CONNECTING HOME AND SCHOOL: THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT ON STUDENTS’ ENGAGEMENT IN PRIMARY EDUCATION

Abstract

A synergic relationship between home and school is crucial when considering early childhood development, quality of instruction and students' behavior in primary education systems. This is an empirical study to find out the direct quantitative effect of parental participation on student engagement in public sector primary schools of District Pakpattan, Punjab, Pakistan. Based on two models, Overlapping Spheres of Influence Model (Epstein) and Participation-Identification Paradigm (Finn), the research explored how different parenting styles, parenting learning support, school communication and community volunteering relate to the students' behavioral, emotional and cognitive involvement. A positivist paradigm and descriptive-correlational survey research design were used to collect data from primary school stakeholders (educators and parent cohorts) from rural and urban settings, which resulted in a randomly selected stratified sample of 400 stakeholders of primary school. Two standardized and highly validated research instruments were used in data collection: Multi-Dimensional Parental Involvement Scale (MDPIS) and Student Engagement Evaluation Index (SEEI). The data was processed and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v28.0) using descriptive analysis, Cronbach's alpha reliability indices, independent samples t-test, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and simple linear regression. The factor-wise internal consistency values showed good psychometric reliability ranging from 0.735 to 0.864 with alpha levels. The empirical findings showed that there was an extremely strong and positive relationship between engagement of the primary students with their parents and the results were statistically significant (r = 0.642, p < 0.001). In addition, simple linear regression analytics showed that parental involvement was a significant positive predictor of student engagement profiles, with explanatory variance of student behavioral connectivity is significant (B = 0.638, t = 14.912, p < 0.001). Interestingly, independent samples t-test results showed that there were no gender differences in the overall engagement scores for students in the active parental support group, which suggests that parents' involvement is equally beneficial to male and female pupils. The strengthening of parent-teacher association and the official communication between school and home, as well as the training of parents in the community, should be institutionalized in a purposeful manner by school administrators, policy-makers and primary education directorates to reduce institutional tension, increase national pedagogical delivery and increase retention among parents.