Do family-school connections buffer the effect of family stress?

Carrie A. Blevins, M.A., Susan M. Sheridan, Ph.D., S. Andrew Garbacz, M.A., Kevin A. Kupzyk, M.A., Michelle S.
Swanger-Gagné, M.A., and Katie L. Magee, M.A.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

This research is supported by a grant awarded to Dr. Susan Sheridan by the Institute of Educational Sciences at
the U.S. Department of Education. The opinions expressed herein are those of the investigators and do not reflect
the funding agency (Grant #R305F050284)

Introduction

 Children with family risk factors are disproportionately susceptible to various behavioral and socioemotional
problems at home and school.
o Students experiencing family stress (i.e., low SES, high parental stress, single-parent status) have
heightened problem behaviors (Takeuchi, Williams, & Adair, 1991; Walker & Cheng, 2007).
o Additionally, the number of risks in early childhood predicts externalizing behavior problems in
adolescence (Appleyard et al., 2005).

 Family involvement and parent-teacher relationships are positively linked to behavioral success in children
(Comer & Haynes, 1991; Webster-Stratton, Reid, Hammond, 2001).
o Family involvement: behaviors and activities of family members at home and school as they take part
in school-related functions.

 Associated with increased ability to self-regulate behavior (Brody, Flor, & Gibson, 1999); higher
levels of social skills, positive engagements with peers, adults, and learning (McWayne,
Hampton, Fantuzzo, Cohen, & Sekino, 2004); and reduced aggressive and withdrawn behaviors
(Kratochwill, McDonald, Levin, Bear-Tibbetts, & Demaray, 2004).
o Parent-teacher relationships: the affective connection and components of a partnership between a
child’s parent(s) and teacher(s).

 Relational behaviors such as “joining” and “communication” are typically included in

definitions of parent-teacher relationships (Vickers & Minke, 1995).

 Little empirical research has investigated the relationships among family stress, family involvement, parent-
teacher relationships, and child behaviors.
 The degree to which family involvement and parent-teacher relationships mediate the effect of family stress
on child behaviors is unknown.

Research Purpose

 The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between family stress, family involvement (i.e.,
home- and school-based), parent-teacher relationships, and child behavior.

Specific Research Questions

1. Is there a direct effect between family stress and child behaviors at home and school?
2. What is the relationship between family stress and home- and school- based family involvement and parent-
teacher relationships?
3. What is the relationship between home- and school-based family involvement and parent-teacher
relationships and child behavior at home and school?
4. Do parent reports of home-based family involvement, school-based family involvement, and/or parent-
teacher relationships mediate the relationship between family stress and child behaviors at home and
school?

School-Based Involvement
Home-Based Involvement
(2) Parent-Teacher (3)

Relationship
(4)

Family Stress (1) Child Behaviors at Home/School

Note. Research questions 1-3 are investigating correlational, rather than causal relationships

Hypothesis

 It is hypothesized that significant relationships will exist among/between family stress, child behaviors at
home and school, and school- and home-based family involvement.
 Furthermore, it is hypothesized that home-based family involvement, school-based family involvement, and
parent-teacher relationships will mediate the relationship between family stress and child behaviors at home
and school.

Methods

Participants and Setting

 187 students in grades K-3 that exhibit externalizing behaviors at school and their parents
 17 public and parochial schools in a moderately sized Midwestern city and surrounding communities

Table 1
Participant Demographic Information
Child
Gender Male 77%
Female 23%
Age Mean 6.63
S.D. 1.14
Grade Mean 1.38
S.D. 1.13
Ethnicity White, non-Hispanic 75%
African American 10%
Hispanic 4%
 Bi-Racial 10%
Other 1%
Income-to-Needs Ratio Mean 1.55

Variables and Measures

Family Stress
 Income-to-Needs Ratio: Family income level was assessed by dividing the total family income by the poverty
threshold, adjusted for the size of the family (an income-to-needs ratio of 1 is at 100% of the poverty line or
equal to the poverty line).
 Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF; Abidin, 1995): Parent report of parenting stress using a 5-point
Likert scale; total scale mean score was calculated.

