Running Head: Parental Involvement and Special Education
1
Parental Involvement and Special Education: A Look at How Parental Involvement
Affects Special Education Students’ Academic Achievement at the Secondary Level
California State University, Long Beach
Chapter I: Introduction
The impact that parental involvement has on a student’s academic achievement has been
a topic of recent educational research due to new federal education policies, such as No Child
Left Behind (NCLB), in 2001, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), in
2004. A key aspect of NCLB is the call for an effective partnership between schools, parents
and communities in order to improve the academic successes for all students (Howard &
Reynolds, 2008). According to Hernandez, Harry, Newman, and Cameto (2008) the traditional
model of determining eligibility, placement and services in special education is that schools
make the decision and parents either agree or disagree; however, this does not meet the full
collaboration encouraged by the law. Parents now have a greater role in the education that their
child receives and are looked at as partners with schools in the determination and selection of
services for the student.
Lee and Bowen (2006) describe parent involvement as being two-fold, parent
involvement at school and a parents’ educational involvement at home. The first includes
activities such as attending parent-teacher conferences, volunteering at the school, and attending
various programs featuring the students (e.g. school plays, athletic events). The second involves
helping with homework, discussing the student’s experiences in school, providing structure for
their home activities, and being aware of their schoolwork. As will be discussed later, research
has shown that parental involvement in a child’s education results in a positive effect on their
academic achievement. According to Graves & Wright (2011), many of the factors that
influence a student’s academic achievement may not be altered, such as socioeconomic status or
parental educational level, but parental involvement is a factor that can be changed.
Purpose of the Study
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Much of the past research on parental involvement has been related to general education,
and little has been done to look at the impact of parental involvement on the academic outcomes
of students in special education. Recent laws, such as IDEA, have promoted a collaborative
approach to special education between schools and parents/guardians. However, many parents
are not aware of the importance of their redefined role, what their child’s rights are, or how they
may be able to provide additional support to their children. As a result, their child may be
missing out on services they are eligible for, which could lead to lower educational
achievements. We will look at how educating parents on their roles and what they are able to do
at home, such as homework assistance, test preparation, and active involvement in the IEP
process, will affect their child’s academic achievement.
Additionally, much of the previous research has focused on the effectiveness of
interventions in the primary grades (i.e. elementary school) and has been lacking on the
effectiveness of interventions in the secondary grades (i.e. middle school and high school).
Spera (2005) reports that several studies have shown that in the middle school years there is a
decline in parental involvement, which highlights a need for information on effective
interventions at the secondary level. We will implement interventions similar to those that have
been successful in the primary grades in order to assess their effectiveness at the secondary level.
Our research questions will be:
1. By educating parents on their roles and rights with the special education process, will
parents become more involved in their child’s education, including the decision for their child’s
placement and services? And, will that increased involvement lead to an increase in academic
achievement similar to what has been shown through previous research in the general education
population?
2. Can methods and strategies implemented in the elementary grades seeking to increase
parent involvement be applied to secondary grades (i.e. middle school students)? If not, what
does this say for future research targeting this age group?
Significance of the Study
Through previous research we have seen what interventions resulted in increased parental
involvement for students in the general education. However, according to the U.S. Department
of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, 13.4% of students between the ages of
three and 21 who are currently enrolled in public schools are receiving special education services
through at least one of the 13 qualifications. With this many students receiving special education
services it is imperative that they are provided the opportunities to achieve academically and it is
necessary for educators to know which interventions will effectively provide those opportunities.
Chapter II: Literature Review
For our study, we initially sought out articles on parental involvement interventions that
had been effectively implemented with parents of students who qualified for special education
services. We quickly realized there has been a lack of research in the area of parental
involvement for students in special education. As a result, we formulated our first research
question about whether or not parental involvement would improve academic achievement of
special education students. We then searched for effective interventions used in general
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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education that could be used with the special education population by searching for various
keywords, including “parental involvement”, “academic achievement”, “parental engagement”
and “parental involvement interventions”. As we continued our research, we realized that a
majority of the information we found on effective interventions was from interventions being
implemented in the elementary levels, which lead to our second research question about the
effectiveness of these interventions at the secondary levels.
