7th International Conference of the European Research Network about Parents in Education DIVERSITY IN EDUCATION ERNAPE 2009 ISBN 978-91-86238-82-2
THE DIVERSITY OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT AND INVESTMENT ON CHILDREN’S LEARNING ACROSS THE PACIFIC RIM
Esther Ho Sui-chu
Professor
Faculty of Education
The ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong
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Tel: (852) 26096918
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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contribution of parental investment and involvement on students’ literary performance of 12 countries in Pacific Rim Region. Data for the present study is from the first cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA is a regular survey of 15-year-old students assessing their literacy performance across over 40 countries and regions around the world. Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used to investigate the associations of parental investment and involvement on students’ literacy performance.In investigating the effect of four forms of parental involvement on students’ literacy performance, cultural and social communication was found to have significant impact on reading performance, however, the relative contributions of these two types of communication are different across the Pacific Rim societies. Of the four forms of family investment, books and educational resources at home are found to be major contributors to students’ reading performance. These findings are quite consistent across all the participated countries, yet the magnitude of the effect size varied across different countries in the Pacific Rim region. Implication for research, policies and practices will be discussed in the last section of the paper.
Background of the Study
Pacific Rim Region is very diverse, containing various wealth with some of the richest and poorest countries, per capita, in the world (See table 1). The societies within the region perform very different in many international studies. For instance, many of the countries in the Asian Pacific region seem to have outstanding performance. Asian-culture has its particular educational environment quite different from the Western-culture (Bond, 1996; Wong, 1998; Jeynes, 2005). For instance, it was found that modern Chinese parents place great emphasis on the achievement of their children (Ho, D.Y.F., 1986, Jeynes, 2005; Lam and Ho, 2003). The academic success among Asian students in Japan, Taiwan and Singaporehas been attributed, at least partially, to parents’ efforts paid on their children’s learning and parents’ aspiration on children’s education (Coleman, 1987; Ho, 2000; Lee, 1996; Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). Social achievement orientation, diligence and attributing success to effort are often identified as some of the factors in Asian students' outstanding academic performance (Bond, 1996; Cheng, 1994; Ho, DYF, 1986; Lam & Ho, 003; Lee, 1996; Jeynes, 2005).
The contribution of parental investment and involvement to children’s education has been a major topic of the global education reform. Research in Western countries has shown that promoting parental investment and involvement has significant benefits in enhancing students' achievement and self-esteem, improving students' behavior and learning habits, and lowering students’ absenteeism and dropout rate (e.g. Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988,1994; Epstein & Lee, 1995; Ho, 2000,; Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995, 1997; Wolfendale, 1992). Yet this research is far from conclusive. Other studies have reported findings that question the validity of these claims and that demonstrated instead that parental supervision of children’s homework or contact with the school has only a small or even a negative relationship with students’ reading and mathematics achievement (Ho and Willms, 1996; Ho, 1997; 2005; Muller, 1993; Madigan, 1994). However, it is difficult to reach a verdict on the inconsistent research findings because the measures of parental involvement adopted in these studies varied substantially. A fundamental weakness of many of the studies is that they did not adequately define or operationalise the construct of parental investment and involvement. Moreover, the measures of parental investment and involvement might vary in different studies and their impact might also vary substantially in different cultures.
In this study, we examine the effect of parental involvement and investment on student literacy performance in 12 Pacific Rim societies. The paper addresses the following questions: To what extent and how the nature of parental investment and involvement varies across Pacific Rimsocieties? To what extend and how students’ literacy performance related to parental investment and involvement after controlling for family social background andschool contextual characteristics in these societies.
Data and Methods
Data was derived from a large international study, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Initial participants in PISA consisted of 32 countries in year 2000 (named as PISA 2000). In 2001, 11 additional countries participated in the second administration of the assessment (named as PISA 2000+) (OECD, 2003). In this paper, 12 countries/regions from the Pacific Rim Region that participated in these two cycles of PISA 2000 and PISA+ will be analyzed (see Table 1). The 12 Pacific Rim countries selected for this paper are Australia, Canada, Chili, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Thailand and the United States. For each of these participating countries/regions, a minimum of 5000 students from 150 schools is the basic requirement of OECD. The sample size of each of these countries participated in the PISA study displays in following table.
