Effectiveness Of Parental Involvement

Education is an important key to develop human resources, reduce illiteracy and poverty, and improve economic sustainability. In other words, education produces human resources and develops society ( Sam, Ahmad &Hazri, 2012). Moreover, education is an important factor provides individuals with knowledge, values, attitudes, capacity, and skills in order for them to be able to live in society with harmony and peace (UNESCO, 2010). The Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has also recognized education as a significant key for developing human resources and social development. In addition, The Royal Government of Cambodia has created many policies, strategic plans and regulations such as the rectangular strategy, pro poor policy which seeks to promote and enhance the educational sector (Sam, Ahmad &Hazri, 2012). The Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport (MoEYs) has also put into practice Government policy and employed some strategic plans and goals. For example, its goal for education for all and its child friendly policy to enhance education field, particularly basic education, focuses on early childhood in pre- school and primary school (MoEYs, 2007). It is widely recognized that primary school stage is very important because in primary school children acquire basic knowledge, values, attitudes, and skills. Furthermore, pre-school and primary school education forms the basis for the next cycles of education (Fabian & Dunlop, 2007). The government regards the importance of early childhood education; it provides benefits to their lives as to be pillar of the country, and early childhood education is considered as a prioritized work, the first component of education for all, and a strategy for alleviating poverty. With the intention to promote early childhood education to be qualified and efficient, the department of early childhood education put their great effort to provide equal opportunity access to education for all children and encourage relevant stakeholder through cooperation with concerned ministry and development partner in developing early childhood education to be better. The ministry, institutions, relevant department, development partners, local authorities, local communities, parents, and guardians have been needed to implement those purposes (MoEYs, 2010). More importantly, for primary school education to be effective, successful in children’s learning, the active involvement of key stakeholders such as schools the community and NGOs particularly parents is needed (Luna, 2012). The Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport (MoEYs, 2010) is keen to encourage the involvement of parents and community councils in all stages of schooling. In early childhood, children need to be involved from their families at home. For instance, parents’ activities to encourage children learning, prepare convenient environment for children and help children learning task because children spend most of the time at home with their parents and the amount of time children spend in school for the eighteen years of their lives is small. It is approximately 13% of waking hour if compare to the total time they spent with the family and their broader community (Redding, N.D). Problem Statement

In the Cambodia context, Cambodian people have had a long tradition of participation in the construction of school infrastructure. According to MoEYs (1999), community parents have played a significant role in supporting finance and materials as well as labour in constructing schools for their children’s study. Furthermore, to help their children’s study, some households spend money on extra learning for their children in the competitive society (keng 2004). However, parents’ home-based involvement in improving their children’s learning performance at school is still weak despite efforts of MoEYs to encourage parent’s involvement in education through the promotion of the Education law (MoEYs, 2007, chapter 7, article 36). It states ” parents or guardians of minor children have the rights to acquire information and study the records of the learner from the educational institutions and the rights to be active and have ​​ full participation in order to develop education standards at school and national levels, and it ​ ​ gives the right for formation of a School Support Committee which includes student’s parents’ representatives with the intention to run school smoothly.” (MoEYs, 2007). Parents’ participation in their children’s education is an important part in developing their children’s foundation knowledge since parents become their children’s first teacher and they have a vase impact on children’s performance and learning success ( Desforge, 2003 ) . However, most parents do not involve themselves in their children’s learning. Keng (2004) observed that many Cambodian people tended to have low daily interaction with their children’s education and the relationships between parents and teachers were seen to be weak. Izzo, Wiessberg, Kasprow, and Fendrich (1999) stated that “parents in urban areas tend to be less involved in children’s education and poor quality relationship with teachers” (p. 820). According to my personal observation, another problem is that some parents assume that feeding their children, sending them to school, giving finance, and supporting some materials is adequate, but these supporting is not enough. In addition, Cambodian parents had the lowest levels of parent involvement as express in measures of attitudes, contact with school, home-based control over children’s behavior and provisions of material support for homework ( Cynthia, García , Daisuke Akiba, Natalia , Benjamin , Rebeccar, Lisa , & Chin, 2009). Also, they hope that their children will get high grades, perform well and succeed in learning outside school as only teachers are able to educate and provide basic knowledge to their children. However, international research studies suggested that the involvement of parents can be very important for children’s education. For instance, parental involvement has a positive influence on children’s improvement and performances both at home and at school (Siddiqui, 2011). Similarly, Henderson, and Berla (1994) have argued that when parents are involved in their children’s learning at home, they go farther in school, and the schools perform better. Most researchers have long believed that parental involvement is closely related to student success (Luna, 2012). It is significant to note that parents are one of the most influential yet significantly underrated factors in their children’s learning, and society should encourage more parental participation in public education (Schai, 2006).Moreover, much research in the last 20 years has supported family involvement as a positive influence on children’s learning (Denise, Onikama, Ormond. Hammond & Stan Koki, N.D). Thus, to help children to get better grades, perform well, and succeed in studying at school. Cambodian parents need to understand the importance of their involvement in their children’s study. This study will investigate parental home-based involvement in their children’s learning in one school in Angkorchey district, Kampot province to find out parents’ beliefs of their involvement associated with some activities happen at home or outside school. Research Questions ​ To discover parents’ beliefs about the importance of parental home-based involvement in their children’s learning, identify parental involvement variables which are associated within their children’s study such as parental helping reading and writing, checking and assisting homework, creating home learning environment, monitoring children watching television. The research will be conducted in one primary school by using the following questions; 1. What are parents’ beliefs about home-based involvement in their children’s learning? 2. To what extent are parents involved in their children’s learning outside school? 3. What are the reasons for the extent of their involvement? Significant of the Study ​ In Cambodia society, it is important to do research on parental home-based involvement in their children’s learning. There has been much international research conducted on parental home -based involvement, but there is not much research in Cambodia related to this topic. This research may provide some benefits for teachers, students, parents, and policy makers. It will provide encouragement to parents, and teachers to be more actively involved in their children to learn best at school, also, make parents and children themselves be aware of their roles in terms of education so that they can help their children learning activities at home better. It also provides important information and considerations for stakeholders and policy-makers to strengthen quality of education as MoEYs’ priority policy, in order to support parents, and children in terms of educational provision with quality and equity. The findings will promote and strengthen the awareness of policy-makers, educators and contribute benefits for policy makers who can use this finding of the research to develop educational policy linked or integrated parental involvement in education sector, particularly early childhood. Furthermore, this study is possibly beneficial for future researchers who are interested in similar topic area in terms of both avoiding weakness of this research and improving as much as they can do. Finally, the findings of the research can be used for any possible things. 

