higher the score was, the more involvement parents had. The questions in the scale were based on Chang’s (2005), Chen’s (2004) and Liu’s (2006)
questionnaire in their studies. In general, the scale included parents’ participating in children’s school activities, parents’ working on schoolwork with children at home, and parents’ taking part in children’s learning experiences.
There were another two open-ended questions about parental involvement in children’s English education. They were (a) “When instructing or facilitating children’s English
schoolwork, what kinds of difficulties have you encountered and what resources or assistance do you need?” and (b) “What are the factors that decide whether or not you get involved in children’s English schoolwork?” The complete questionnaire in formal study is included in Appendix C while the English version of the formal questionnaire is included in Appendix D.
3.4 Pilot Study
As part of this study, a pilot study was conducted with 41 parents of six graders in Xisong elementary school in order to test the reliability and the face validity of the three scales of parental attitudes, parental expectation and parental involvement. In addition, parents’ responses to the three open-ended questions were also examined to ensure the face validity, which was done to ensure that the meanings of the questions were understood completely. The complete questionnaire for pilot study is in Appendix A while the English version of the questionnaire is included in Appendix B.
As for the reliability of the pilot study, Cronbach α was adopted to test the reliability of the three scales. The three scales all had high reliability and the Cronbach α value were .862 for parental attitudes towards English learning, .967 for parental expectation of children’s English education and .901 for parental involvement in children’s English education.
For the pilot study, the scale of parental attitudes towards English learning consisted of twenty items including three parts, namely, learning difficulty in English, affective feelings in learning English and transmission of learning experience to children. After the proposal oral defense, considering the objectives of the study and the suggestions of committee member
and advisors, the part, transmission of learning experience to children, was deleted. The items deleted were Questions 14, 17, 18, 19, 20 in the Questionnaire for pilot study (See Appendix A). The other two parts, learning difficulty in English and affective feelings in learning English, were changed into the name of the feelings of ease about English learning and the overall feelings about English learning. Items 15 and 16 in the pilot study were combined as one item, Quesiton 13 in the formal questionnaire. Furthermore, the wording of parental attitudes towards English was changed as well. Any negative descriptions of statements were deleted or changed into positive descriptions; negative words such as difficult, frustration and dislike were replaced with positive words such as easy, fun, achievement and like. Items 8, 12, and 14 in the pilot study were deleted because of its negative descriptions.
As for the third part about personal English learning experience in the pilot study, most of the questions were deleted because they were not directly related to the objectives of the study, which was the affective domain of parental attitudes. Questions 3 to 9 in the pilot study were deleted and Questions 1 and 2 in the pilot study were removed to the part of
demographic information. Only one open-ended question was left in the scale of parental attitudes towards English learning in the formal questionnaire. The open-ended question was
“According to your past or current English learning experience, what is the most difficult part of English learning for you? Or what assistances or resources do you need most during the process of learning English?”
With regard to the scale of parental expectation and parental involvement, there was no item deleted in the scale of parental expectation since they had reliability and face validity. In the scale of parental involvement, Items 4 and 9 in the pilot study were deleted after
consulting one elementary school teacher and the advisor. In addition, in the two open-ended questions about parental involvement, the phrase “after school instruction” was clarified and elaborated as “when you are facilitating or instructing your children’s English schoolwork”
because in the pilot study, most parents misunderstood the meaning of “after school
instruction” as a kind of after-school program for children. The modified questionnaire for formal study is provided in Appendix C and the English version of questionnaire is in included in Appendix D.
3.5 Procedures
Four steps were taken to conduct this study. First, the pilot study with 41 participants was conducted one month before the formal study in order to examine the reliability and face validity of the questionnaire. Second, after the pilot study, the data for formal study was collected. A note (See Appendix E) explaining how to conduct the study was distributed to teachers at the selected schools. The teachers distributed the questionnaire to the students asking them to bring the questionnaire back home and ask their main care-taker or school-work facilitator to fill out the questionnaire. Then, the teachers returned the questionnaires and a list of students’ final English scores in the fall semester of the 2008 academic year to the researcher.
After the collection of the questionnaires, the invalid questionnaires which were not filled in completely and not filled in by parents were removed. According to Chiu (2006), any questionnaire that remains only half filled in is treated as an invalid questionnaire. Then, the valid questionnaires were coded. Finally, the data of the questionnaires were analyzed and learners’ English scores were standardized and transformed into T-scores by SPSS statistic package for Window 12.0. Figure 3.2 was the procedures of this study.