Child Behavior at Home and School

 Parent Daily Report (PDR; Chamberlain & Reid, 1987): Parents reported the occurrence or non-occurrence
of 34 problem behaviors (e.g., aggressiveness, defiance, irritableness) in the previous 24 hours; the sum of
number of problem behaviors was calculated.
 Interval Manager (INTMAN; Tapp et al., 2006): a Personal Digital Assistant-based behavior observation
system
o 20-second partial interval system; 30-minute observation session
o Rates of externalizing behavior (i.e., off-task, motor movement, interference) were calculated based on
percentage of intervals in which behaviors were observed.
o Up to three direct observations conducted per participant; mean score calculated across observations.
 Social Skills Rating System (SSRS; Gresham & Elliot, 1990): Parents and teachers rated the frequency of
the child’s social skills; 3-point scale; Standard Scores (M = 100; SD = 15).
 Behavior Assessment Scale for Children-Second Edition (BASC-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004): Parents
and teachers rate the frequency of both Adaptive and Problem Behaviors; 4-point scale; T-scores (M = 50;
SD = 10).

School-Based Involvement, Home-Based Involvement, Parent-Teacher Relationship

 Parent Teacher Relationship Scale (PTRS; Vickers & Minke, 1995): Parent report of two factors: Joining and
Communication with the school; a total mean score was computed due to the high correlation between
factors.
 Family Involvement Questionnaire-Elementary Version (FIQ-E; Manz, Fantuzzo, & Power, 2004): Parent
report of two factors: School-based and Home-based involvement; total mean scores were calculated for
each factor.

Data Collection Procedures

 Data were collected as part of a randomized clinical trial examining the efficacy of Conjoint Behavioral
Consultation (CBC).
 Data included for this study were baseline measurements not affected by the implementation of CBC.

Analyses

Research Questions 1-3: Bivariate correlations: examined the direct relationships among family stress, family
involvement, parent-teacher relationships, and child behavior.

Research Question 4: Multiple regression analyses: explored whether school-based involvement, home-based
involvement, and parent-teacher relationships partially or wholly mediate the direct effect of family stress on child
behavior.
 The Parent Daily Report was found to have a positively skewed distribution; thus, a square-root transformation
(Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003) was used to meet the important assumption of a normally distributed
dependent variable for the analyses.

Results

Table 2

Correlation Results for Research Questions 1-3

PTRS FIQ-Home- FIQ- School Parent Parent Teacher Parent Teacher
Based School- Beh. Obs. Daily BASC-2 BASC-2 SSRS SSRS
Based Report
Income-to-Needs
Ratio -.014 .126 .124 .000 -.104 -.093 -.107 .069 .075
Parenting Stress
**
.490
Index -.151+ -.135 -.095 .057 .357** .125 -.439** -.105

PTRS .035 -.174+ .090 .000 .056 .141+

FIQ – Home-Based
Scale .140+ -.040 -.068 .071 .296** .082
FIQ – School-
Based Scale .075 -.003 -.100 -.060 .172* .196**
**
Correlation is significant at p < .01
*
Correlation is significant at p < .05

Correlation is significant at p < .10

Research Question 1: Is there a direct effect between family stress (i.e., parental stress and income-to-
needs ratio) and child behaviors at home and school?
 Parental stress:
o Correlated with child behaviors at home.
 Significantly negatively correlated with parental reports of child social skills (i.e., SSRS) at home
(r = -.439, p = .000).
 Significantly positively correlated with parental reports of child externalizing behaviors at home
(i.e., PDR: r =.357, p = .000; BASC: r = .490, p = .000).
o Not correlated with child behavior at school.

 Income-to-needs ratios: Not correlated with child behavior at home or school.

Research Question 2: What is the relationship between family stress and home- and school- based family
involvement and parent-teacher relationships?
 Parental stress:
o Not correlated with family involvement.
 o Marginally significant negative correlation with parent-teacher relationships (r = -.151, p = .093).

 Income-to-needs ratios: Not correlated with family involvement or parent-teacher relationships.

Research Question 3: What is the relationship between home- and school-based family involvement and
parent-teacher relationships and child behavior at home and school?
 Family involvement:
o Significantly positively correlated with child social skills at home (i.e., SSRS; home-based family
involvement: r = .296, p = .000; school-based family involvement: r = .172, p = .025).
o School-based family involvement in learning is significantly positively correlated with child social skills
at school (i.e., SSRS; r = .196, p = .010).
o Not significantly correlated with measures of problem behaviors (i.e., BASC-2, PDR, INTMAN).
 Marginally significant positive correlation between home-based family involvement in learning
and direct observations of classroom behavior (i.e., INTMAN; r = .140, .068).