Definitions

Definition was defined with different variety related to parental involvement in their children’s learning. Pomerantz and Moorman (2007) determined parents’ home-based involvement, as “parents’ practices related to school that take place outside of school usually though not always, in the home”(p. 375). In this study, there are four elements of parental home-based involvement in their children’s learning are identified: parental helping reading and writing, checking and assisting homework, creating home learning environment, monitoring children watching television.

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Parental helping reading and writing is defined as parents’ activities to assist children read book, book story, school course books, and writing is considered as parents’ activities which help children to write alphabet, words, number in letters ( Berthelsen & Walker, 2008). ​ ​ Checking and assisting homework is addressed as parents see if their children has homework from school or not, and help correct the homework (The UK Department for Children, School, and Families, 2008). Creating home learning environment is identified as parents prepare place, equip chair, table, books, book shaft, and library, decorate educational pictures, and prevent noise or interruption (Sumaiti, 2012). 

Monitoring children watching television is defined as parents limit time and control what programs children can or cannot be viewed (Bauch, 1994). Proposed chapter outline of your research paper ​​​ There are five main chapters in the research papers. First, Chapter 1 Introduction shows the background, problem statement, research question, and significance of the study. In the introduction, It provides readers with the background information for the research paper. It is important to make readers interested in the study, which is the broad description about the area under the study and the links for the problem that leads to the research study. Chapter 2 The Review of the Literature tells who is mentioning what about the things the researcher is interested. Therefore, the related studies and past studies related to parents’ beliefs about parental involvement and association with parental helping reading and writing, checking and helping with homework, monitoring children watching television, and creating home learning environment will be written to share with the readers. Chapter 3 Research Design and Methodology is the main part of research paper. It consists of introduction, method of data collection, sample design, and sampling process, planning for fieldwork, data analysis procedure, limitation, and conclusion. Chapter 4 Analysis and interpretation of data, which consist of introduction, data analysis, discussion, and conclusion, are about the interpretation of the data received from the fieldwork and the judgment of the result if it is consistent or not to the prior research to what extent. Chapter 5 is addressed on Summary, Recommendations, Limitations of the study, a road for future research and Conclusion followed by References and Appendix.