Table 1 Sampling in the Pacific Rim in PISA
Countries / Number of Students / Number of SchoolsAustralia / 5176 / 231
Canada / 29687 / 1117
Chili / 4889 / 179
Hong Kong / 4405 / 140
Indonesia / 7368 / 290
Japan / 5256 / 135
Korea, Republic Of / 4982 / 146
Mexico / 4600 / 183
New Zealand / 3667 / 153
Peru / 4429 / 177
Thailand / 5340 / 179
United States / 3846 / 153
Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM; See Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992) was used to investigate the associations of parental investment and involvement on students’ literacy performance. Student and school level background variables were included and controlled for, in order to find out the net effect of parental investment and involvement. These background variables included gender, parent occupation, parent education, immigrant status, family structure, number of siblings; school contextual factors in terms of school mean parent occupation school mean parent education, percentage ofimmigrant students, and percentage of nuclear families.
Conceptualisation and Operationalisation of Major Constructs
Over the last two decades, the meaning of family involvement has shifted from volunteering at school to participating at home. Home participation includes helping children with their school work, establishing a home environment conducive to learning, encouraging children to do better, and overseeing children's academic program from home. The first cycle of PISA study measured four dimensions of home-based family involvement: social communication, cultural communication, cultural activities, and homework supervision. Previous studies defined “family investment” as the economic and cultural resources provided by parents for their children's education (Ho, 1997; Ho, 2003). The PISA study measured four forms of family investment: material resources, educational resources, cultural resources, and number of books.
Parental Involvement
Cultural Communication
The PISA index of cultural communication was derived from students’ reports on the frequency with which their parents (or guardians) engaged with them in the following activities: discussing political or social issues; discussing books, films or television programmes; and listening to classical music.
Social Communication
The PISA index of social communication was derived from students’ reports on the frequency with which their parents (or guardians) engaged with them in the following activities: discussing how well they are doing at school; eating <the main meal> with them around a table; and spending time simply talking with them.
Family Homework Supervision
The PISA index of family homework supervision was derived from students’ reports on how frequently the mother, the father, or brothers and sisters worked with the student on what is regarded nationally as schoolwork. Students responded to each statement on a five-point scale with the following categories: never or hardly ever, a few times a year, about once a month, several times a month and several times a week.
Cultural Activities
The PISA index of activities related to “classical culture” was derived from students’ reports on how often they had participated in the following activities during the preceding year: visited a museum or art gallery; attended an opera, ballet or classical symphony concert; and watched live theatre. Students responded to each statement on a four-point scale with the following categories: never or hardly ever, once or twice a year, 3 or 4 times a year, and more than 4 times a year.
Parental Investment
Material Resources
The PISA index of family wealth was derived from the material resources students’ reports on: i) the availability, in their home, of a dishwasher, a room of their own, educational software, and a link to the Internet; and ii) the number of cellular phones, television sets, computers, motor cars and bathrooms at home.
Home Educational Resources
The PISA index of home educational resources was derived from students’ reports on the availability and number of the following items in their home: a dictionary, a quiet place to study, a desk for study, textbooks and calculators.
Cultural Possessions
The PISA index of possessions related to “classical culture” in the family home was derived from students’ reports on the availability of the following items in their home: classical literature (examples were given), books of poetry and works of art (examples were given).
Number of Book
The number of books at home are measured in the student questionnaire with the coding: ‘1’ for none; ‘2’ for 1 to 10 books; ‘3’ for 11-50 books; ‘4’ for51-100 books; ‘5’ for 101 to 250 books; ‘6’ for251 to 500 books and ‘7’ for more than 500 books.
Results and Discussion
This session examines to what extent and how family background, parental involvement and investment affect students’ literary performance in the 12 Pacific Rim countries/regions.The analysis is divided into four parts: (1) Analysis of the variation of students’ literacy performance among the 12 Pacific Rim societies; (2) Analysis of student and family characteristics across the twelve Pacific Rim Countries/Regions; (3) Analysis of the diversity of parental involvement and investment across the Pacific Rim; (4) The effect of parental involvement and investment on students’ literacy performance after controlling for student’sbackground characteristics and school contextual factors.
1. Variation of Reading Literacy Performance across Pacific Rim Societies by GDP
Table 2 displays the reading literacy scores for the 12 Pacific Rim societies.Table 2 categorizes the Pacific Rimcountries/regions into four groups: High GDP Western countries, High GDP East Asian countries/regions, Low GDP Latin America countries and Low GDP Southeast Asian countries. The results indicated that countries with better economic status, as indicated by the GDP per capita in Table 2, tends to have better performance in reading. Yet, the performances varied substantially among the countries with similar economic condition.
