Effects of Parental Involvement and Divorce on Student Achievement

Abstract

This paper looks at the findings of a number of research articles in the area of student achievement as it relates to parental involvement and divorce. In the area of parental involvement, the greatest factor in student achievement is parental discussion with the child at home. In the area of divorce, students from intact, original families have consistently higher achievement. Research needs to be done, which integrates relationship measures, to find out if there is a definitive correlation between parental involvement and divorce.

Introduction

There has been a great deal of research into the effects of parent's actions on the educational achievement of children. This paper will take a critical look at the specific areas of parental involvement and the effects of parents’ marital status as they relate to the achievement of children. Some of the research in this area is very broad in scope and application while other research attempts to interpret research findings very narrowly based upon assumed social theorems. The most popular of these theorems comes from Coleman and Hoffman (1987). The basic theory states that achievement in school can largely be traced to social and human capital available to children. Capital in this theory refers to resources the child can draw from to broaden his education. This theory of social and human capital available to school children has directed many of the researchers to tailor their research to measuring very specific types of involvement of parents which resulted in some unexpected outcomes such as the nominal affect on student achievement when parents are involved in PTOs (McNeal, 1999). Overall the majority of the research determined that children from divorced and even re-constituted homes (Jeynes, 1999) perform at lower levels than children from intact families (Teachman, Day, Paasch, Carver, and Call, 1998) and that there are numerous types of parental involvement, some of which are effective in student achievement while others are negligible in their effectiveness.

In each of the studies looked at, socioeconomic status (SES) and racial differences were controlled for. Therefore, this paper, when referring to results, will be referring to sets of controlled data. The only time SES or racial differences will be mentioned will be when there are significant differences between SES and/or racial differences. The purpose of this paper is to review parental actions and not the differences between SES and the races.

Parental Involvement

Parental involvement is the first area of research. It has been a long held assumption that parental involvement in any form would have a benefit to the achievement of a child. The research indicates otherwise. Newman states, "the family is the key to education and as such, parents play a critical role in the academic achievement of their child." (1995, p. 296). Statements such as these are too broad in their application. Parental involvement may be important, but how? This research aims to decipher exactly what kind of involvement is significant.

McNeal defines parental involvement as, "involving dyadic relationships between the parent and the child, the teacher, or another parent." (1999, p. 120). This definition comes directly from the philosophy of social capital, where a child's learning resources increase as the social contacts and resources of the parents increase. Note that involvement is not only with the child, but also with teachers and other parents. These other contacts allow the parent to create a wider social circle from which parents can draw knowledge and understanding. The theory suggests that this wider base of knowledge and understanding of the parent translates to higher achievement in the child. This definition of parental involvement is important to understand because it suggests a much broader scope of parental involvement than what one may assume. So then, in this theory parental involvement is not just direct involvement with the child, but also networking with teachers, and other parents in the community.

To test the validity of the social capital theory and to narrow the definition of parental involvement, researchers have measured many different types of involvement. Hong and Ho (2005) measured four parts: parents’ communication with their children about school, parental educational aspirations, parental participation, and parental supervision. Hong and Ho measured the effectiveness of each category as it affected Asian Americans, Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics self-concept, locus of control, and educational aspirations. Parent communication and parent aspirations were the two strongest factors. Parent participation only appeared significant in the Asian American group and parent supervision only appeared significant in the African American group.

In other research, Sui-Chu and Willms (1996) measured the same basic categories but with differing subcategories: home discussion, school communication (parent contact with school personnel), home supervision, and school participation as they related to reading and mathematics achievement. The research determined that the most important factor in student achievement was home discussion. It is also interesting to note that the research showed that children with learning and behavioral problems had fewer home discussions and were supervised less than their cohorts that did not exhibit learning and behavioral problems. Students with learning and behavioral problems also communicated with the school more often as a result of problems and therefore the research found a negative influence on achievement when there were elevated levels of school communication.