Chapter Two

Literature Review

Introduction

It is important to review the research literature related to the topic of parental home -based involvement in their children’s study because it shows what the researcher have done in this topic area and it is an important map for the next research. Moreover, it shared the reader the results of other studies that are closely related to the one being undertaken. Using Hun Sen and Jam Cook University library, Google Scholar-advanced search and some other websites such as Zunia.org, academia.edu, Eric, Unesco.org , several possible essential articles and journals have been found for my research topic area, but not many article or journal were found written in Cambodia context. Moreover, some recent articles and journals are needed to purchase, and it was difficult for researcher to get access to the articles. However, some considerable research studies have been conducted in this area to find out, determine, and promote parental involvement in their children’s learning. ​​ Keywords used for identifying the literature were divided into two categories, first, perceptions of parental involvement, second, effectiveness of parental involvement divided into four: parents involve in helping reading and writing, parents involve in checking and assisting homework, parents involve in creating home learning environment, and parents involve in monitoring children watching television. It is also addressed the parents’ beliefs about their involvement in those above activities in literature review.

Perceptions of Parental Involvement

There are a number of researchers studied on the perceptions of parental involvement perceived from difference participants such as parents, teachers, students, or children. The research of Veerle, and Nicole (2009) on 250 ten-year-old children in Flanders by using quantitative method showed that children seem to like their parents’ participations. Likewise, the study on a British multiethnic primary school, researched on teacher perceptions of Pakistani ESL children’s parent’s participation in their education. The results revealed that the ESL parents were very interested in their children’s learning (Rebaca, and Huss,1997). However, the parents’ perception of parents’ involvement in the governance of a Namibian rural school the data was gathered in three way; semi structured interview, observation, and document analysis. The result indicated that parents’ participation and their full association in making a decision was acknowledged to be important (Niitembu, 2007). On the other hand, Abd and Sabry (2003), using a sample of 300 students in an Egyptian high school, showed that student’s perception of parental association was found to differ significantly by type of parental participation and parents’ education level.

Effectiveness of Parental Involvement

Parental involvement in the form of ‘at-home good parenting’ has an important positive effect on children’s achievement and adjustment even after all other factors shaping attainment have been taken out of the equation (Schai as cited in Desforges, 2003). In addition, a report was stated that it was probable and heavy not related to low income or social status. However, it is seem to be according to the extent to which student’s family was able to create home environment, help reading and writing, assist homework, monitor time watching television, express high expectation, and their beliefs of their involvement which was able to support and encourage children learning that was effected on children’s leaning ( Andrew, Houtenville, and Karen Smith , 2008).