Figure 3.2. Procedures of the study.
3.6 Data Analysis
The study centered on the quantitative analyses; SPSS statistic package for Window 12.0 was used in this study. Before commencing analysis, children’s English scores were
converted into T-scores. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation were conducted to answer the research questions of this study. Parents’ demographic information and parental attitudes towards English learning were calculated by descriptive statistics.
Pearson Correlation was used to verify the positive or negative correlations of parental attitudes towards English learning with (a) children’s English academic performance, (b) parental expectation of children’s English education, and (c) parental involvement in
Step One: Pilot Study
1. Recruiting 41 parents of six graders from Xisong elementary school.
2. Examining the reliability and face validity of the data.
Step Two: Data Collection
1. Introducing the study to the selected teachers2. Having learners’ ask their parents to fill out the questionnaire
3. Retrieving the questionnaires and learners’ English scores from the select teachers
Step Three: Data Coding
1. Leaving out the invalid questionnaires2. Coding the data collected from the questionnaires
Step Four: Data Analysis
1. Analyzing the data, and presenting the resultschildren’s English education.
CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter will report the results of this study as well as presenting all data analysis and statistical results. To analyze the data collected from the questionnaires, descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation are used in this study. This chapter includes five sections.
The first section of this chapter is the background information of the participants including participants’ education level, occupation level and social-economic status. In the second section, parental attitudes towards English learning in Wanhua District and Da'an Districts are presented; parents’ difficulties in English learning and assistances needed for English learning are also presented in this section. The third section deals with the correlation of parental attitudes towards English learning with children’s English academic performance. The fourth part of this chapter deals with the correlation between parental attitudes towards English learning and parental expectation of children’s English education. The final section discusses the correlation between parental attitudes towards English learning and parental involvement in children’s English education. The factors that influence parental involvement in children’
English education and the assistance and resources that parents need for children’s English education are also examined in this section.
4.1 Background Information of Participants
A total of 352 parents of six graders from Wanhua District and Da'an District
participated in this study, and there were 300 valid questionnaires in this study. There were 148 (49.3%) parents from Wanhua District and 152 (50.7%) from Da'an District. Table 4.1 was the number and percentage of the participating parents from the six schools in the two districts.
Table 4.1
Number and Percentage of Participants in Wanhua District and Daan District
Wanhua
School Tung Yuan Fu Shing Shuang Yuan Total
N 52 47 49 148 (49.3%)
Daan
School Da An Ming Chuan Gu Ting Total
N 47 53 52 152 (50.7%)
The following two parts concern participants’ education level, occupation level and social-economic status. They were discussed in detail individually.
4.1.1 Participants’ education and occupation level
In Wanhua District, nearly half (48.6%) the participants’ education level was graduation from high school, while in Da'an District, nearly half (53.3%) of the participants had
graduated from college. As for educational achievements above college level such as master or PH.D. degrees, while there were only 8.1% of participants in Wanhua District, Da'an District had 19.1 %: considerably higher than in Wanhua District. In general, parents in Da'an District had a higher level of education than parents in Wanhua District. The results were consistent with the statistics data from Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics in Taipei City Government in 2007. Table 4.2 showed the number and percentage of
participants’ education level in Wanhua District and Da'an District.
Table 4.2
Number and Percentage of Participants’ Education Level
Levels ElementaryNote. 1 missing value in Da'an District
As for parents’ occupation level in this study, they were classified into five categories according to Lin’s (2005) classification. The five levels were advanced-professional, professional, semi-professional, technician and labor level. In Wanhua District, over half (62.2%) participants were in level (technicians) or in level (labors). In Da'an District, Ⅳ Ⅴ on the other hand, participants’ occupations were equally distributed in levels , , and Ⅱ Ⅲ Ⅳ
, which are professional, semi
Ⅴ -professional, technician and labor. In general, although there was no striking discrepancy between parents’ occupations in Wanhua and Da'an Districts, parents in Da'an District were represented in higher percentages in higher education levels
Ⅴ -professional, technician and labor. In general, although there was no striking discrepancy between parents’ occupations in Wanhua and Da'an Districts, parents in Da'an District were represented in higher percentages in higher education levels