Running Head: IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FAMILY
It's all about the family: how perceived parental involvement influences academic engagement
and drug use and the implications of differences based on minority status
Michael Frye
EDUC 874: The Achievement Gap
George Mason University
12/13/12
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IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FAMILY
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Introduction
Purpose
This study intends to explore the impact that high school students perceived parental
involvement has on both drug use and perception of school. Differences on these three factors
based on minority status will also be explored. It is easy to speculate as to how these three
factors correlate and how minority students may differ on them in comparison to their nonminority peers. This study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) and data gathered in an
extensive survey study conducted in affiliation with the World Health Organization (WHO) to
effectively measure these relationships and inform their relevance by reporting statistical
significance. The findings are intended to serve as evidence in formulating an effective approach
to decreasing the achievement gap in high schools.
Background
The positive influence that parental involvement has on academic achievement has been
well documented by research, including survey studies (Desimone, 1999; Easton, 2010; Lee &
Bowen, 2006). When considering the impact of race, it has been demonstrated that the positive
influences of parental involvement are compounded in European American families (McNeal,
1999). The ways in which a family can effectively prepare a child for education has been
referred to as social capital, and ability of families to provide this social capital is in decline
(Coleman, 1987). Thus, it has been the aim of certain schools and educational programs to
provide students with social capital necessary to be successful.
Drug use has been shown to have a negative impact on academic success (Jeynes, 2002).
There have been numerous programs (i.e. D.A.R.E.) used in schools that aim to educate students
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FAMILY
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about the harmful effects of drugs and teach them how to refuse them. Regarding racial
disparities, Hispanic students have been shown to be more likely to use marijuana than their
white and black peers (Amey & Albrecht, 1998).
Methodology
The HSBC Survey
The Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HSBC) survey was administered in the
United States in the 2005-2006 school-year as part of an international collaboration with the
World Health Organization. In addition to the US, 41 other nations participated, including
Finland, Norway, and England – where the study was initiated. The purpose of the survey is to
capture a wide range of health-related behaviors and lifestyle issues for students in the midadolescent grade range. Items addressed by the survey include, but aren't limited to:

Family issues such as members in the household and perception of parental involvement;

Diet and exercise habits;

Prevalence of general health ailments (i.e. headaches, stomachaches, asthma);

Perception of body and self;

Perception of school;

Peer influence;

