Parental Involvement and Student’s Academic Achievement (The Case of Primary School grade 5-8 Students in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia)

Abstract

It has been generally accepted in the field of education and psychology that maximizing the potential and performance of students to the expected level strictly requires the full involvement of parents both at home and school (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003). Large number of research conducted in the past several decades showed a strong association of parental involvement and students’ academic achievement; students whose parents involved actively in their education perform much better in their schooling than peers whose parents did not involve (Hsu et al., 2011; Phillipson & Phillipson, 2010; Chen & Gregory, 2009). Thus, parental involvement has been identified as a dynamic force influencing student academic success (Hsu et al., 2011).

Parents have all-encompassing roles and responsibilities for their children including the roles of teaching (LaRocque, Kleiman &Darling, 2011). The term ‘parent’ in the phrase ‘parental involvement’ conveys both mother and father of a child. Therefore, both mother and father have responsibilities to involve in their children’s education. However, empirical evidences have shown that the extent and effect of mother’s involvement is greater than that of father. For example, a study conducted by Hsu et al. (2011) indicated that mothers were more involved than fathers, and that mother involvement had more effect on students’ academic achievement, but as measured in terms of limited aspects of involvement: discussion, listening, monitoring academic progress and participation in school activities. Further, limited amount of studies have been done in comparing the extents and effects of mother’s and father’s involvement on students’ academic outcome (Hsu et al., 2011). This lack of research means the effect of father’s involvement might be covered with mother’s involvement in the field of parental involvement. For better understanding, these researchers suggested the need to conduct more research measuring different dimensions of involvement of both the father and the mother.

Moreover, parental involvement and the effect of such involvement on students’ academic achievement are often confounded by ethnic and cultural factors (Lee & Bowen, 2006). There are substantial cultural differences in parental interaction with their children and the effects of parental interaction on children’s achievement between Western and Chinese contexts (Hsu et al., 2011).Chan, Chan and Chan (2013) found that more westernized parents value nonconformity significantly more than conformity, whereas less-Westernized parents placed more emphasis on the importance of unconditional respect for elders and interdependence than unconditional respect and child independence. Because parents’ psychological beliefs about how they interact with their children stem from their cultural values that they believe and practice within their home and community (Phillipson & Phillipson, 2010). It has been suggested that the need to investigate the contexts that are believed to be different to understand parental involvement and its effects on students’ education (Zhang, 2006, cited in Hsu’s et al., 2011).The Ethiopian culture is unique in which parents communicate orally with their children (Rosemarin, 2011) though collective like Chinese culture. However, parental involvement and its effects on students’ education not yet studied in Ethiopian context. Thus, it is important to understand parental involvement and its effects on students’ academic achievement in Ethiopian context and to compare with Western and Chinese contexts.