 Parent-teacher relationships:
o Not significantly correlated with measures of child behavior.
 Marginally significant positive correlation with teacher reports of child social skills at school (i.e.,
SSRS; r = .141, p = .067).
 Marginally significant negative correlation with parent daily report of problem behaviors (i.e.,
PDR; r = -.174, p = .061).

Research Question 4: Do parent reports of home-based family involvement, school-based family

involvement, and/or parent-teacher relationships mediate the relationship between family stress and child
behaviors at home and school?
 There are no indirect effects of family stress on child behaviors via School-based family involvement,
Home-based family involvement, and/or parent-teacher relationships.

Discussion
Main Findings

Research Question 1
 Results support the literature pointing to negative effects of parental stress on child behaviors (Frick, 1994;
Suarez & Baker, 1997; Webster-Stratton, 1990).
o Higher scores on PSI are associated with lower report of child social skills and higher reports of
problem behavior at home, but not at school.
o Although young children from homes with high parental stress experience behavioral concerns at
home, they may be resilient at school, possibly due to the consistent, structured environment in place
at most schools.
o Parents may also be more aware of their child’s behavior at home and therefore be a more accurate
reporter of home behavior.

 Child behavioral concerns in this study were not related to income level. Rather, parental stress is an
important predictor of child behavior and may provide an important point of intervention to improve child
behavior.

Research Question 2
 This study was among the first to investigate the relationship between parental stress and family-school
relationships/family involvement.
o Parental stress scores were trending toward a negative association with parent-teacher relationships,
and may reach significance with a larger, more diverse sample.
 o If this trend continues with a larger sample, it is possible that parents who experience more stress may
not have as strong of relationships with their children’s teachers.

Research Question 3
 Consistent with previous literature (Comer & Haynes, 1991; McWayne et al., 2004) and current hypotheses:
o Home- and school-based involvement was significantly positively associated with higher parental report
of child social skills at home.
o School-based parent involvement was significantly positively associated with teacher report of child
social skills at school.
o The parent-teacher relationship was marginally positively related to parental reports of child social skills
at home.
o The parent-teacher relationship was marginally negatively related to parental reports of problem
behaviors at home.
o School-wide and community-wide efforts to improve involvement and relationships may serve as a
mechanism to improve child’s behaviors.

 Contrary to hypotheses:
o Home-based parent involvement was moderately positively related to externalizing behaviors observed
in the classroom, but not significantly so.
o It is possible that parents are unaware of their child’s behavior at school or how to intervene in this
setting. It is also possible that parental reports of involvement at home are inflated due to social
desirability of home involvement in children’s learning.
o Furthermore, it may be that children whose parents are involved at home may not be receiving the
same level of individualized attention/stimulation at school and are consequently displaying problem
behaviors at school.

Research Question 4
 Family involvement and parent-teacher relationships do not appear to buffer the deleterious effect of family
stress on child behavior at home in this sample.

 Child externalizing behaviors may not improve due to family involvement and parent-teacher relationships
unless more fundamental needs, such as family stress, are addressed.
o To improve child behaviors, practitioners may first need to intervene directly with families to alleviate
stress.
o Practitioners may also need to intervene directly with children to improve child behaviors which may
reduce parental stress.

 The absence of indirect effects of family stress on child behaviors at school via school- and home-based
family involvement and parent teacher relationships may be attributable to the lack of direct effects between
family stress and child behaviors at school.

Limitations and Future Research

 Results from research questions 1-3 represent correlational, not causal relationships.
o To better understand an effective point of intervention for practitioners, future research should
investigate the predictive relationships between family stress, home-school connections, and child
behavior.

 Child behavior at home was described by parent report only; no direct measures by independent raters were
used. Future research should use objective, direct measures of child behavior at home.
 Parent report of home- and school-based family involvement, and parent-teacher relationships were used.
Future research should examine the unique perspective of the child’s teacher and the relationship to family
stress and child behavior variables.

 Family stress was limited to parental report of annual salary, family size (computed to determine the income-
to-needs ratio), and PSI assessments.
o A variety of other factors could be related to family stress (e.g., social support, psychopathology, single-
parent status, and minority status).
o Future studies should operationalize stress in a more multidimensional manner, including constructs
not only related to parental stress and income level.
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