Parent Predictors of Child Academic Outcomes Before and During COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Parent involvement in a child’s education can support child academic development (Fan & Chen, 2001). One way to conceptualize this involvement is in terms of parent behaviors related to schooling (e.g., helping with homework, communicating with teachers; Topor et al., 2010). When COVID-19 disrupted education, parents became far more involved in their child’s schooling than before. However, little is known about whether the same parent characteristics support child academic performance in school versus during remote instruction. The present study thus focuses on the parent-level predictors of child academic development both before and after the shift to remote instruction.
Forty-five parents of elementary-aged children in a rural area of the US completed an online questionnaire in which they rated various aspects of their own functioning and their child’s academic well-being on a scale of 1 (Never) to 10 (Always). They completed all ratings twice – once based on a retrospective account of the weeks prior to the shift to remote instruction, and once based on their time during remote instruction.
Our child outcomes of interest were academic motivation, academic performance, attention, and need for help with understanding schoolwork. We conducted regressions on retrospective reports of functioning prior to COVID-19 as well as current reports during remote instruction on these outcomes. Model predictors were (a) parent education, (b) child grade, (c) parent’s ability to explain concepts to their child, (d) parent-teacher communication, (e) parent-parent communication within their child’s class, (f) having an organized routine at home, and (g) parental happiness.
We found that different parent factors were important when children were in school versus when they engaged in remote instruction. When children still attended school in person, we found that children’s academic motivation, academic performance, and attention were predicted by only one variable: parents’ ability to explain academic concepts to their child (motivation: Β = .61, p = .051; performance: Β = .50, p = .020; attention: Β = .67, p = .034). Parent ratings of the amount of help their children needed with schoolwork was predicted only by grade level (Β = .68, p = .022), with more help being needed at higher grades.
After the shift to remote instruction, one significant predictor emerged across all four child outcomes: parents’ report of having an organized daily routine for their child (motivation: B = .54, p = .010; performance: B = .33, p = .032; attention: B = .45, p = .046; needing help: B = -.72, p = .001). Parents who communicated more with other parents in their child’s class were also less likely to have children who needed help understanding their schoolwork (B = -.46, p = .027), and were marginally more likely to have children with stronger academic motivation (B = .36, p = .077).
This study shows that during involuntary remote instruction, non-academic elements such as managing household routines and maintaining connections with other parents overtake learning-specific predictors (being able to explain academic concepts), suggesting the need to support parents in different ways depending on their child’s mode of schooling.

Authors

• Preeti Samudra, SUNY Plattsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Suzannah Chatlos, SUNY Plattsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author