Wow, The Second “Must-Read” Parent Engagement Study In A Week!

Earlier this week, I posted about what I considered to be an extraordinarily important study on parent engagement (see Must-Read Report: “What Roles Do Parent Involvement, Family Background, and Culture Play in Student Motivation?”).

Based on the wide popularity of that post, many people agreed with my assessment.

Now, purely by chance, I’ve come upon another study that, though I wouldn’t say it quite reaches the level of importance of the one I mentioned earlier, it certainly comes very, very close.

William H. Jeynes is a California professor who did some exceptional research on parent engagement in 2007 which I cited in my book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools.

He published this newer study I’m highlighting in today’s post a year ago and, for the life of me, I can’t believe I haven’t heard about it earlier. It’s titled A Meta-Analysis of the Efficacy of Different Types of Parental Involvement Programs for Urban Students and, like his earlier research, it’s not behind a paywall.

I feel this new study, as did his first one, includes some of the most valuable research on parent engagement that you’re going to find anywhere. It’s a meta-analysis of fifty-one other studies. It’s a typical academic paper but, if you’re interested in parent engagement, it’s definitely worth going through it.

Here’s an excerpt from his conclusions:

It is apparent that parental involvement initiatives that involve parents and their children reading together (i.e., engaging in “shared reading”), parents checking their children’s homework, parents and teachers communicating with one another, and partnering with one another have a noteworthy relationship with academic outcomes. In addition, situation specific parental involvement efforts such as Head Start and ESL training for parents yielded effect sizes in the expected direction, albeit falling short of statistical significance.

I’m adding this info to “The Best Research Available On Parent Engagement.”

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