Helping reading and writing

A five-year longitudinal study selected 168 primary class children in which the complex relationships among early home literacy experiences, following receptive language and growing literacy skills, and reading accomplishment were studied. The results indicated that children’s exposure to books was related to the improvement of words and listening comprehensive skills, and these language skills were straightly related to children’s reading in grade 3. However, parent participation in teaching children about reading and writing vocabulary was related to the improvement of early literacy skills. Early literacy skills straightly estimated word reading at the end of grade 1 and indirectly predicted reading in grade 3. Word reading at the end of grade 1 predicted reading understanding in grade 3. therefore, the various ways which lead to smoothly reading have their roots in diverse aspects of children’s early experiences and parent involvement. (LeFevre & Sénéchal, 2002). Previous research on recently emigrated Southeastern-Asian family groups revealed that parents read aloud to their children either in English or in their native language; students from those families earned considerably higher grades ( Caplan, 1992). Similarly, MICHIGAN Department of Education (2002), after reviewing research articles, clarified that parents who read to their children, have books available, guide television watching contribute to students high success. In addition, two articles I read investigated on parental involvement in their children’s education studied the impact of parental involvement on children’s study; in this report, survey questionnaires and interviews were used to obtain information from parents. And data received from National Child Development Study (NCDS) was used to explore the effect of parents’ involvement in their children’s education, likewise, Berthelsen and Walker (2008) conducted on parents’ involvement in their children’s education selected age four preschool students were chosen to be in the study. They were indicated that parent’s participation in the first school age has an impact on children’s achievement and constantly improvement in the next cycles of education. Moreover, family involvement also provides advantages for children’s improvement and performance in the skills of reading, writing, and number study as well as building parent’s confidence in assisting children at home. Parent/child interaction are essential in preparing the child to learn in school: talking to the infants, listening attentively to the child, reading to children and listening to them read, telling story, everyday conversing, and letter writing ( Redding, N.D). Parents helped their children reading and homework and read with their children in the past week made children performance very high. Moreover, parents were reported that the importance of helping their children with academic work was effective and their involvement in those activities they believed that would help their children succeeds (Drummond, 2004). In addition, there was considerable benefit when parent involve in reading; parent listen to their children read, parent arranged for children reading, pair reading and parent involve in teaching reading and preparing material for children reading, these activities were effected on children learning (Sheila, Topping, Keith & Wolfendale,1985). ​​ Checking and assisting homework ​​​​ ​ ​ Henderson (1994) reviewed 66 studies involving parent involvement and student accomplishment and found that when parents are involved in their children’s study at home they perform better in school. He stated that homework and spending-time watching television during the week are important or mediating variables which may be under the control of parents and are, thus, means through which parental participate in may have an effect on learning well. He also found that students who spend extra time on homework watch less television during the week; this additional time spent on homework, in turn, increases student achievement. Similarly, the study of Tam and Chan (2002) examined parental involvement in homework and its relation to primary school children’s studying outcomes within the Chinese socio-cultural context of Hong Kong. Data were collected using homework diaries and questionnaires administered to 1, 309 pairs of students and teachers spanning all six primary grade levels in 36 primary schools in Hong Kong. Three parental involvement elements such as autonomy support, direct involvement and provision of structure in homework were examined in relation to educational outcome. It was found that the benefit of parents’ homework involvement varies according to the child’s grade level. The authors state that among junior primary students, parents’ provision of guidelines and structure is related to child’s efficacy beliefs in academic performance as well as self-regulated learning. They also found that parental assistance to children of younger ages is more likely to be effective in cultivating young children’s learning motivation and efficacy beliefs because the children rely more on their parental emotional and practical support when they are given heavy homework pressure. Likewise, Patall, Cooper and Robinson (2008), used a meta-analysis of 22 samples from 20 studies correlated parent involvement and students achievement. It showed that setting rules about when and where homework should be done has the strongest positive relationship with success. Setting rules also entails clearly communicating expectations, providing guidelines and reinforcing behavior when rules are followed. This strategy may be a particularly effective way to increase the time students attend to homework task or the effectiveness of how time is used. Monitoring homework involved checking that homework is completed is negatively related to achievement whereas direct involvement aid, which involves the parents giving feedback on homework accuracy or tutoring and giving instruction about the content of homework, is positively related. The research on parental involvement in children’s homework which addressed the understanding on why parent started involve in their children homework, and which activities and approaches they used in the course of involvement. Researchers also focused on how their homework involvement influenced on children performance and outcomes and which student’s outcomes are impacted by parent involvement. Parent reported to be involved in homework because they have belief that they should be involved; their involvement will make a positive difference, and they revealed that children or teacher need their involvement ( Hoover, Dempsey, Angela, Battiato, Joan, Walker, Richard. Reed, Jennife, DeJong, Kathleen, & Jones, 2001). ​ ​​ Creating home learning environment​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​ ​ ​The important roles of parents can have in their children’s learning. The author suggested that parents play a crucial in guiding and supporting in their children’s homework. It was important that parents can provide an appropriate place where children can work at home ​(Lustberg, 1998). In addition, parents must monitor homework time and make sure students have an atmosphere conducive to studying and organizing their time and responsibility. Parents have to learn to ask the appropriate questions with the help from school. A crucial parents’ responsibility was to help set up realistic schedule so that students could be busy after-school involvement. Parents and their children needed to work together as they planed the daily and weekly events. This helped them establish a schedule, which allows enough time to get short and long-term assignment completed. When children collaborate with their parents on this important task, they usually acquire a sense of ownership and take more responsibility in adhering to the schedule. By doing so, homework time nagging by parents can frequently be avoided.​​ The research by Saunders (N.D) explored parental involvement and parents’ perception of student achievement among middle school students. This study was conducted with the participants of sixth, seventh and eighth graders. The study found that the structure of home environment is benefit to student achievement. When homes are conducive to learning, it sends the message education is important. Appropriate material is also essential to student achievement. Parents spend more time helping their children with homework and projects when there is both designated time and place for t he child to study. Outlining the program related to home environment with the intention of parents can use in their home to support and build up their children learning development. The author showed that educator, policy planner, and parents can assist together to create stimulation home learning environment can strengthen learning in school and improve academic success and socioeconomic status or cultural background was not much considered.(Kellaghan, Thomas, Sloane, Kathryn, Alvarez, Benjamin, Bloom,&Benjamin, 1993). ​ ​

