Parental Involvement and Its Influence on the Article Critique

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Parental Involvement and Its Influence on the Reading Achievement of the 6th Grade Students

The article's source was derived from several resources. Some of which were texts and the other is a group of 48 sixth grade students from whom the study was based on. The article was peer reviewed and featured in a textbook as well as a magazine publication. The research question was structured as a question and given its own mini sub-section, it was indeed clear and stated at the very beginning: "Does parental involvement affect the reading achievement (specifically comprehension) of sixth grade students" (Hawes & Plourde, 2005, p. 219)? The authors' hypothesis had a separate section for the hypothesis and explained, they believed there was no connection between reading attainment and parental participation for sixth grade middle school pupils.

The purpose of the author's study was to "to determine the relationship between reading achievement and parental involvement for sixth grade middle school students. The participants were forty-eight sixth grade students who completed parental involvement surveys. The parents of these students also completed a parental involvement survey" (Hawes & Plourde, 2005, p. 219). Because the answers were based on survey questions, the information derived for the study is quantitative. The scores the authors derived from both the student and parent surveys were than compared to the student's reading level.

These are numerical values so this further proves the results and the study leans more towards quantitative. Additionally the information gathered was then statistically compared to help determine potential existence of a correlation, by using the "Pearson Product Moment Correlation formula." In essence the study was completed in three parts. The first part was getting the survey answers from the students. The second part was getting the answers from the parents. Then they got the scores from the students. Finally they compared all of the data to prove their hypothesis.

II. The Procedures

They clearly explained how they collected the data, by having a separate section titled: "Data Collection." Here they discussed in detail how they generated a "parental involvement survey" and this survey was sent to the guardians and parents of the 57 children they included in the study. After distribution of the survey, the study included a follow up call to all of the parents/guardians to make sure the surveys were answered and handed back in on time. Inclusion of a Spanish survey made so the answers could be submitted from English and Spanish speakers. The time frame of the survey was one week.

With the student survey however, the survey was administered in class by an external observer. The surveys themselves were quantitative in design by offering 4 choices. There were six questions in total. The answers to the survey themselves were done as: "never, almost never, sometimes, and frequently. Each response of never was worth 1 point, almost never 2 points, sometimes 3 points, and frequently 4 points, for a possible score of 24. The total from the student survey (out of 24) was added to the total of the parent" (Hawes & Plourde, 2005, p. 222). From here they averaged out the scored and derived an overall score.

Most of the study's information was derived from the study itself, however, there was some supplementary information added to support and provide background to the reading comprehension levels of middle school kids as well as discuss whether or not the possibility for a link to parental involvement and reading scores existed. Along with supplementary information was a brief summary and conclusions based off of the research that the authors conducted. Not only was this helpful along with the subheadings for providing readers with a clear direction and outline for the study, but it also helped with understanding the hypothesis and scope of the study better.

III. The Method of Analysis

In relation to the authors' organization and logical approach in the study, nothing comes to mind in terms of improvement. The authors stated everything directly and clearly without any urge to overcomplicate. Everything had its section and even the research was clearly and nearly summarized and concluded. The research question, the hypothesis, and the purpose of the study was easy to find and easy to elaborate on because everything was put in easily readable terms and the data collection measures were not only repeated in the abstract, but well elaborated in the article.

The article overall is one of the easiest articles to understand and read. The abstract itself provided clear and concise information that made reading the entire article more enjoyable as most of the article was already previewed in the abstract.

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The inclusions of "Recommendations" and "Limitations of the Study" also showed and reinforced the conclusion and results from the study as well as provide context surrounding the hypothesis. The authors use inductive reasoning or the "bottom up" approach.

The reason for this conclusion is the authors projected their beliefs about there being no connection based off specific assumptions. However as the scores revealed a more general indication, this highlights how inductive reasoning works. "…inductive inference may be guided by and reflect categorical-based induction paradigm not only to study the use of categories in reasoning, but also to draw inferences from patterns of reasoning about the nature of conceptual structures themselves (Feeney & Heit, 2007, p. 55). It began with a very specific idea that branched out to a more general answer/result/conclusion.

As earlier mentioned, the study has its own section including supplementary information derived from research that helps explain the different aspects of the study. The section is titled: "Review of Related Literature" and has its own introduction and conclusion along with subsections. The subsections are: "Reading Achievement and Comprehension," "Parental Involvement in Schooling," and "Reading Achievement and Parental Involvement in Schooling." The studies/articles mentioned help explain the context surrounding not only parental involvement, but also the level of reading middle school students typically have. This helps portray a possible connection to these two things as well as provide important context surrounding the desire to create this study

The procedures done in the study were concise and easy to replicate. There were only six questions given for the student portion of the survey and four choices. Since the study is quantitative based, the results can easily be calculated should the study get replicated. Any additional information necessary to replicate the study would be to get the information of the error results or percentage as well as what software was used or software alternatives. That way the calculations would be easier to get the same way as the authors.

This was a correlational, non-experimental study intended to ascertain the association between parental contribution and reading accomplishment in sixth grade pupils. The purpose of the study was not to establish a fundamental relationship amongst the independent variable which is parental contribution, and the dependent variable which is reading success, but rather endeavored to discover a correlation amid the two. "Data were collected in the form of surveys to measure parental involvement and the McLeod Reading Comprehension test to measure reading level. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the independent and dependent variables. The data were analyzed using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation" (Hawes & Plourde, 2005, p. 222). In essence the design of the study was a Causal Design: "Causality studies may be thought of as understanding a phenomenon in terms of conditional statements in the form, "If X, and then Y." This type of research is used to measure what impact a specific change will have on existing norms and assumptions" (Labaree, 2014).

The sampling plan consisted of selecting sixth-grade students from the East Central Washing section. Selection of middle school and students was based on the convenience approach. What this means is, the researcher utilized the pupils that were in her Language Arts classes. And then used the parents that were associated to the students.

The data was collected in three steps. The first was distribution of survey to parents. Then there was a follow up call. Then the students were administered a survey in class. This was a great way to reach parents and students as well as make sure as many answered surveys were given back. The inclusion of a Spanish survey was great. I would have included the use and option of an electronic survey for easier and faster submission.

IV. The Major Conclusions

I agreed with the interpretation of the results because the information was thorough and there was only a slight positive correlation between parental involvement and reading scores. Students at that age make decisions independent from their parent's involvement and are not as easily swayed or influenced to commit to a learning regimen. In relation to the article as a whole, it was a great and easy article to read.

V. Summary

Overall the article highlight and use of subsections made finding information easy. The summary and conclusion for both the study itself and the literature review was the best part of the article….....

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