Background of the Study
Education as a basic human right was needed to exercise by
everyone. Family as the basic unit of society, is the primary
factor that affects the children’s personality development.
Parents’ engagement on working directly with their children at
learning activities and the development of their children’s
personality may be affected by their educational attainment.
Parents’ should engage on working directly with their
children and on developing their children’s personality. Parental
involvement refers to the amount of participation a parent has
when it comes to schooling and her child’s life. Some schools
foster healthy parental involvement through events and volunteer
opportunities, but sometimes it’s up to the parents to involve
themselves with their children education. Bringing up children and
taking care of them is a great responsibility for parents.
According to Gordon and Louis (1999) as featured by Gomes
(2015), parents play a major factor in making the educational
experience of their children positive. Students need the presence
of their parents in their schooling, especially as they deal with
the demands of society, peer pressure, and changes in adolescence.
The purpose of increasing parental involvement in children’s
schooling is that such involvement is positive for children.
According to Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1992) as featured by
Gomes (2015), the distinctions are between involvement based at
school and based at home. They used this distinction because it is
concrete. The distinction between involvement based at school and
based at home is important because the two embody distinct ways
that parents become involved in children’s schooling, with
distinct effects on them.
It is also possible that some forms of parent involvement
beneficially affect other student outcomes that might be
associated with academic achievement such as educational
expectations, absenteeism, and truancy. If described in this
manner, parent involvement is conceived of as a form of social
capital. Parents invest their time, attention, and resources in
their children with the expectation of a return – namely that their
children will perform better in school. Recognizing that parent
involvement can be with the child, school personnel, or other
parents is important because not all strategies of involvement are
likely to yield the same result. In fact, one of the confusing
aspects of the literature is that so many different
conceptualizations of parent involvement are relied upon, and
these conceptualizations cut across the domains (child, school,
parents) with little discussion of the implications.
According to Epstein (1983) as featured by Gomes (2015),
parental involvement on both the school and home has been argued
to enhance children’s achievement in school. In skill development,
parental involvement in children’s academic lives improves
children’s achievement because of the skill-related resources it
provides children. Skill- related resources include cognitive
skills such as receptive language capability and phonological
awareness, as well as metacognitive skills, such as planning,
monitoring and regulating the learning process. There are a number
of causes why parental involvement may enhance skills among
children. First, when parents are involved in children’s academic
lives, they may gain useful information about how and what children
are learning in school. Construed most broadly, parent involvement
is any action taken by a parent that can theoretically be expected
to improve student performance or behavior.
In other words, parent involvement consists of those actions
that help a child meet or exceed the norms or expectations of the
student role and encompasses parent-child, parent-teacher, and to
some degree parent-parent relations.
In the study conducted by Garcia and Thornton (2014) shows
that the involvement of family in learning helps to improve student
performance, reduce absenteeism and restore parents' confidence in
their children's education. Learners with parents or caregivers
who are involved in learners’ education, earn higher grades and
test scores, have better social skills and show improved behavior.
Which is something that we as a community and the world at large
are in need of, as it would highly contribute in reducing crime
and poverty. Ideally it would help to have a greater percentage of
parental involvement in their children’s education.
Clinton & Hattie (2013), cited that parents can be involved
in their children's learning through becoming part of school
boards, being concerned about their children's academic
performance, showing dedication in their children's learning
through availing themselves during parents meetings, in order to
gain a better understanding of the performance of their children.
Parents can also be involved by means of follow-ups with their
children's subject teachers in order to identify areas where the
children are facing challenges. If the children got fail grade,
parents go to the extent of contacting their teacher, thus,
building and strengthening the teacher and parent relationship
which would show their commitment towards their children's
learning. Parental involvement is a significant element in
education and can also be achieved through home-based parental
involvement like listening to the child as they read, helping them
in completing their homework as well as school-based activities.
According to Llamas and Tuazon (2016), parents become
comfortable when the education system requires their involvement
in school activities. The strong collaboration of parents with
school authorities can lead to increased improvement in both
physical and academic performance of the school.
In the Philippines, parents’ continuously supporting the
development of their children and engage more in working directly
with their children on learning activities at home. Meanwhile,
other parents’ were not interested in engaging on working directly
with their children on learning activities at home and on
developing their children’s personality because they are too busy
in work and business, no knowledge on the lessons on school of
their children, and ignorant.
Therefore, parents’ educational attainment should be examined
as a prime factor that affects their engagement on working directly
with their children on learning activities at home and on the
students’ personality development.
This study aims to determine the impact of parents’
educational attainment to their engagement on working directly
with their children on learning activities at home and on the
personality development of selected students in San Agustin
National High School. Through this study, the parents’ can gain
knowledge that they should engage more on working directly with
their children on learning activities at home and on developing
their students’ personality holistically.