​​​ Monitoring children watching television​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​ ​ Redding (N.D) stated that children have benefits when their parents are attentive to their whereabouts​​​, know their friend and monitor their television viewing. However, when children watch television more than ninety minutes per day, school performance do not success, and the amount of time provided to television viewing is being robbed from a productive activity particularly reading or studying. Likewise, a research studied on parental involvement on student’s academic, using data from Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002(ESL, 2002). The result illustrated that family used rule at home for example rule for watching television positively effect on children’s learning as parents limit their children’s approaching to television, it is possibly for children can spend more time staying connected with constructive learning activities which possibly enhance their learning to be successful (Fan & Williams, 2010). Similarly, the report based on reviewing the past study intended to provide the evidence depend on an educational television programs this report showed that the impact and value of television rely on television kind of television program show and the way in which they used by the viewers. Watching television programs on television may be either indirectly or directly effect on process of learning performance, behavior .well-educated program can help improve children’ reading or writing. It also stated that children learn more when their parents view and discuss the program with them better than children watch it alone. Furthermore, viewers who provide comments and the meanings and help improve children’ learning programs (Australian Council for Education Research (2010).

Chapter Three

Methods ​​​ ​ ​Methodological details of this study will be presented. The first section will be described the​​​​​​​​​ overall research design of the proposal. The second section will be explained about sample size and sample technique. The third section will be presented about data collection instrument. The fourth section, regarding to the data collection Process, will be illustrated, and the last section will be addressed on ethical consideration. Research design ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​ ​ ​​​​​ ​The purpose of the study is to discover parents’ beliefs about parental home-based involvement in their children’ learning which focus on parental helping reading and writing, checking and assisting homework, creating home learning environment, monitoring children watching television. ​​​The researcher is interested in producing result representative of the general population of parents with lower- primary school-age children on a large scale, in one school in Samlanh commune, Angkorchey district, Kampot province. In addition, this study will use a survey questionnaire with interviewing. According to Straits, Royce,A., Singleton, J., and Bruce (2005) stated that using the combination of two instrument, the procedures tend to be standardized for all respondents in order to enhance reliability of the data. ​​​​Sampling Size and Sampling Technique ​ ​ A primary school selected for the study is one of the primary schools in Samlanh commune, Angkorchey district, Kampot province. This school is serving 367 students from preschool grade-to-grade six. Families served by the school live in the village nearby.​​​​​​​​​ Children depend more on parents’ emotional and practical support, but for children in advanced grade levels, their dependence on parents lessens as learning materials become more difficult for parents to support. In this regard, the researcher will select only grade one, grade two, and grade three students and their parents to be studied in the context of rural area. The research selective group, consisting of the parents of children in grade one, grade two and grade three will be the representatives as sampling in this study in term of rural area. The research group will consist of the parents of grade one (A= 47), grade two (B=59) and grade three(C=50) in the school year 2013-2014​​​. It is totally 156 students from three grades; this represents 100 percent of those three grades; grade one A=30.12 % (n=47), grade two B= 37.82 %( n= 59), grade three C= 32.05 %( n=50). 156 students in grade one, grade two and grade three will be selected in nonrandom way, purposive sampling. According to Gay, Mills, and Aiasian (2009), nonrandom sample, purposive sampling is the process to select sample that can be represented of the population. On the other hand, random sampling is the process that every individual has equal chance to be selected and participate in the study (p. 134). The interview will also be conducted in this research; in order to conduct the interview, the sample is needed. 30 student whose parents are the representatives of the study will be selected from the three grades in nonrandom way; grade one (n=8) grade two (n=12) and grade three (n=10). In order to select those students, the researcher will use the lists of students from each grade, select every name of grade one, grade two, and grade three. Gender, age, name, ethnicity will not be the factors in the selection of the sample for the study. ​​ Data Collection Tools ​ The data collection tools in this study need to be used. The recommended research tools in data collection of this study are questionnaires and interview. These methods will ensure the researcher with reliability and validity. However, ” self report measures of using these instrument on parent involvement have another drawback in that they tend to be closed-ended surveys that cannot fully capture the dynamic nature of parents’ involvement in their children’s learning (Soden, Amy, Baker &Laura, N.D). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Questionnaires​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​ The self-administered questionnaire, designed by the researcher, will be used to gather data related to parental home – based involvement which associates with the variables and parent’s beliefs of their involvement. When the questionnaire has been prepared, the researcher will ask another researcher to help and check for more accuracy and ask professor to help verify the questionnaire for truthfulness and accurateness. The questions will be prepared and divided into two parts. The first part of the questionnaire will ask for information about the participants’ demographic background such as gender, age, and occupation, number of children, family’s income, and the level of parent’s education. The second part of the designed questions will ask for the inf