ERIC Number: EJ1369981
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0256-8543
EISSN: EISSN-2150-2641
Parental Help with Homework in Elementary School: Much Ado about Nothing?
Bodovski, Katerina; Munoz, Ismael G.; Apostolescu, Ruxandra
Journal of Research in Childhood Education, v36 n4 p631-647 2022
Although parental help with homework has been long understood as a valuable part of parental involvement with children's education and, as such, an important mechanism shaping educational inequality, previous studies showed contradictory findings about its influence on academic achievement. Using multiple waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), namely 1st-, 3rd-, and 5th-grade data from ECLS-K 1998--1999, and 1st-, 2nd-, 4th-, and 5th-grade data from ECLS-K 2011, we examined the associations between parental help with homework and children's reading and math achievement in elementary school. The initial results from cross-sectional and value-added models showed a negative association between daily parental help with homework and academic achievement. However, child fixed effects models, which address possible bias due to unobservable heterogeneity, no longer show such association. Our findings, including different sensitivity analyses, showed no statistically significant association between parental help with homework and student achievement. Further, the association between parental help with homework and achievement did not vary by parental level of education or child's achievement level. We discuss possible mechanisms behind the findings and their implications for educational policy and parenting literature.
Descriptors: Elementary School Students, Parents, Mathematics Achievement, Reading Achievement, Homework, Parent Participation, Incidence, Parent Education, Children
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Adult Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A