Running head: A COMPARISON OF PERSPECTIVES

A Comparison of Perspectives
Terri Niess
Minot State University
ED 519

A COMPARISON OF PERSPECTIVES!

Literature Review
Definitions of Important Terms
Efficacy- effectiveness (ex: teacher, student, parent, or administrator)

Effective Parenting
Effective parenting, or parent efficacy, is found by Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, &
Brissie (1992) to be related to childrens school performance. This means that parents
have been found to affect how their children perform or what they accomplish in school
by how they react to student behavior, in a positive or negative manner. This included
the different parenting styles. They determined that their study showed that authoritative
parents allowed their students to develop higher levels of social and cognitive
competence, as well as better grades, than do peers raised in other parenting styles.
This seems to suggest that when parents believe in the abilities of the student, as well
as the confidence in their own abilities to guide their learning, the students are better off.
The results showed that parent efficacy is related, at modest but significant levels, to
volunteering, education activities, and telephone calls (Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, &
Brissie, 1992).
A study by Young and Growe (2008) showed results that each of these parental
involvement scenarios, such as parent-teacher conferences, working on homework at
home with the student, and many more, are related to effective parenting. It is the lack
of involvement related to parents not parenting children effectively, parents parenting
the way that he or she was parented, or parents lacking knowledge in terms of how to
parent children that affects how parents are involved in the classroom. The huge,

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overlying part of the results was that if school administrators want to have positive
parent involvement that they must strive to establish and improve communications
between parents and school personnel. This, they found, will make parents more
engaged and supportive (Young & Growe, 2008).
One of the factors that the authors, Hornby and Lafaele (2011) considered to be
absolutely influential in student achievement was that of parent interest and confidence
in their own education.
Parent Involvement
DePlanty, Coulter-Kern and Duchane (2007) stress the importance of parents
being actively involved in their students school life, especially during the developmental
years of middle school. They stress the importance of parents and schools working
together to shape the child during adolescence, getting parents actively involved early
and keeping them participating and advocating for their students through high school.
The researchers investigated parent-child discussion about school would help improve
academic achievement and also reduce problems in the classroom. They found that
though this parent-child interaction does improve grades and reduce issues, parents
decrease involvement in the schools during middle school to allow for student
independence.
Hornby and Lafaele (2011) studied parent involvement that is school based (such
as parent teacher conferences and parent education workshops) as well as home
based (such as homework). This study focused on the following as important questions
to ask about: improved parent-teacher relationships, teacher morale and school climate,

A COMPARISON OF PERSPECTIVES!

improved school attendance, attitudes, behavior and mental health of children, and
increased parental confidence, satisfaction, and interest in their own education.
Another important part of parent-involvement is parental support, such as helping
the child with homework, making sure homework is completed, created an environment
at home to complete homework, promoting the importance to an education, making an
investment in the childs education, and understanding how to best provide support to
the child (Young & Growe, 2008).
Parent-School Communication
DePlanty, Coulter-Kern and Duchane (2007) found that schools interfere with
parents that do want to get involved by not having open communication and support
from the school. Olmstead (2013) also stressed although the idea of parent involvement
in schools and student achievement have been studied for a long time, it still is an issue
for many principals and teachers. The author surveyed parents and teachers about the
value of proactive parent involvement and communication. They used the idea that
parents are not required to come into the school physically when teachers and parents
can use websites, phone calls, parent portals, online curriculum, and other types of
technologies to increase parental involvement (Olmstead, 2013). This is an interesting
way of looking at parental involvement that is different than the other articles that I have
read, due to the fact that there is stated that parents do not need to come into the
school and to talk face to face. I think this is also just showing a change of times, since
this article was written in 2013 and some of the articles that Ive read are one to three
years older than that. In the authors conclusion, Olmstead dictated that teachers and
administrators must stay current with communication tools, including participating in

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technology professional development. Not using technology to keep in touch with

parents is a barrier that keeps parents from being involved in their students education
(Olmstead, 2013).
Class size should also be considered in the interaction between parents and
teachers, as it allows for improved parent-teacher-school interactions. The authors
concluded that a schools student-teacher ratio appeared to be an important factor to
the quality of parent-teacher-school relations. There were many other important factors
for teachers and parents getting along such as parents attending conferences, in-school
activities, volunteering in the school, knowing what takes place during the day, seeking
information regarding the school, participating in school decisions, understanding the
curriculum, and parents working with parents (Young & Growe, 2008). Communication,
specifically that it needs to be two-way, from school to the parents, and parents to the
school was found to be a very important factor for positive communication (Young &
Growe, 2008).
Homework
Kohn, A. (2006) wrote an entire book about how homework creates conflicts
between teachers and students, such as in a survey of more than 1,200 parents whose
children ranged from kindergarteners to high school seniors, exactly half reported that
they had a serious argument with their child about homework in the past year that
involved yelling or crying. This supports the idea that schoolwork can create conflict
between parents and students, influencing the school as well. The question, then, is
how can schoolwork be used that does not hurt the relationship between the home the
school the student attends.

A COMPARISON OF PERSPECTIVES!

Parent Motivation
Hoover-Dempsey, Battiato, Walker, Reed, DeJong, & Jones (2001) discovered
that parents seemed to become involved in students school for the following three
reasons: they believe that they should be involved, they believe that their involvement
will make a positive difference, and they perceive invitations to involvement.
In conclusion, I believe there is evidence that schools alone cannot provide all
the support that allows for an increase in student academic achievement. In order for
schools to be successful, there needs to be good communication between parents and
the schools. There is a need for further study, as the authors above have left out a lot of
information about the responsibilities of parents in connecting and being active in the
education of their students, as well as the responsibility of the teacher in connecting
with the parents before issues get to be a real problem. I also think there is a mismatch
between what parents are actually doing versus what they think would help their
students. Parents seem to say one thing that would help their students, but they are not
doing that at home. I would assume that the same could be said about the schools, in
the parents perception. I would like to study that conflict.

A COMPARISON OF PERSPECTIVES!

References
DePlanty, J., Coulter-Kern, R., & Duchane, K. A. (2007). Perceptions of Parent
Involvement in Academic Achievement. The Journal of Educational Research,
100, 361-368.
Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., Bassler, O. C., & Brissie, J. S. (1992). Explorations in ParentStudent Relations. Journal of Educational Research, 85, 287-294.
Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., Battiato, A. C., Walker, J. M. T., Reed, R. P., DeJong, J. M., &
Jones, K. P. (2001). Parental involvement in homework. Educational
Psychologist, 36, 195-209.
Hornby, G., & Lafaele, R. (2011). Barriers to parental involvement in education: an
explanatory model. Educational Review, 63, 37-52.
Kohn, A. (2006). The homework myth: Why our kids get too much of a bad thing.
Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press.
Olmstead, C. (2013). Using technology to increase parent involvement in schools.
TechTrends, 57, 28-37.
Rodriguez, R. J., & Elbaum, B. (2013). The role of student-teacher ratio in parents
perceptions of schools engagement efforts. The Journal of Educational
Research, 107, 69-80.
Sheppard, A. (2009). School attendance and attainment: Poor attenders perceptions of
schoolwork and parental involvement in their education. British Journal of Special
Education, 36, 104-111.
Whitaker, M., & Hoover-Dempsey, K. (2013). School influences on parents role beliefs.
The Elementary School Journal, 114, 73-99.
Young, C. Y., Austin, S. M., Growe, R. (2008). Defining parental involvement: Perception
of school administrators. Education, 133, 291-296.