Alcohol, tobacco, and drug use; and

Demographic information.
Students in grades 6-10 in private or public schools in 50 states and the District of
Columbia were eligible for the sample. The sampling was conducted in three tiers: district,
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FAMILY
school, and classroom. Procedures were utilized to ensure that urban schools were adequately
represented. The sample was ultimately comprised of 9,227 students in randomly selected
classrooms from 227 schools (Iannotti, 2012).
Study Sample
Student-level data from the HSBC survey was acquired from the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Data Archive1 (SAMHDA). This study focuses on high school students, so the
sample is restricted to those that indicated they were in grade 9 or 10. Students who took
versions of the survey that did not include the full battery of questions related to drug use were
excluded. The resulting sample size for this study is 1,399 students. Data from selected HSBC
survey items that these students completed are used to address our research questions.
Research Questions – Variables of Interest
This study aims to explore the causal relationships between perceived parental
involvement and both drug use and perception of school; as well as differences on perceived
parental involvement, drug use, and perception of school on minority status. Minority status is
defined as those students who self-identify as either Hispanic or Black/African American. This
is the classification as defined by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as a
historically disadvantaged minority2.
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to analyze the student data and explore the
relationships between these factors. SEM is an appropriate technique to use in this case because
1
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHDA) National Survey on Drug Use and Health Series.
[Accessed October, 2012]. https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/SAMHDA/studies/28241
2
National Center for Education Statistics. [Accessed December, 2012]
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/glossary.asp?nav=Y#disadvantaged_minority
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the variables of interest – perceived parental involvement, drug use, and perception of school –
are latent constructs (also referred to as latent variables or factors). That is, they cannot be
directly measured so they are constructed from multiple measurable variables, in this case survey
questions, that area modeled together to form the latent variables. Relationships between these
latent variables can then be explored in ways similar to the ways that explanatory relationships
and correlations are established between measurable variables (Raykov & Marcoulides, 2006).
The SEM analyses conducted in this study are run in MPlus (Muthen & Muthen, 2010).
The latent variables that we use in this study are: perceived parental involvement
(referred to as Family, which is comprised of a Mother and Father factor), Drug Use, and
Perception of School. Minority Status is our dichotomous outcome which is directly measurable
– 1 for minority and 0 for non-minority. The items that comprise the three latent variables are
described in Table 1.
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Table 1: HSBC survey items organized under their corresponding factor
Question
Response
Categories
Survey Item
Mother*
Q48A
Q48B
Q48C
Q48D
Q48E
Q58
who your friends are
how you spend your money
where you are after school
where you go at night
what do you do with free time
Father*
Father knows: who your friends are
Father knows: how you spend your money
Father knows: where you are after school
Father knows: where you go at night
Father knows: what do you do with free time
Perception of School
Teacher’s opinion of your school performance
Q59
Present feelings about school
Q60A
Students in my class: enjoy being here
Q60B
Q60C
Q61
Students in my class: are kind and helpful
Students in my class: accept me as I am
Amount of pressure from school work
Q49A
Q49B
Q49C
Q49D
Q49E
Mother knows:
Mother knows:
Mother knows:
Mother knows:
Mother knows:
1: Doesn’t see
mother-4: She knows
a lot
1: Doesn’t see father4: He knows a lot
1: Below Average4: Very Good
1: I don’t like it at
all-4: I like it a lot
1: Strongly
disagree-5: Strongly
agree
1: A lot-4: Not at
all
Drug Use
Q75A
Q75B
Q75C
Q75D
Q75E
Q75F
Q75G
Q75H
Q75I
Q75J
Q78B
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
Ever taken drug past 12 months:
ecstasy
amphetamines
opiates
medication
cocaine
glues/solvents
baltok
LSD
anabolic steroids
other drugs
marijuana
1: never-7: 40
times or more
*Note: the Family latent variable is comprised of the Mother and Father sub-factors
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The factors outlined in Table 1 are used in the analytic model to explore the relationships
between Family (a level-two factor that is comprised jointly of the Mother and Father factor),
Drug Use, and Perceptions of School. Our research questions are framed around these
explorations and are defined as follows:

RQ1: Is there a significant impact of Family on the Drug Use and Perceptions of
School variables?

RQ2: Are the differences on the Family, Drug Use, and Perceptions of School
variables based on Minority Status statistically significant? and