Benefits of Parental Involvement
Much of the past research has shown a positive correlation between parents who are
involved in their child’s education and that child’s academic achievement. As mentioned earlier,
Lee and Bowen (2006) described parental involvement as coming from both in-school situations
(i.e. parent-teacher conference, volunteering in the classroom) and at-home situations (i.e.
helping with homework, discussing schoolwork, providing structured activities). In 2000, Kohl,
Lengua, and McMahon describe parent involvement as “containing three dimensions: (a) parentteacher contact to facilitate monitoring children’s school progress and helping them with
homework, (b) parent involvement in school activities, and (c) parent involvement directly with
the child at home to facilitate intellectual stimulation and school success” (as cited by Zhang,
Hsu, Kowk, Benz, and Bowman-Perrott, 2011, p. 29).
According to Callahan, Rademacher & Hildreth (1998), “parent participation, in
conjunction with reinforcement strategies and appropriate instructional programming, may have
a positive effect on factors associated with school success.” In their 2008 article, Howard and
Reynolds summarize the findings of several previous studies on the effects of parental
involvement:
Researchers have also found that parent involvement is associated with a greater
likelihood of aspiring to attend college and actually enrolling (Cabrera & Steven, 2000;
Horn, 1998), as well as with higher grades (Lee, 1993; Muller & Kerbow, 1993), high
eighth grade mathematics and reading achievement (Lee, 1993; Sui-Chu & Douglass,
1996), lower rates of behavioral problems (Lee, 1993), and lower likelihood of high
school dropout and truancy (McNeal, 1999) (p. 83).
A 2009 study by Bradshaw, Zmuda, Kellam & Ialongo looked at the long-term effects of
an intervention that involved the collaboration between parents and educators in the first-grade.
The results of this study were that the group of students who received the family-school
partnership intervention showed significant improvements in their math performance, and
marginally significant improvements in their reading performance. In other areas of
achievement (i.e. high school graduation, use of special education services) the results showed
areas of academic improvement, although the results were not significant. The researchers
acknowledged that one of the weaknesses with their study was the number of parent training
session provided (seven), which correlates with the findings of a meta-analysis by Mbwana,
Terzian, & Moore (2009) which showed that effective programs to improve educational
outcomes have at least 11 parent-training sessions. As we design our study and intervention, the
number of parent-training sessions is an important factor that we will consider based on these
articles.
Factors that affect parental involvement
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In their meta-analysis, Mbwana et al (2009) identify several factors that can have an
influence on parental involvement which include the lack of a positive relationship between the
parent and school teachers/administrators, work schedule conflicts, and a lack of child care and
transportation. Lee and Bowen (2006) discussed that those parents whose culture and lifestyles
are similar to the school’s culture are more likely to be involved at the school, and that “teachers
may interpret their lack of involvement as a general lack of interest in their children’s education”
(210). These are all important factors to be aware of when developing the interventions that will
be used in our study. We need to ensure that the interventions used will correlate with both the
home and the school culture in order to increase the implementation rates of these interventions,
and we will need to include training for teachers on how to recognize various aspects of parental
involvement beyond what is seen on a school campus.
Howard and Reynolds (2008) found that in a group of middle-class African American
parents, the importance of being informed about their child’s education and what they were
eligible for had an influence on their involvement. These parents felt that if they were able to
better advocate for their children that the school district took them more seriously, which
resulted in the improvement of their child’s academic outcome. The parents interviewed by
Howard and Reynolds reported that they became involved through participation in Parent
Teacher Associations/Organizations, attending local school board meetings, and School Site
Councils. Graves Jr. and Wright (2011) found that European American parents are more likely
to be involved in home-based activities such as reading to their children when compared to
African American parents, and that African American parents are more likely to be involved in
school related activities such as volunteering at school and attending PTO meetings when
compared to European American parents.
Effectiveness of Interventions
Several research studies have looked at and described aspects of various intervention
programs that have led to improvements in academic achievements, and this information will be
useful to the current research in the development of an effective intervention program to use with
secondary level students. A 1993 study by Toomey (as cited by Fishel & Ramirez, 2005) that
looked at over 40 studies of parental involvement showed that those studies that included a
parent training component were more successful than those studies without this component. The
parent training component is described as a parent being monitored and receiving guided practice
in addition to the explanation and modeling of appropriate behaviors. Parent tutoring and the use
of a standardized program manual are other factors that have been shown to be related to
academic performance of elementary-age students (Fishel & Ramirez, 2005). In the current
research, the difficulty level of some of the materials students are learning may exceed that of the
parents’ knowledge which would make parent tutoring difficult to include; therefore, the
researchers of the current study will focus on how parents can teach effective study habits and
self-management skills to their children.
