The Effects of Four Components of Parental Involvement on Eighth-Grade Student Achievement: Structural Analysis of NELS-88 Data

Abstract

The present research was undertaken to assess the effects of different components of parental involvement on the academic achievement of eighth graders. Four components of parental involvement considered were parental aspirations for children's education, parent-child communication about school, home structure, and parental participation in school-related activities. Data from a nationally representative sample (The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988) of 21,834 students and their parents were analyzed using latent variable structural equation models. The results suggest that educational aspirations of parents have a powerful influence on the eighth-grade student's achievement. The study found a small negative effect of home structure on achievement and no effect of parent-child communication and parental participation in school-related activities, once other variables in the model were controlled. These effects appear age-specific, suggesting that parent involvement may affect learning more in elementary than in middle school. The research suggests that educators and practitioners should work to nurture parents' educational aspirations for their children.