Involved, but not in PTA: Comparing Survey-based Measures of School-based Parental Involvement with a Qualitative Approach

• In Event: 471 - Regular Session. Sociology of Education: Family-School Linkages

Abstract

Current measures of school-based parental involvement are diverse and most commonly survey based (Epstein, 1995; Domina, 2005). A less common approach is the use of interview and observation methods (Lareau, 1996). As evidence that school-based parental involvement matters for student outcomes has recently been questioned, we argue that one way to reconcile the evidence is to better understand what constitutes effective school-based parental involvement. Taking a mix-method approach, we conducted 130 interviews with parents and administrators across three distinct elementary schools. We applied a conventional survey approach used in national data to measure school-based parental involvement in our sample and compared this metric with our more qualitative assessments derived from parent interviews. We find that about 80% of parents that we coded as highly involved from interview data did not participate in PTA—a common marker of high involvement using survey data. Other comparisons revealed unique patterns that demonstrate how critical measurement is for examining parent involvement.

Authors

• Benjamin G. Gibbs, Brigham Young University

• Miles Marsala, Brigham Young University

• Annie Neilson, Brigham Young University