The Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Urban Secondary School Student Academic Achievement

TLDR

This meta‑analysis of 52 studies investigates how parental involvement affects academic outcomes for urban secondary school students. The authors performed statistical analyses using four outcome measures—overall achievement, grades, standardized tests, and teacher‑rated attitudes—to assess overall and component‑level effects and to examine differences by race and socioeconomic status. Parental involvement significantly improves academic outcomes, with effect sizes of about 0.5–0.55 standard deviations, and benefits are observed for both White and minority students.

Abstract

A meta-analysis is undertaken, including 52 studies, to determine the influence of parental involvement on the educational outcomes of urban secondary school children. Statistical analyses are done to determine the overall impact of parental involvement as well as specific components of parental involvement. Four different measures of educational outcomes are used. These measures include an overall measure of all components of academic achievement combined, grades, standardized tests, and other measures that generally included teacher rating scales and indices of academic attitudes and behaviors. The possible differing effects of parental involvement by race and socioeconomic status are also examined. The results indicate that the influence of parental involvement overall is significant for secondary school children. Parental involvement as a whole affects all the academic variables under study by about .5 to .55 of a standard deviation unit. The positive effects of parental involvement hold for both White and minority children.