In their meta-analysis, Mbwana et al (2009) looked at 67 different studies about the
effects that parent involvement has on various outcomes, including educational, behavioral,
substance abuse, reproductive health, health and fitness. Of those that related to educational
outcomes, the researchers found several characteristics that tended to show a more positive
impact on the educational outcomes of the child. These characteristics include the use of parent
skills training programs (teach parenting skills such as monitoring, communication, and
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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discipline), programs that provide both parents and children the opportunity to participate in
activities related to a new goal, and programs that include intervention components focused on
both the child and the parent.
Parental Involvement in Special Education
The current literature lacks information on the effects that parental involvement has on
the academic outcomes for those students that receive special education services. An article by
Hernandez, Harry, Newman and Cameto (2008) looks at parental involvement through a
breakdown of five factors, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, native language, child’s age, and
the level of the child’s disability, and the parents’ satisfaction with the special education services
their children receive through the Los Angeles Unified School District. The results of this
survey found that the parents in the lowest SES group (household income less than $25,000)
reported experiencing the most distance from the special education program (i.e. they were less
likely to attend IEP meetings or receive information); however, this group was the most likely to
report that their children receive sufficient services. These findings bring up the question of if
these student’s really are receiving appropriate services or is it that their parents are unaware of
what is available and haven’t requested additional information. This study also found that when
looking at a comparison of IEP meeting attendance White parents show a significantly greater
attendance rate (92.1%) than African American (84.5%) or Latino (83.5%) parents, and that
parents of children with low-incidence disabilities (i.e. intellectual disability, autism) tend to be
more aware and involved than parents of children with high-incidence disabilities (i.e. specific
learning disability, speech/language impairment). While the current research does not take place
within the Los Angeles Unified School District, these findings are beneficial in providing
additional information to be aware of as the results are reviewed and analyzed.
Zhang, et al. (2011) discuss the lack of research examining the relationships between
parental involvement and student achievement in special education and points out that because of
the critical role that parents have in the special education process it is crucial that they are
involved in their child’s education. This study looked at information collected through a national
database and found that involvement in school activities, including attending a general school
meeting, attending a school/class event, volunteering at their child’s school, and attending a
parent/teacher conference other than an IEP meeting, did not have a significant difference on
academic achievement. However, the researchers did find that a parent’s involvement in home
activities, such as discussing school experiences with their child or having expectations that their
child will graduate from high school, had a positive effect on academic achievement.
Conclusion
Through the research, we have found a significant amount of data to support the overall
positive effect that parental involvement has on students’ academic achievement. We have also
been able to identify factors from both successful and unsuccessful interventions implemented in
these past studies and will take these into consideration with the current research. The efforts of
the present study are to contribute findings on the effects of parental involvement in special
education at the secondary level to the parental involvement literature, which has been identified
as an area that has not been the subject of past research.
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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The questions that the current study seeks to answer are: (a) by educating parents of
special education children on their rights, will they become more involved in their child’s
education, and will that increased involvement lead to an improvement in academic
achievement?; and (b) will intervention methods and strategies used to increase parent
involvement be effective when applied to secondary grades? Based on the findings of Howard
and Reynolds (2008) about parents becoming more involved in their child’s education once they
became aware of the impact it can have on the services they receive, we expect to find that as
parent’s are given more information on their roles and rights they will become more involved in
their child’s education process. Due to the findings from Zhang, et al. (2011), we predict that
this increase in parental involvement from parents of children receiving special education
services will lead to a positive effect on the students’ academic achievement. By combining the
information from Mbwana et al (2009) and the findings from Fishel and Ramirez (2005), we
have developed interventions that we believe will be effective among the secondary levels and
will result in an improvement of students’ academic achievement.
Chapter III: Methodology
Procedure
Our study seeks to measure the effects of a program targeting two variables: teacherparent communication and parent involvement in their child’s education. Increasing the
frequency of these variables is expected to increase student academic achievement. For this
study, teacher-parent communication is operationally defined as number of teacher-initiated
communication attempts with parents via email, phone, in person, conferences, and meetings
(excluding IEP meetings, since they are mandatory by law and not teacher-initiated). It also
includes teacher response to parent-initiated communication attempts. These are measured
through weekly surveys to be filled out by the teacher that measure the same target
communication attempts (see Appendix A). Parent involvement will be defined as amount of
time monitoring school work and teaching school work strategies, number of conversations with
children about school, and number of communication attempts with teacher or school staff. This
will be measured through weekly surveys filled out by parents measuring the same target
communication attempts each week (see Appendix B). Student achievement will be measured
through attendance (number of days absent from school, including half days, and tardiness),
grades (homework assignment grades and test grades), assignment completion (number of zeros
received for missing assignments), and time spent working on school outside of class.