Table 2. Student performance in reading literacy in the Pacific Rim countries.
Country
/ Reading literacy score / Standard Error / GDPper capita (US$, 2000)
High GDP Western countries
Australia / 528 / 3.5 / 26325Canada / 534 / 1.6 / 28130
New Zealand / 529 / 2.8 / 20372
USA / 504 / 7.0 / 34602
High GDP East-Asian countries
Hong Kong / 525 / 2.9 / 25153Japan / 522 / 5.2 / 26011
Korea / 525 / 2.4 / 15186
Low GDP Latin America Countries
Chile / 410 / 3.6 / 9917Mexico / 422 / 3.3 / 9117
Peru / 327 / 4.4 / 4799
Low GDP Southeast-Asian countries
Indonesia / 371 / 4.0 / 3043Thailand / 431 / 3.2 / 6402
2. Variation of Studentand Family Characteristics across the Pacific Rim
Table 3 compares the student and family characteristics across the twelve Pacific Rim Countries/Regions. The percentage of girls is around50% in all the Pacific Rim. Yet, Hong Kong has the highest foreign-born students (21%), more than other high immigrant countries such as USA (7%), Australia (13%), Canada (11%) and New Zealand (17%). Other Pacific Rim countries have less than 3 % immigrant students.
The Occupation index is measured by the international socioeconomic index (SEI) of occupational status. The index ranges from 0 to 90 and has a mean of 49 and a standard deviation of 16 for all OECD countries. Hong Konghave SEI index of 42 which is much lower than the High GDP Western countries and Japan, similar to Korea, Mexico and Peru, but higher than the two low GDP countries.
Parent education is defined on the basis of education attainment of parents. The students reported the highest levels of schooling that their parents completed. ‘1’ for no schooling, ‘2’ for completed primary education; ‘3’ for completed lower secondary level; ‘4’ for completed upper secondary level aimed for work; ‘5’ for completed upper secondary level aimed for tertiary education; and ‘6’ for completed tertiary education.Hong Kong is lower than ‘4”, placing below Korea, Chile, Peruand the High GDP western countries, but above IndonesiaandThailand but similar to Mexico.
As expected, percentages of nuclear family of the three East Asian countries/regions are relatively higher than other Western and Latin American countries. Four Asian countries including Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Indonesia have over 80 % of the 15-year-olds living with two-parents. The three high GDP East Asian countries, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea, have very small average number of siblings. In fact, given that the fertility rate of developed societies such as Hong Kong is below replacement, it is not surprising to find that the low number of siblings. The average number of siblings of 1.3 to 1.5 indicates that students usually have less than two siblings at home. Except in Peru, the results indicated that the average number of sibling do not exceed three in this generation of 15-year-olds.
Table 3. Student and Family Characteristics in the PacificRim
Country
/% of Girls
/% of immigrant student
/Highest
Occupation Index
/Father
Education
/Mother
Education
/% of
nuclear family
/Average number of siblings
High GDP Western countriesAustralia / 0.48 / 0.13 / 52.25 / 4.56 / 4.53 / 0.72 / 2.04
Canada / 0.50 / 0.11 / 52.83 / 5.08 / 5.15 / 0.72 / 1.85
New Zealand / 0.50 / 0.17 / 52.20 / 4.71 / 4.74 / 0.66 / 2.23
United States / 0.52 / 0.07 / 52.40 / 5.05 / 5.01 / 0.54 / 2.41
High GDP East-Asian countries
Hong Kong / 0.50 / 0.21 / 42.25 / 3.23 / 3.06 / 0.85 / 1.51
Japan / 0.51 / 0.00 / 50.54 / m / m / 0.88 / 1.48
Korea, / 0.44 / m / 42.80 / 4.32 / 3.97 / 0.88 / 1.30
Low GDP Latin America Countries
Chili / 0.53 / 0.02 / 39.87 / 4.14 / 3.96 / 0.66 / 2.21
Mexico / 0.50 / 0.03 / 42.48 / 3.22 / 2.88 / 0.75 / 2.97
Peru / 0.50 / 0.01 / 40.42 / 4.12 / 3.52 / 0.69 / 3.11
Low GDP Southeast-Asian countries
Indonesia / 0.51 / 0.00 / 36.38 / 3.03 / 2.69 / 0.84 / 2.90
Thailand / 0.59 / 0.00 / 33.02 / 2.74 / 2.49 / 0.64 / 2.15
3. Diversity of Parental Involvement and Investment across Pacific Rim Countries
Table 4 shows the descriptive analysis of parental involvementand investment. Parental involvement is measured by cultural and social communication, cultural activities, and homework supervision. Generally, cultural communication is higher than social communication in all these countries except Chile. Cultural communication is highest in Peru (.42), followed by Chili (.31), Thailand (.28), USA (.22), and Hong Kong (.21). Australia and Indonesia is below OECD average. Social communication is highest in Chile (.36), followed by USA (.06) and all other countries are below OECD average. In cultural activities, Thailand has the highest score (.64), followed by USA (.20), Hong Kong (.18) and Canada (.12). All other countries are below OECD average.It is interesting to find that Asian families of 15-year-olds seldom provide homework supervision. The homework supervision indices of all three high GDP Asian countries/regions, along with Canada and USA are below OECD average.