McNeal (1999) measured parent-child discussion, PTO involvement, monitoring, and educational support strategies as it related to science achievement. He states, "the only dimension of parent involvement that is remotely consistent in terms of improving achievement and reducing problematic behavior is parent-child discussion." (p. 128). He also found that PTO involvement was inversely related to science achievement. It is also interesting that while Hong and Ho found a positive correlation between parental communication with their children among Asian Americans and Hispanics, McNeal found that there was not a significant relationship between discussion among Hispanics or Asians.

This does not necessarily point to inaccuracies in either research (although that is possible), but rather, more likely, a difference in what is measured. Hong and Ho measured parental involvement as it pertained to self-concept, locus of control, and educational aspirations, Sui-Chu and Willms as it pertained to mathematics achievement and McNeal as it pertained to science achievement. Further complicating the findings is the fact that each of the other categories, although very similar, used slightly different definitions of each category.

Nevertheless, it seems indicative that parental discussion about school with their children is a more important factor than parental supervision, school participation, or school communication. This is not to say that other forms of parental involvement are not significant, but that discussion seems to be the most effective, specifically, forms of parental involvement that require quality communication between parent and child. Other research also seems to corroborate this idea. Balli, Demo, and Wedman (1998), measuring family involvement in helping children complete homework assignments, found that there was no significant connection between students’ mathematics achievement whose families consistently helped with homework and students whose families did not consistently help with homework. This may be due to the form of involvement: helping to complete homework vs. quality discussion. (In fairness, the results may also be due to self-reporting where different parents have varying definitions of what helping with homework actually entails.)

In addition, Muller, (1998) measuring parental involvement in mathematics achievement of eighth through twelfth graders, found that the two greatest factors in eighth grade achievement was how much students talked with their parents and parents’ restriction of their children’s activities. In tenth grade, the greatest factor was parents’ restriction of activities.

These findings would seem to mitigate the theory of social and human capital. It appears that the most consistently significant factor for parental achievement is when parents take a concern in the lives of their children, not just attending school meetings or volunteering, but rather demonstrating a concern for their child's educational well-being through discussion and restrictive forms of supervision. This is not to say that the theory of social and human capital has no validity, but that children may view direct parental involvement in their lives (as in the form of quality discussion) as more important than a wide network of parental resources.

Parental Marital Status

The second area of study in this paper is the differences in academic achievement between children from single-parent families vs. intact families. In general the research shows that, after SES and race are controlled for, the achievement of children from intact families is greater than the achievement of children from single-parent families. There are many theories that try to explain the reason for the academic difference. The most used theory refers back to the idea of social and human capital. In the context of marital status this theory seems to make more sense. Human capital specifically refers to the number of adults that are available to provide some resource in the education of a child through the parents, including the parents. In the sense of marital status, the child is not relying solely on a vague “networking” of adults provided through parental contacts, but rather relying on the direct care of one or two parents. This is human capital in its most primary sense: mother and father. The loss of one parent may result in less parental supervision (Teachman, et al., 1998), educational help, overall quality time (Pong, 1998), and family income (Pong, 1998). In addition to lower achievement in children from most single-parent homes, research also indicates that children from single-parent homes display more behavioral problems than children from intact families (Teachman, et al., 1998).

According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, in 1970, 85% of all children lived with two parents. In 1994, only 69% lived with two parents (1996). This is only a figure of what percentage of students lived in single/intact families at the time of the census taking and not what percentage of children have experienced living in a single family home at some point in their lives.

Teachman, et al., (1998) and Furr (1998), noting that most single-family homes are lacking the father, studied the effects of the absent father on the achievement of students. Teachman et al., studied the achievement on mathematics and reading and Furr examined the effects of achievement on college entrance exams. Teachman, et al., found that students from single-parent homes have lower mathematics and reading ability and that there are more behavioral problems from children from single-parent homes. Furr found that when students from intact families perceived that their fathers were encouraging and involved with them, scores on college entrance exams rose. Interestingly, he also found that even when non-custodial fathers were perceived as encouraging and involved there was little improvement in SAT performance. Furr attributes the differences in student success in college entrance exams to the fact that fathers from intact families interact with their children on a daily basis.

Pong’s study included looking at schools with high levels of single-parented students (1998). The findings conclude that not only does single-parenthood have a negative effect on student achievement, but students placed in a school with higher levels of students with single parents perform worse than those in schools with higher levels of intact families.

