Chapter 5: Implications, Recommendations, and Conclusions

 

The problem addressed in this study was the limitation of immigrant and refugee parent involvement in Head Start and Early Head Start to support their children’s education (Hindman et al., 2012; Manz et al., 2014). The variables defined in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) that contribute to parental intentions include attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991; Bracke & Corts, 2012; Perry & Langley, 2013) and provided a framework from which to explore the views of immigrant and refugee parents with regard to parent involvement in their children’s early childhood education. The purpose of this quantitative descriptive and correlational study was to assess key variables posed in TPB as possible determinants of parental intention for involvement behavior (i.e., parental attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) and ascertain whether they were significantly related to and predictive of the reported intentions for involvement of immigrant and refugee parents in their children’s early education programs. By assessing these constructs pivotal to TPB, an expansion of this theory within the context of immigrant and refugee families with children enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start was accomplished.

Using a survey instrument to collect data, the goals were to (1) identify parental attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, parental intention, and perceived behavioral control regarding parent involvement, and (2) investigate how, if at all, these variables are correlated to and serve to predict parent involvement, as TPB suggests, in this population. The dependent variable was reported as parental intentions for involvement, and the predictors were the determinants of behaviors, outlined in TPB, i.e., parent attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, as reported by immigrant and refugee families with children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs. The predictor variables were examined in hopes of identifying possible factors that might hinder or promote parent involvement in order to utilize the information to create interventions for parents of immigrant and refugee communities in and increase their intention for involvement in children’s education at an early age.

Survey methods were employed, as they were the most appropriate method for collecting quantitative data, to measure study variables posed in TPB and to ascertain whether they were significantly related to and could predict the involvement of immigrant and refugee parents in their children’s early childhood education programs (Girardelli & Patel, 2016). The population targeted was parents/caregivers who were immigrants and refugees with children enrolled in either an Early Head Start or Head Start program. A census of a population of immigrant and refugee parents at twelve Head Start and Early Head Start Centers was conducted and a final sample of 122 parents/caregivers whose children participated in these programs completed surveys. Parents were asked to complete the Parental Involvement Project (PIP) Questionnaire (see Appendix A), a 57-item survey measuring attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and parental intentions. All ethical standards for conducting research were followed. All analyses were conducted using the 0.05 level of significance and with the statistical software SPSS version 22. In brief, this quantitative correlational study utilized correlation analysis, to measure the degree of an association between two or more variables, and a multivariate regression analysis, to assess the magnitude and intentions of a relationship of the predictor variables to the criterion variables.

The attitudes and beliefs of immigrant/refugee parents regarding parental involvement in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start programs was measured and the mean scores for this variable was moderate (M=107.02). The variable of attitudes and beliefs was also significantly and positively correlated to subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and parental intentions. The subjective norms of immigrant/refugee parents regarding parental involvement in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start programs was measured and the mean scores for this variable was moderate high (M=30.98). The subjective norms was significantly and positively correlated to parental intentions. The perceived behavioral control of immigrant/refugee parents regarding parental involvement in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start programs was measured and the mean scores was moderate (M=88.34). This variable was significantly and positively correlated to parental intentions. The parental intentions of immigrant/refugee parents regarding parental involvement in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start were measured and the mean scores derived for this dependent variable was moderately high (M=50.94). These intentions were significantly and positively correlated to attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. The findings of the multiple regression analysis were that the three independent variables were significant predictors of parental intentions and accounted for 50%, of the variance of parental intentions for their children’s education. The null hypothesis was rejected.

In this study, the participant selection of immigrant and refugee families was limited to only those who voluntarily completed the survey and whose children attended one of twelve Early Head Start or Head Start centers in a particular geographic area. These limitations increased common-method bias, which increased the probability that the characteristics of those parents who responded were different from those who did not. However, the anonymity of the survey may have been helpful to counteract some biases as a focus group of immigrant and refugee population would have been susceptible to other limitations. One possible limitation was the potential for a language barrier. To compensate for this limitation, the survey documents were distributed in English along with a translation in the parents’ primary language. Parents’ reading levels could also affect their comprehension of each question or prevent them from voluntarily taking the survey (Keys, 2015). Because the scope of this study counted only immigrant and refugee parents, findings were limited to the sample obtained from those enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs in the vicinity. Further, this study was also limited by the use of a convenience sample. Alternatively, anonymity helped counteract some biases because focus groups of immigrants and refugees would be susceptible to cultural correctness. Another limitation was participants responded to only survey questions without the opportunity to elaborate on their responses. Discussion of implications and recommendations for practice and future research, along with conclusions are the focus of this chapter.

Implications

The objective of this study was to assess key variables posed in TPB as possible determinants of parental intention for involvement behaviors and ascertain whether they were significant related to and could predict the reported intentions of involvement of immigrant and refugee parents in their children’s early childhood education programs. Perry and Langley (2013) revealed that parental attitudes/beliefs and subjective norms were the two strongest predictors of parental intentions in their children’s education involvement. These determinants are also important factors for immigrants and refugees’ families with low-income or at-risk status (DeLoatche et al., 2014; Perry & Langley, 2015). For example, a recent special issue of Early Childhood Education was dedicated to examining the influence of the parent involvement relationship on various family outcomes and interventions to improving parent involvement among Head Start families (DeLoatche et al., 2015).

