PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN A TEENAGER’S ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS IN MATHEMATICS AND NATIVE LANGUAGE COURSES

Abstract

This study is quantitative in nature and aims to reveal the relationship between several forms of parental involvement with their teenager’s academic achievements, differences of parental involvement based on the student’s gender, and levels of the student’s academic achievement. The study sample included 369 parents of students who are 14 or 15 years old (N = 369). To meet the goals of the study, a measuring instrument of 10 under scale based on self-reporting of parents was applied. Analysis of data was done using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and identification of the strength of correlations was used with Davis indicators (1971). Detection of gender differences was conducted by analyzing the T-test, while comparison of the average values for the parental involvement of differences on the basis of the level of achievement was made possible by analysis of variance ANOVA. Results show that there is a positive relationship (from weak to strong) between the academic achievement of students in mathematics and native language with parental involvement aspects. Parental involvement with homework in both mathematics and native language studies is positive and moderate. The parental expectation of progress and achievement in mathematics is strong, while in the case of native language the expectation is substantial. The study also found gender differences -- parents support girls more than boys. Students with high academic achievement were found to have careful parents who created a suitable environment for learning, were involved more in homework, and reported higher ratings for linguistic and mathematical knowledge in their children, compared with parents of students with average and low scores.