RQ3: Are the Drug Use and Perceptions of School variables significantly correlated
with one another?
Results
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Results from a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), as seen in Table 2, have mixed
indications regarding the model fit. The chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio indicates a poor
model fit (Bollen, 1989). While the comparative fit index (CFI) indicates a mediocre fit, the
Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) value indicates the fit is not acceptable (Hu & Bentler, 1999). The
standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), however, is less than .08, which indicates a
good model fit (Dimitrov, 2011). The confidence interval for the root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA) is above .05 which indicates a poor model fit (Brown & Cudeck,
1993).
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Table 2: Fit statistics yielded from the CFA
χ
3349.43
2
df
343
CFI
.855
TLI
.840
SRMR
.068
RMSEA
.079
90% CI for RMSEA
LL
UL
.077
.082
Although the results of the CFA have not uniformly indicated that we have an acceptable
model fit we will proceed with our analysis. Any results will be considered under the caveat that
these analyses are exploratory. Further inspection of the data should be conducted to explore
other possible latent structures that improve model fit.
Structural Model
The structural model uses the latent variable structure that is tested in the CFA and
determines whether or not the structural paths we have imposed on the variables are statistically
significant. The results from our model are illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Structural model with significance of effects
*p < .05
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The structural model shows that there is a significant negative relationship between
Family and Drug Use (β = -0.30) and a significant positive relationship between Family and
Perception of School (β = 0.33). In regards to minority status, the minority students posted a
significant deficit on Family (γ = -.11). They did not differ from their non-minority peers,
however, on the Drug Use and Perception of School variables. The correlation between Drug
Use and Perception of School (ρ = .00) was not statistically significant. All findings are reported
with α=.05.
Discussion
Implications
The first research question asks the following: is there a significant impact of Family on
the Drug Use and Perceptions of School variables? The analysis showed that there is, in fact, a
significant impact in both cases. There is a statistically significant positive impact of Family on
Perceptions of School, and a statistically significant negative impact of Family on Drug Use.
This finding seems intuitive – the students who perceive their parents to be engaged in what they
do in their free time are less likely to do drugs and more likely to be engaged in school. The
importance that this parental relationship has for the student is highlighted by the fact that there
is no significant correlation between the Drug Use and Perceptions of School variables (which
the third research question addresses). Other research has demonstrated a negative correlation
between drug use and school performance which would lead us to expect a negative correlation
between Drug Use and Perceptions of School (Jeynes, 2002). Our analysis shows, however, that
this correlation is non-significant after accounting for the impacts of Family on the two variables.
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This finding highlights the importance of young high school students knowing that their parents
are concerned about where they are and what they are doing.
The second research question asks: are the differences on the Family, Drug Use, and
Perceptions of School variables based on Minority Status statistically significant? The analysis
showed that there is a statistically significant difference on the Family variable based on
Minority Status, and that the minority students are experiencing a deficit on this variable.
Differences on the Drug Use and Perceptions of School variables based on Minority Status are
not statistically significant.
Taken together, these findings indicate that the influence of parents positively impacts
school engagement and negatively impacts drug use. Minority students are shown to have a
deficit on perception of parental involvement. Thus, gaps in achievement and drug use based on
minority status are mediated by the impact of the family. This statement is further supported by
the fact that the correlation between school perception and drug use is not significant.
Although more analytic steps need to be taken to address the veracity of these claims, the
ideas have profound implications for practice. They support Coleman's claim that the social
capital provided in the home is of utmost importance to a child's success in school (Coleman,
1987). The inferences we have made also highlight the value of schools like KIPP and Geoffrey
Canada's Promise Academy. These schools prioritize relationships and behavioral and social
enrichment over academics. The leaders in these schools know that they need to account for the
deficits in social capital that their students – which are primarily from minority backgrounds –
have, and then the academic and engagement pieces will fall into place. Given their success, and
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the evidence provided by the analysis conducted in this study, they are taking the right approach
to decreasing the achievement gap.
Limitations and Further Research
At this point all findings gleaned from the analysis must be accompanied by the caveat
that our measurement model did not demonstrate a very high level of fit. This can possibly be
improved by further exploring the data and the ways in which different survey items contribute
to our factors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses should be performed; whereas this
study only utilized a confirmatory approach. Also, we can look at metric invariance – equal
factor loadings across groups – and scalar invariance – equal intercepts across groups in regards
to minority status. Metric and scalar invariance inspections could increase the fidelity of
comparisons of our factors across groups (Dimitrov, 2011).
Conclusions
Despite the limitations of our model, the results gleaned in this study highlight the
importance of the social capital provided by parental involvement. The demonstrated deficit that
minority students experience on parental involvement will negatively influence their engagement
in school and put them at risk for drug use. Schools such as KIPP and Promise Academy are
taking the direct approach of providing this social capital to their students. The approach, while
direct, however, is extremely difficult. It requires a dedicated staff, an unwavering vision, and
hours and days that go beyond normal school time. What the teachers in these schools know,
and what findings from this study support, is that if this social capital can be provided to
students, the other pieces that lend themselves to a successful life will fall into place.
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