For research question one, the attitudes and beliefs parents reported was moderate (M=107.02). This level implies that parents from an immigrant and refugee populations hold generally negative attitudes about becoming involved in the early education of their children and believe that parent involvement is important for their children’s success in school. These parents are likely to be engaged with teachers who should encourage this involvement by providing and explaining information on the child’s learning goals, requesting attendance for special programs, asking for volunteers, and sharing students’ academic progress.

            For question two, the subjective norms parents reported were moderately high (M=30.98). This level implies that parental involvement may be an area in which parents from immigrant and refugee communities are concerned with regard to making sure they are following cultural or community norms. They may be likely to succumb to social pressure to increase their involvement in their child’s education. Because when considering parent involvement in education, parents may want to support their children but their practices might differ in approach depending on their cultural background (Garbacz et al., 2016). For example, Latino immigrant parents were likely to stress social values and concerned about children’s social development rather than their cognitive development and individual school accomplishments (Kikas, Tulviste, & Peets, 2014). Parents who emphasized social values might consider that teachers were the main educators of children and thus might be less engaged in children’s education (Fung & Fox, 2014). However, parents who gave priority to self-direction values, such as independence, creativity, and self-confidence, might consider cooperation and sharing of responsibilities with teachers as inappropriate (Kikas et al., 2014). Thus, it is more directly the relationships built with the teachers that might increase parent involvement rather than directing reasons to be involved as something that all parents in the U.S. should do. Activities providing greater levels of collaboration between teachers and parents would be a better focus. Teachers and parents might build partnerships with: (a) a school-focused on school climate for parents to feel welcome and teachers are interested and cooperative when they discuss a child with his or her parents, (b) an empowerment-focused school climate in which teachers discuss concerns with parents about their child’s problem promptly, and (c) culture may play a significant role in parents’ ideas about the ways they can and should be involved in supporting their child’s learning and this may not be swayed by simply engaging them by suggesting it is a cultural norm in the U.S. (Hoover-Dempsey, Sandler, & Walker, 2005).

For question three, the perceived behavioral control, parents reported was moderate (M=88.34). This level implies that these parents do believe they have some degree of control over their ability to become involved in their child’s education. This would influence parents’ thinking about the kinds of involvement activities they can take on or choose to engage in. When teachers’ requests for involvement fit parents’ knowledge and skill, they are more likely to participate (Hoover-Dempsey, Sandler, & Walker, 2005). For some immigrant and refugee parents, their language is a barrier; they may not feel they understand enough English to attend a meeting with teachers or staff, so they choose not to come. The data collected do not specifically indicate what might be perceived as barriers to involvement; nevertheless, these parents do not seem to report low control of their own behavior and ability to be involved, which indicates they are more likely than not to choose to be involved when the opportunity presents itself.

For research question four, the parental intentions reported were moderately high (M=50.94). This implies that parents from immigrant and refugee populations appear to indicate they do have some level of intentions to become involved in their child’s early education. While these intentions might not be as high as teachers want, their intentions are certainly not as low as they could be. Researchers found that when family members took the lead and made decisions for their children’s learning, they were truly engaged (McCormick et al., 2013). Researchers showed that Head Start programs did not affect all children in the same way because the fit between what the program provides and what the family provides to a child was likely to differ across families and programs (Miller et al., 2014).

The null hypothesis for research question five was rejected because statistically significant positive correlations were found among the variables. These positive correlations imply that the theory of planned behavior operates similarly within this sample of immigrant and refugee parents in comparison with other demographically different samples examined by Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2005), Perry and Langley (2013), and Kiriakidis (2015). Interestingly, the finding was that subjective norms had the strongest correlation among the predictors. The finding of this study provided continued support for the wide application of this theory across populations that have rarely been examined.

Immigrant and refugee parents’ involvement in HS/EHS programs can be predicted by their reported attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral controls with regard to their involvement in children’s education. This finding implies that all three variables should be considered important aspects by which teachers, center directors, and administrators may affect parents’ intentions and desire to be involved in their child’s schooling. The findings of the multiple regression suggested that attitudes and beliefs and subjective norms were the two strongest predictors of parental intentions for involvement. Some prior researchers also found all three variables to be significant predictors of parental intentions for involvement (Kiriakidis, 2015; Tipton, 2014), while others have had findings that support only one or two of these variables (Case, Spark, & Pavey, 2016). The findings supported that the theory of planned behavior can be applied to explaining parent involvement of immigrants and refugees whose children are enrolled in HS/EHS, thereby expanding the theory to encompass people with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