Schools with higher concentrations of students from single-parent families differed in many respects from schools with lower concentrations. They tended to:

1. Provide more students with free school lunches
2. Have greater proportions of minority students
3. Be relatively large public schools located in urban areas
4. Have lower measures of school based social capital
5. Have lower levels of parental school participation (p. 32)

The research also noted that attending a school with 50% or more students from single-parent families was “twice as detrimental” to mathematics and reading scores. Finally, Pong notes that home discussion of school matters correlate to higher achievement and that parents of single-parent homes have less communication with their children.

Although divorce has been a growing problem, some believed that families that were reconstituted partially offset the effects of divorce by providing a step-parent where there had been no second parent. Yet, according to research done by Jeynes (1999) and Battle (1998) this is actually not the case. Battle states that reconstituted families are less effective in inhibiting student misbehavior. Jeynes states that reconstituted families perform worse than intact or single-parent families.

In a very original bit of research, Jeynes (1999) studied the effects intact, single-parent, and reconstituted families had on the achievement of students. He found that “children of divorce from reconstituted families score no higher and often even lower in academic achievement than children of divorce from single-parent families.” (p. 385). Jeynes measured the differences on four different standardized test scores: math, reading, science, and social studies. For all four tests, students from intact families scored significantly higher than students from either of the other two groups and students from single-parent families always scored higher than students from reconstituted families. Jeynes found that the greatest difference in achievement came in the area of mathematics. He suggests that this is because students from reconstituted families not only have to deal with the emotional problems of divorce, but also that of re-marriage (getting used to a new step-parent and step-siblings). These two events vs. only divorce in single-parent homes, causes them to fall behind in the building block subject of mathematics and makes it more difficult for them to catch up than for the intact or single-parent student.

Differing slightly from the conclusions of other researchers, Battle (1998) found that there was one circumstance in which single-parent families fared at least equal if not slightly better than intact families. The only time that this was true was in low SES families. Battle only studied the effects of divorce on African American students and therefore his research cannot be assumed to be universal. Nevertheless, his finding is interesting. He attributes this anomaly to his belief that low SES intact families have more marital problems than intact families with a higher SES and that in a single-parent family of low SES, since there is only one parent, the relationship differences do not exist and therefore childrearing is streamlined. In addition to his base findings, he also found that there was a positive relationship between parental involvement and achievement, corroborating research in parental involvement.

References

Balli, S. J., Demo, D. H., & Wedman, J. F. (1998). Family Involvement with Children's Homework: An Intervention in the Middle Grades. Family Relations, 47(2), 149-157.

Battle, J. (1998). What Beats Having Two Parents?: Educational Outcomes for African American Students in Single- Versus Dual-Parent Families. Journal of Black Studies, 28(6), 783-801.

Coleman, J. S., & Hoffer, T. (1987). Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities. New York. Basic Books.

Furr, L. A. (1998). Fathers' Characteristics and their Children's Scores on College Entrance Exams: A Comparison of Intact and Divorced Families. Adolescence, 33(131), 533-541.

Hong, S., Ho, H. (2005). Direct and Indirect Longitudinal Effects of Parental Involvement on Student Achievement: Second-Order Latent Growth Modeling Across Ethnic Groups. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(1).

Jeynes, W. H.. (1999). Effects of Remarriage Following Divorce on the Academic Achievement of Children. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 28(3), 385-393.

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Pong, S. (1998). The School Compositional Effects of Single Parenthood on 10th-Grade Achievement. Sociology of Education, 71(1), 23-42.

Sui-Chu, E. H., & Willms, J. D. (1996). Effects of Parental Involvement on Eighth-Grade Achievement. Sociology of Education, 69(2), 126-141.

Teachman, J., Day, R., Paasch, K., Carver, K., & Call, V. (1998). Sibling Resemblance in Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes: The Role of Father Presence. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(4), 835-848.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. (1996). Marital Status and Living Arrangement: March 1994 (Current Population Reports, Series P-20, No. 484). Washington, DC. U.S. Government Printing Office.