Parental investment is measured by four indices: material resources, educational resources, cultural possession and number of books. Material resources in the four high GDP Western countriesare relatively high. All other countries/regions have material resources below the OECD average. In the low GDP countries, students have the lowest level of material resources. Similarly, educational resources are generally higher in wealthy countries than they are in low GDP countries. However, only Australia and Canada have educational resources that reflect the OECD average, all other countries fall below the OECD average. Educational resources in Hong Kong is below OECD average (-.19), which is much lower than Japan (.02) but higher than Korea (-.55). Cultural resources are consistently quite low across the 12 Pacific Rim countries. Most of these countries are below the OECD average. The majority of Hong Kongstudents have very low level of cultural resources. This is reflected in the index of -.59 in Hong Kongwhich is similar to Indonesia (-.60). This pattern is consistent with the number of books reported by the 15-year-old students. In the high GDP Western countries, students reported reading over 50 books (the code used to indicate number of books at home). This reflected two aspects of the countries: wealth and the amount of living space. In high GDP countries with low population density such as Australia,New Zealand and Canada, the number of books reported is quite high. Korea, Japan and USA with higher population density, also indicate high number of books at home. However, although the GDP in Hong Kong is higher than Korea, the number of books students in Hong Kong reported is lower than that of Korea. We believe that it is because of the high population density and limited space to keep books.
Table 4a.Mean scores on parental involvement measures by country.
Country / Cultural Communication / Social Communication / Cultural Activities / Homework SupervisionHigh GDP Western countries
Australia / -0.13 / -0.31 / -0.34 / 0.12
Canada / 0.08 / -0.20 / 0.12 / -0.07
New Zealand / 0.07 / -0.28 / -0.08 / 0.27
USA / 0.22 / 0.06 / 0.20 / -0.10
High GDP East-Asian countries
Hong Kong / 0.21 / -0.24 / 0.18 / -0.46
Japan / 0.09 / -0.19 / -0.72 / -0.12
Korea / -0.59 / -0.18 / -0.70 / -0.01
Low GDP Latin America Countries
Chile / 0.31 / 0.36 / -0.16 / 0.33
Mexico / 0.00 / -0.05 / -0.08 / 0.22
Peru / 0.42 / -0.26 / -0.70 / 0.34
Low GDP Southeast-Asian countries
Indonesia / -0.30 / -0.60 / -0.54 / 0.08
Thailand / 0.28 / -0.27 / 0.64 / 0.56
Table 4b.Mean scores on parental investment measures by country.
Country / MaterialResources / Educational Resources / Cultural
Resources / Number of Books
High GDP Western countries
Australia / 0.42 / 0.05 / -0.09 / 4.90
Canada / 0.41 / 0.00 / -0.12 / 4.68
New Zealand / 0.22 / -0.04 / -0.22 / 4.69
USA / 0.61 / -0.28 / -0.12 / 4.32
High GDP East-Asian countries
Hong Kong / -0.38 / -0.19 / -0.59 / 3.16
Japan / -0.14 / 0.02 / -0.27 / 4.20
Korea / -0.27 / -0.55 / 0.24 / 4.47
Low GDP Latin America Countries
Chile / -0.97 / -0.97 / -0.20 / 3.35
Mexico / -1.44 / -0.72 / -0.58 / 3.23
Peru / -1.82 / -1.49 / 0.04 / 3.00
Low GDP Southeast-Asian countries
Indonesia / -2.07 / -1.72 / -0.60 / 2.88
Thailand / -1.70 / -1.65 / -0.10 / 3.25
4. Impact of Parental Involvement and Investment across the Pacific Rim
4.1Impact of Student and School Background on Reading Literacy Performance