The respondents surveyed were in the majority of the population: white, middle class, and female. It is not a diverse sample in terms of age, income, gender, or ethnicity. When providing their opinions on education and parent involvement, respondents’ age, income, gender, and ethnicity may form the lens from which they view education. This infers their needs may differ from those younger parents who are struggling economically or those parents who come from a diverse racial background. Though not asked on the survey, this group may also reflect the largest number of homeowners. As such, the group may feel that they have the financial resources to help their children without getting involved as much with school. Their income may also have the effect of increasing their self-efficacy in all areas.
This age group may also have more experience raising children. The respondents indicated that 24 people in the age range of 41-50 had two children, 16 had three children, and 2 had four children. Forty-nine percent of all people surveyed were older parents with multiple children. Like anything else, parents who had had multiple children may have already built on their experiences in raising their first child. Mistakes that were made with earlier siblings may serve as learning opportunities for parents when it is a younger child. Parents may feel their self-efficacy as parents grow with each succeeding child they have, as they have had time to practice how to better work with their child on school assignments.
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Given the commonalities among the respondents, it may be that they share similar response tendencies. If they believe that it is desirable to answer a question a certain way to not make them look bad, they may do so. This may have occurred with such responses as basic parenting and self-efficacy, where the responses overwhelming fell into extreme positive categories on the scale. If parents were not able to provide their children with basic tools needed for them to succeed in school or if they questioned their own efficacy, they may not have indicated as such for fear of negativity.
It would have been interesting to have younger parents with less experience and presumably, less financial resources respond to the questions to see if the level of parental self- efficacy and involvement differs at different stages of life. Their needs might be greater than those parents who have experience with raising children and who have had older children in school. Younger parents who have less experience may not benefit from the same social networks or financial resources the older parents have. This may result in these parents not knowing where to turn for support with school as their children become adolescents. Getting these parents’ views on their own needs and involvement levels would benefit educators greatly in being able to target programs and resources to meet these parents’ needs.
5.3.1 Limitations of Survey Responses
This study was affected by the amount of missing data from the respondents. Several people who reviewed the survey questions did not bother to complete the survey. Many other respondents dropped out from the survey as they progressed through the questions. The result was a small sample size. This affected the researcher’s ability to conduct parametric tests for all variables of
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self-efficacy and parental involvement, as the distribution of the responses for some survey questions was not normal. Non-parametric tests of assumption and analysis were used instead. Median splits were used in order to create dichotomous variables. These splits were derived from the answers where the highest frequency of responses fell. In areas with a skewed distribution, it created a median score that might have been different had a larger sample been studied.
In the creation of the composite parental involvement variable, dichotomous indicators were used to create the variable. All of these indicators were weighted equally, no one indicator was given more value than any other indicator. This weighting might not reflect the actual importance of that indicator in parent involvement practices. With the small size of the sample, it was not possible to determine whether some indicators may have more or less influence on the overall construct of parent involvement.
This research was also affected by the use of two different means of survey delivery: electronic and paper. The low response rate with the electronic survey questions the assumption that most parents have access to computers and can even access, let alone respond to, online surveys such as this one. More research may need to be done on the digital access and literacy of parents, particularly those in lower socioeconomic areas. There may be an assumption by educators that more people are connected via the internet and are reasonably able to use computers than is the case. This may also reflect the types of interactive parent involvement feasible in a district. Parent computer literacy may cause a division among those parents that are or are not digitally competent. This in turn may affect which types of interactive parent involvement activities are possible. If many parents are not able to use an online parent portal, it may negate parent participation from a significant portion of a school district’s parent base. School districts
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may need to determine how many of their parents are digitally literate so they can use online interactive resources to properly reach out to all components of their parent population.