Measurement Analyses of School-Based Parental Involvement: Rethinking Its Concept, Dimensions, and Measurement

• In Event: 44.055 - Measuring and Reconceptualizing Parental Involvement

Abstract

Based on theoretical accounts from economics and sociology, this study proposed that school-based parent involvement (school PI) needs to be broken into two topical sub-dimensions—involvement directed at their own child (private-good PI) and involvement to improve the school as a whole (public-good PI)—and tested soundness of the hypothesized model with a nationally representative dataset. Findings of CFA analysis represented that two-dimensional structure with modification resulted in a better model fit than traditional one-dimensional structure of school PI. The hypothesized model fit data well across multiple waves of data. This result serves as empirical evidence that grouping the school PI items into public-good and private-good PI is a better representation of the national data.

Author

• Sira Park, UC Berkeley