The Impact of Parents’ Expectation and Involvement on Child’s Academic Performance

Previous studies have reported mixed results on the relationships between parental beliefs, parental involvement, and student academic achievement. Yet less is known on the heterogeneity factors in these connections based on the propensity for a parent to hold certain expectations and to provide support in various contexts. By using a propensity score matching method, this study investigates the relationship between parents’ beliefs, behaviors, and child’s academic performance with a nationally representative dataset from the National Household Education Survey in 2019. Results indicate that advanced family socioeconomic status such as parents’ high education level and high household income are associated with a high propensity for parents to aspire for a graduate level education for their children. In contrary, advanced socioeconomic status leads to a low propensity to provide homework help and to have family dinner together. Evidence shows that Asian parents and immigrant parents have both high expectations and high involvement. Male parents are more likely to hold high expectations, but female parents are more likely to give direct help in homework. Children higher in school year tend to have parents with lower education expectations and engagement. Overall, parents’ expectation for graduate school education is positively associated with child’s academic performance between age 5-20. However, parents’ direct involvement with homework help is negatively associated with child’s performance. Indirect involvement with family dinner is not significantly associated with academic performance. These patterns suggest that 1) both child-level and family-level characteristics induce parents’ beliefs and behaviors, 2) it is important to further understand how parents can better communicate their expectations to children and interact with them out of school hours.