Patterns of Parental Involvement and Influences on Elementary School Student STEM Efficacy and Interests

Abstract

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) is widely acknowledged as a critical component to a healthy economy and global competitiveness. In the last decade, researchers have stressed the need for the development and implementation of instructional components to effectively engage students in STEM learning as early as possible. Previous research has suggested that parental involvement can improve academic outcomes for students. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential connection between increased levels of parental involvement and increased student STEM efficacy. The study closely followed the Hoover-Dempsey Model of Parental Involvement Processes (Hoover- Dempsey et al., 2001) that indicated that parental involvement methods are the mechanisms through which parent-level factors including parental self-efficacy predict student academic outcomes including student self-efficacy. In addition, parental efficacy, and the effects of immersion classes on parental involvement were examined. After transforming the data to correct for parental involvement measures not being normally distributed, canonical correlation analysis revealed significant correlations between the variate for the four parental involvement variables and the variate for the three student efficacy variables when run as sets. Hayes Process Macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2018) found significant direct effects of parent efficacy on student efficacy in math, but not for student efficacy in science or technology/engineering. There were no significant mediational relationships between the variables, however parental efficacy was significantly related to the three parental involvement mediators: Encouragement, Instruction, and Modeling, and Reinforcement was significantly related to student efficacy for math. Based on the results, data support that parental involvement and parent efficacy does influence STEM efficacy among students enrolled in a middle class to affluent school district. Future research needs to examine additional aspects of the Hoover-Dempsey Model in the context of STEM outcomes including how student STEM efficacy translates into student achievement outcomes accounting for the sociocultural context such as nuances of SES, age, gender, disability, and race/ethnicity. Finally, strategies such as inclusive outreach programs and SES conscious engagement opportunities are discussed along with future research to test if those approaches are effective in facilitating the strengthening of STEM outcomes in American school students.