Poster #83 - Preschool Teachers’ Outreach Efforts and Children’s Academic Achievement: The Mediating Role of Parental Involvement

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Early educators can play an important role in supporting children’s readiness for school by reaching out to parents to encourage parental involvement that supports children’s transition to kindergarten (Pianta, Cox, Taylor, & Early, 1999). Hoover-Dempsey et al., (2005) suggest that educators’ invitations for involvement has the potential to shape parental involvement, which in turn influences children’s outcomes. Although studies have linked kindergarten teachers’ outreach efforts (Galindo & Sheldon, 2012; Jung & Han, 2013; Schulting, Malone, & Dodge, 2005) to improved outcomes for children in kindergarten, no studies to this date have used nationally representative data to examine the relationship among preschool teachers’ outreach efforts and children’s academic achievement during the transition to elementary school. This study fills a gap in the literature by using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth cohort (ECLS-B) to estimate a structural equation model to examine the associations among preschool teachers’ outreach efforts, parental involvement, and children’s reading and mathematics achievement at kindergarten entry (Figure 1).

Table 1 presents a summary of unstandardized parameter estimates for the structural model under study with columns representing exogenous factors (explanatory variables) and rows represent endogenous factors (dependent variables). Parameter estimates indicate positive association between home-based involvement and children’s reading achievement (b = 2.26, p < .01) and participation in extra-curricular activities and mathematics achievement (b = .84, p < .001), holding all else constant. Estimates also indicate that parents’ perceptions about teachers’ outreach efforts was positively associated with home-based (b = .35, p < .001), extra-curricular (b = .41, p < .01), and school-based (b = 2.63, p < .001) involvement. Formal tests of mediation indicate that the indirect effect of parents’ perceptions of preschool teachers’ outreach efforts on reading achievement was mediated by home-based involvement (b = .79, p < .01), while the association between parents’ perceptions on mathematics achievement was mediated by children’s participation in extra-curricular activities (b = .34, p <.05).

Findings from this study support the assertion that invitations for involvement (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005), more specifically, parents’ perceptions of invitations for involvement shape parental involvement, which in turn, has a positive influence on children’s academic achievement during the transition to elementary school. Although these findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating a positive association between parents’ perceptions about teachers’ invitations for involvement and school-based involvement (Green, Walker, Hoover-Dempsey, & Sandler, 2007; Walker, Ice, Hoover-Dempsey, & Sandler, 2011), they extend previous research by demonstrating that parents who have more positive perceptions about preschool teachers’ outreach efforts reported engaging children in more home-based involvement and extra-curricular activities, which in turn, positively predicted children’s achievement upon kindergarten entry. This study has important implications for encouraging and supporting home and school-based involvement by demonstrating the degree to which preschool teachers’ outreach efforts shape children’s achievement during the transition to elementary school by way of parental involvement. Future studies should explore if preschool teachers’ outreach efforts have a differential impact on measures of school readiness for children living in poverty and those from historically marginalized communities.

Author

• Jaime Lynn Puccioni, University at Albany
  Presenting Author