Graduate Program

Curriculum and Instruction

Degree Name

Master of Science in Education (MSEd)

Semester of Degree Completion

Spring 2020

Thesis Director

Sham’ah Md-Yunus

Thesis Committee Member

Nikki Hillier

Thesis Committee Member

Christy Hild

Abstract

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship between parental involvement and student academic achievement in middle school. Additionally, this study investigated whether there were patterns among parental involvement and student academic achievement among different ethnicities. The study was conducted in a diverse school in the Chicago suburbs to determine parental involvement levels and student academic achievement levels among different ethnicities. The study had 41 student and parent participants who took a survey about parental involvement at home and parental communication with the school. In addition to the surveys, students’ final English grades, final science grades, and English MAP scores were analyzed. The results of the study revealed parents of White students demonstrated the highest levels of communication with school and that White students had the highest levels of academic achievement compared to African American and Hispanic students. Pearson correlation revealed that there were two significant positive correlations between parental involvement and student academic achievement, which were parents signing weekly grade reports and parents initiating calls with the school, r = .586, p = .01, and parents signing weekly grade reports and parents returning calls from school, r = .479, p = .01. However, most of the data from the Pearson correlation revealed that there was not a significant correlation between parental involvement and student academic achievement, such as parents checking grades and parents returning calls from school, r =.202, and parents signing weekly grade reports and parents reading notes, emails, and texts from school, r =.054.

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