Attendance and grade information will be obtained from the schools directly; time working on
school outside of class will be measured through parent report surveys.
This study is a repeated-measures design. Our baseline, pretest measures will serve as the
control in this study. The parent and teacher report surveys will be administered one week prior
to the first intervention meeting. Records reviews will be conducted on student achievement
levels in the month prior to the first intervention meeting to set a baseline for the students. Parent
and teacher report surveys will be administered every week to monitor program effects; each
parent and teacher participant will choose to receive the survey via email or postal mail. The
final data collection will occur the week after the last parent intervention meeting.
The intervention program will involve 15 total training sessions: 7 parent-only sessions, 4
teacher-only sessions, 3 parent-teacher sessions, and 1 parent-child-teacher session. Intervention
materials will come from The Parent Institute line of publications, which is a division of NIS,
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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Inc. The Parent Institute is dedicated to providing products for parents and schools with the goal
of increasing parent involvement. The company is nonpartisan, is not related to any religious
groups, and does not support one theory or pedagogical philosophy. The Parent Institute does not
accept money from outside resources (i.e. grants, government funding, contracts) as they fund
their research through their product sales. Their panel of highly experienced education
professionals uses the latest, strongest research to support and create their products. Presentation
materials were used from The Parent Institute because of the strong research base in creating the
materials and the kits are all-inclusive (i.e. presentations, scripts, and handouts) which allows for
standardization of training sessions. The kits selected for training sessions include:
 The Complete Toolkit on Parent Involvement: An evaluation and solution
resource for school leaders (intended audience is school staff, this kit will be
used with teacher sessions)
 Attendance Matters! Engaging parents, students, and staff in your attendance
campaign (will be used in the parent-teacher-student session)
 Ways Busy Parents Can Help Children Succeed in School (parent sessions 1-2)
 Moving Right Along: Engaging parents for student success in the middle grades
(parent sessions 3-4)
 Ways Busy Parents Can Help Children Succeed on Standardized Tests (parent
session 5)
 The Self Discipline Pack (parent session 6)
 The Motivation Pack (parent session 7)
The kits were selected based on topics covered and their relevancy to involvement and
academic success, according to our research review. Additionally, minimal training is needed to
implement the programs, as they are scripted and have prepared presentations. Each training
session will last approximately one and a half hours, and will include a problem-solving
component to focus on difficulties using the new strategies (15 minutes), a review of previous
strategies (15 minutes), presentation and practice/modeling of new strategies (60 minutes), and
the session will end with opportunities for questions/feedback. Sessions will take place once a
week across 11 weeks and will be on school property during the afterschool hours
Subjects
Participants were selected through a combination of cluster and volunteer sampling of
middle school students receiving special education services through the Long Beach Unified
School District. LBUSD was chosen because it is a diverse district in terms of SES and
ethnicity, and for the long-standing relationship between LBUSD and CSULB. We compiled a
list of middle schools in Long Beach Unified School District which offered special education
services. From that list, we randomly selected 3 schools and then randomly selected two
Resource Specialist Program (RSP) classes. We sent letters to the parents of the six selected
classes requesting participation in the program. A total of 36 parent-child pairs agreed to
participate. Our sample includes 11 Latino families, 10 Caucasian families, 8 African American
families, and 7 Asian/ Pacific Islander families. The students range in age from 10-13; there are
21 male students and 15 female students in our sample. Among the parents participating, 22 are
mothers, 5 are fathers, 5 are step-parents, and 4 are grandparent guardians.
Instrumentation
Our surveys target the specific operational definition of our variables. It is not feasible,
both financially and ethically, to gather measures of parent involvement, amount of time spent
working with a child, discussions with a child, etc. through observation. Other studies have
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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targeted a different array of aspects of parent involvement and would not cover the scope of our
study, making it necessary to create our own data measurements. The first phase of our study
will serve as a pilot study to determine the validity and reliability of the surveys. Our training
sessions target specific areas which contribute to levels of parent involvement as supported by
research. The program goals are to increase academic achievement by increasing involvement
and engagement behaviors at home. The Parent Institute conducts research and tests their kits
using strong experimental methods, which support the validity of the kits. The kits are reliable as
they are scripted presentation sessions.
