Cauces procedimentales, ordinario y especiales

(The Parent’s Positive Decision to Become Involved) Influenced by: Parent’s Construction of the Parental Role Parent’s Sense of Efficacy for Helping Child(ren) Succeed in School

General Opportunities and Demands for Parental Involvement Presented by: The Parent’s

Child(ren)

Child(ren)’s School(s)

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psychological factors that feed into parents’ decisions to become involved: role

construction, self-efficacy, general perceived opportunities and demands from students, and general perceived opportunities from teachers or the school. They suggested that parents construct their roles socially from observing and modeling the practices of their own parents, family members, and friends. However, in order to act upon this role construction, parents must feel their involvement would be effective. Building on Bandura’s (1986) work on self-efficacy, they argued that parents’ sense of their own potential effectiveness would come most powerfully from direct and vicarious

experiences in successful parental involvement activities. Less influential sources would come from verbal persuasion on the part of significant others or the child and feeling emotionally concerned about the child’s success in school. Role construction that included a sense of self-efficacy would mean that parents would be more likely to become involved in their children’s schooling. Perceived general invitations from students, teachers, or the school to become involved also would increase the likelihood that parents would decide to engage. For example, a general invitation from the school could include a generally welcoming atmosphere and responsive school climate.

Once the decision was made to become involved, the second level of the model suggested that forms of involvement would be influenced by the specific skills and knowledge parents perceive they have to offer, the mix of work and other responsibilities they have, as well as by specific invitations by students and teachers to become involved. For example, parents who have confidence in their own math abilities would be more likely become involved in math homework help; parents would be more likely to engage is school related activities if work demands were accommodated, parents would be more

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likely to attend school events if invited specifically by their children; and parents would be more likely to engage when teachers design interactive homework assignments.

The third level of the model explored how parents influence children’s school success. Three hypothesized mechanisms included modeling, reinforcement, and instruction (both close-ended and open-ended). By becoming involved, parents would model behavior and attitudes conducive to school success. Their involvement would send the message to children of the value of school; it merits adult time and attention. When used in developmentally appropriate ways, their reinforcement would shape children’s behavior in ways that contribute to school success. Finally, parents’

instruction, both close-ended and open-ended, would promote the acquisition of content knowledge and higher level thinking skills.

Mediating variables in the fourth level of the model included the child’s perceptions of 1.) the appropriateness of the strategies and activities selected by the parent and 2.) the fit between expectations of the school and activities selected by the parent. Hoover-Dempsey and her colleagues hypothesized that parents must take into account the age and abilities of their children in selecting an involvement strategy or activity. They noted that elementary age children possess enthusiasm and a belief in their parents as all-powerful. Their parents often possess the skills and abilities to help with school tasks. By contrast, individuation forms one of the central tasks of adolescence in Western society. The opinion of peers matters more than those of adults. At the same time, middle school tasks become more complex and may fall outside of the parents’ abilities to help. Thus the selection between the parents’ form of involvement and the developmental needs of the child is both more critical and more difficult to achieve at the

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middle school level. Finally, there must be a fit between school and parental expectations. Children who must expend energy trying to reconcile differing expectations run the risk of diminished capacity for engagement or withdrawal.

Finally, in the fifth level of the model Hoover-Dempsey and her colleagues theorized that parents’ engagement would relate indirectly to children’s achievement by increasing the students’ knowledge and skills as well as their sense of self-efficacy for school success, rather than by directly influencing students’ results.

Revised Model. Ongoing efforts to operationalize constructs, build valid and reliable scales, and test the original model resulted in three significant modifications (Figure 2.) First, drawing from constructs in the first two levels of the original model, the first level in the revised model now features three overarching psychological constructs that form the foundation of parents’ decisions to become involved: parental motivation (includes role construction and self- efficacy), perceived invitations (includes general and specific school invitations and specific child invitations), and life context (includes knowledge and skills, and time and energy). A second difference is that the revised model hypothesizes links among levels and can thus function as both a theoretical model and an analytical framework (Walker, Wilkins, Dallaire, Sandler, & Hoover-Dempsey, 2005). Third, reconfiguring the first two levels led to the elimination of a dependent measure in the first level, allowing authors to link the psychological constructs underlying involvement decisions to involvement behavior.

Finally, in subsequent work on the model, Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (2005) theorized that two components combine to help parents construct their roles: parents’

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Figure 2. Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s (2005) revised model of the parental involvement process