Do parents make a difference to children's academic ... - Aea 267

Family factors and academic achievement 443followed by their ‘Desired level of education’. ‘Length of time’ and ‘Push for highachievement’ were, similarly, moderately correlated with ENTER scores. The size ofthese correlations ranged from 0.0 to 0.48. ‘Interest in schooling’ and ‘Satisfactionwith education’ were very weakly related with ENTER scores, but only the formercorrelation was significant.All variables showing statistically significant differences between parent groupsaccording to ANOVAs were entered on to an SPSS 11.0 data sheet to investigatewhich parent variables best predicted student achievement. Table 4 displays theunstandardized regression coefficients (B), the standardized regression coefficients(β) and adjusted R 2 . R for regression was significantly different from zero, (F(6, 461)= 25.09, p < 0.001). Only two of the independent variables contributed significantlyto the prediction of student ENTER scores, with 24% of the overall varianceexplained by parents’ ‘Expectations of their child’s expected level of education’ andthe ‘Length of time’ parents had these expectations.Summary of responses to six open-ended questions posed to parentsParents of students in the high achieving group of schools chose their children’sschool for very different reasons to the other parent groups, with the former statingthat the religious education/culture, strong academic focus, small class sizes and goodteachers provided by the school were their priorities. In contrast, parents of themedium and low achieving schools were more interested in a more general, lessacademic, coeducational and well-located school that had good facilities andsurroundings. In all groups the majority of parents were happy with their choice ofschools and gave similar responses, mainly because their children were happy andbecause the school had met their expectations.When asked to explain their schools’ final-year results, parents of students in thehigh achieving group of schools were all fully aware of their schools’ results over pastyears, as well as the current year, and gave almost identical reasons for the results.Essentially, they described the results as excellent, and attributed them to the commitmentof the teachers, high levels of student motivation and hard work, and to thefamilies’ and schools’ high expectations and pressuring of the students. In contrast,many parents of the medium and low achieving schools stated they ‘did not know’what the results were and said that final-year results were unimportant to them. Thoseparents of the medium achieving group of schools who were aware of the results statedthat they were either pleasing or average and this was due to teacher commitment.Table 4.Regression analysis summary for parent variables predicting student ENTER scoresVariable B βExpected level of education 55.82 1.00***Length of time had expectations 39.56 0.56**Note: Adjusted R 2 = 0.24 (N = 467, p < 0.001).

446 N. Jacobs and D. HarveyVCE results were unimportant to them. Responses to the open-ended questions showthat academically successful students have parents with high academic and careeraspirations for them and who provide the opportunity for the academic engagementof their children in family practices, such as discussion of current events and familyparticipation in cultural activities. These factors suggest that although many studieshave demonstrated that students from low socio-economic and/or single-parent familiesare less likely to be academically successful than those from an opposite homeenvironment, parents can use family practices in many ways to mediate the negativeeffects of confounding variables. For example, low-income parents who are activelyinvolved in their children’s education and school may therefore be able to mediate thenegative effects associated with the lack of economic resources.This research was based on the traditional view of academic achievement in whichachievement scores (ENTER) were used for measuring school success. These scoreswere chosen as the preferred measure of academic achievement as ENTER scores areconsidered a nationally equivalent measure of school achievement (Victorian TertiaryAdmissions Centre, 1999). It was, however, recognized that there is much moreinvolved in school success than ENTER scores and that not all schools shared traditionalvalues about academic achievement. Most parents in the high achieving schoolsconsidered school success in terms of academic results (ENTER scores). On theother hand, many parents in medium and low achieving groups of schools supportedthe view of Gallup (1975, 1980) who believed school success is about students’ character,self-esteem and social development. An important question arising from thisresearch is the degree to which parental attitudes and expectations differ according towhether a school’s overall performance is considered outstanding or average in termsof academic success. More particularly, if schools can be identified as being consistentlyoutstanding in terms of academic results, is it also possible to identify differencesin parental attitudes and expectations with respect to academic outcomes?Future research would also benefit from investigating the generalizability of theseresults to parents of government school children and whether parent attitudes andexpectations vary according to the child’s gender.ReferencesAlexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R. & Horsey, C. S. (1997) From first grade forward: early foundationsof high school dropout, Sociology of Education, 70, 87–107.Amato, P. R. & Keith, B. (1991) Parental divorce and the well-being of children: a meta-analysis,Psychological Bulletin, 110, 26–46.Astone, N. M. & McLanahan, S. S. (1991) Family structure, parental practices and high schoolcompletion, American Sociological Review, 56, 309–320.Bartlett, M. S. (1954) A note on the multiplying factors for various chi square approximations,Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 16(series B), 296–298.Bryant, F. B. (2000) Assessing the validity of measurement, in: L. G. Grimm & P. R. Yarnold (Eds)Reading and understanding more multivariate statistics (New York, American Psychological Association),99–146.Caldas, S. J. (1993) Reexamination of input and process factor effects on public school achievement,Journal of Educational Research, 86(4), 206–214.

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448 N. Jacobs and D. HarveyWalker, S. P., Grantham-McGregor, S. M., Himes, J. H., Williams, S. & Duff, E. M. (1998)School performance in adolescent Jamaican girls: associations with health, social and behaviouralcharacteristics and risk factors for dropout, Journal of Adolescence, 21, 109–122.Williams, P. (1980) Adolescent identification and academic achievement: reporting the awarenessof similarity to role models, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9(4), 315–321.Wright, S. P., Horn, S. P. & Sanders, W. L. (1997) Teacher and classroom context effects onstudent achievement: implications for teacher evaluation, Journal of Personnel Evaluation inEducation, 11, 57–67.