Data Analysis
We will be using a two-way ANOVA, which is used with one interval level dependent
variable (student achievement) and two nominal level independent variables (parent-teacher
communication and parent involvement). Parent-teacher scales and parent involvement scales
will be scored as nominal level groups. The teacher response surveys will be grouped into two
categories based on number of attempted communications and response to communications: 0-1
attempts is low, 2 or more attempts is high. Parent involvement data will be grouped into low,
average, or high based on composite scores from the parent surveys.
Appendix A
Parent Survey
Please respond to questions according to what you did THIS WEEK (Monday-Friday). Thank
you!
1. How many hours did you spend monitoring school work (e.g. reviewing scheduled
assignments, checking for completion of assignments due, checking that child has spent
time doing homework or studying)
a. None (0 hours)
b. Less than one hour
c. 1-2 hours
d. 3-4 hours
e. 4+ hours
What monitoring strategies did you use?
2. How many hours did you spend teaching your child school work strategies (e.g. creating
a homework schedule, creating a study schedule, backpack organization)?
a. None (0 hours)
b. Less than one hour
c. 1-2 hours
d. 3-4 hours
e. 4+ hours
What school work strategies did you teach?
Parental Involvement and Special Education
3. How many conversations (i.e. at least a 10 minute discussion) did you and your child
have about school (e.g. what happened that day, what is happening this semester, future
plans, future goals)?
a. None (0)
b. One conversation
c. 2-3 conversations
d. 4+ conversations
Please describe what you and your child discussed:
4. How many hours did your child spend on school work outside of class?
a. None (0 hours)
b. 1-2 hours
c. 3-4 hours
d. 5+ hours
5. How many times did you attempt to contact your child’s teacher (e.g. send an email,
make a phone call, send a letter, have a meeting)?
a. Never (0 attempts)
b. Once (1 attempts)
c. A few (2-3 attempts)
d. Often (3 or more attempts)
Questions? Comments? Clarifications?
Appendix B
Teacher Survey
Please respond to questions according to what you did THIS WEEK (Monday-Friday).
Questions are specifically related to the RSP parents participating in our intervention program.
Thank you!
1) How many times did you attempt to contact a parent (e.g. send an email, make a phone
call, send a letter, have a meeting)?
a. Never (0 attempts)
b. Once (1 attempts)
c. A few (2-5 attempts)
d. Often (5 or more attempts)
2) How many times did a parent attempt to contact you (e.g. send an email, make a phone
call, send a letter, have a meeting)?
a. Never (0 attempts)
b. Once (1 attempts)
9
Parental Involvement and Special Education
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c. A few (2-5 attempts)
d. Often (5 or more attempts)
3) How many times did you respond to parent attempts to contact you (e.g. responded to an
email, answered their phone call, returned a missed phone call, respond to a letter,
schedule a meeting)?
a. Never (0 attempts)
b. Once (1 attempts)
c. A few (2-5 attempts)
d. Often (5 or more attempts)
Comments? Questions? Clarifications?
References
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Two Universal Preventive Interventions in First Grade on Educational Outcomes in High
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Callahan, K., Rademacher, J.A., & Hildreth, B.L. (1998). The Effect of Parent Participation in
Strategies to Improve the Homework Performance of Students Who Are At Risk.
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School-Aged Children. School Psychology Quarterly, 20 (4), 371-402.
Graves Jr., S.L. & Wright, L.B. (2011). Parent Involvement at School Entry: A National
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Hernandez, J.E., Harry, B., Newman, L. & Cameto, R. (2008). Survey of Family Involvement in
and Satisfaction With the Los Angeles Unified School District Special Education
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Howard, T.C. & Reynolds, R. (2008). Examining Parent Involvement in Reversing the
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U.S. Department of Education: National Center for Education Statistics. (2009). Digest of
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http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/index.asp
Wherry, J. H. (2011). NIS, Inc. Certification of Research-Based Publications. Retrieved from
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Zhang, D., Hsu, H., Kwok, O., Benz, M., & Bowman-Perrott, L. (2011). The Impact of BasicLevel Parent Engagements on Student Achievement: Patterns Associated with
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