This study was guided by the theory of planned behavior that stipulates the more favorable parents’ intention to engage in their child’s education, based on their attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, the more likely they will actually engage with their intended behaviors (Ajzen, 2011). The findings of this study revealed the implications of improving current parent involvement policies for engaging immigrants and refugees, and they may be able to overcome the barriers of involvement if the schools can improve their programs. Regarding parental behavior, Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB) model (1991) was a useful method to explain and predict parents’ intentional behavior based on their personal beliefs about the outcomes of behaviors. It was used to describe the dynamic and complex nature of parental engagement in their child’s life and education (Bracke & Corts, 2012). In addition, the TPB based moldel offers a viable theoretical lens for examining parental involvement, the most important determinant of parental behavioral dispositions. The findings from this study are aslo particularly encouraging in that they reported to have relatively moderate parental intentions, and this will likely have a positive effect on their child’s education if teachers and center directors lead parents to increase their level of involvement in a program.

Recommendations for Application

            By assessing the constructs that were pivotal to TPB, an expansion of this theory––within the context of immigrant and refugee families with children enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start—was accomplished. There was a lack of proper application of TPB highlighted in the literature review about both of school personnel and key variables in this study (Dean, Stewart, & Debattista, 2017). The aspects of parental involvement included attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and subsequent parental intentions. First, parents or caregivers need the provision of resources to change their attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control toward their children’s education in early development. Second, increasing parent involvement is positively correlated with higher achievement of children’s learning activities (Castro et al., 2015). Thus, teachers and center directors must outweigh the challenges that they encounter with involving parents. Any barrier identified by parents should be resolved and educators should strive to make a priority of reaching out to involve parents (DeLoatche, Bradley-Klug, Ogg, Dromrey, & Sundman-Wheat, 2015).

Researchers have reported on different methods of involving parents that play a positive role in becoming involved in their children’s school (Kikas et al., 2014). Castro et al. (2015) conducted a meta-analysis and found multiple ways in which families could be involved in children’s learning at home, in the community, and in school. At home, a family’s engagement is the most important factor to a child’s development; for example, the activities include shared book reading, parent-child conversation, discussed letters and sounds, and writing exercises. Hindman, Miller, Froyen, and Skibbe (2012) stressed that enjoyable at-home learning activities may encourage children’s positive attitudes about learning. In the community, families can help children learn about the wider world and access resources that may not be readily available within the household such as visiting libraries, attending museums, sport events, church functions, or other cultural opportunities (Hindman et al., 2012). School-based involvement includes various activities in which parents engage, for example, participating in school trips, volunteering in the classroom or at school events, fundraising, and attending school programs (Castro et al., 2015; Kikas et al., 2014; McCormick et al., 2013). In school-based activities, McCormick, Cappella, O’Connor, and McClowry (2013) found that parents who were involved would likely have positive relationships with teachers; in turn, teachers might be less liable to perceive problematic behaviors among the children of highly involved parents. Parents and caregivers could volunteer in the classroom or staff the office to participate in decision-making bodies such as the parent policy council or personal communication such as parent-teacher conferences (Hindman et al., 2012).

Homeschool conferencing is a communication between parents and school staff on educational topics related to a specific child (Castro et al., 2015; Kikas et al., 2014). For school conferences or meetings, where oral communication skills are essential, parents with limited English language skills can be asked in advance to bring an adult whom they trust to serve as their translator (Cheatham & Ostrosky, 2013). If centers have trouble-locating translators for written school materials, schools should successfully collaborate with community-based organizations and refugee resettlement agencies to provide translation assistance (Manz et al., 2014). Finally, centers should outreach to families through informal meeting settings. For example, making home visits for young children below the age of three years is a primary means of strengthening the pivotal role of parents (DeLoatche et al., 2015; Manz et al., 2014). Although encouraging parent involvement was politically neutral and rhetorically popular, much of the research informing policy was occurring in the absence of clarity around the dimensions of parent involvement and the role of teachers in predictive relationships of children’s behaviors (McCormick et al., 2013). Researchers found that preschool educators and staff should be trained to communicate with parents or caregivers regarding giving their engagement in home-school learning activities, as well as in the communities (DeLoatche et al., 2015).

Positive attitudes and beliefs of parents and caregivers toward participation in Head Start and Early Head Start programs have benefited them. Parental involvement and acceptance of these family characteristics are important aspects of research and can always be improved for these actions ultimately can affect immigrant and refugee parents’ perspectives about their child’s education (Leyendecher et al., 2018). When dealing with immigrant and refugee families with different characteristics, Head Start faculties may not understand the difficulties the young children and families have been through (DeLoatche et al., 2015) and may not always able to address specific needs that families wants. Hence, knowledge of parent involvement is crucial to Head Start staff who should be well-trained (Edberg et al., 2017).

For parental involvement, attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control play a crucial role in parental intentions to be involved and, subsequently, the development of their children. Of all the variables that were considered important, parental involvement was considered to have the greatest impact on preschoolers’ education (Dean, Stewart, & Debattista, 2017). There is evidence that parents strongly believe they should be involved in helping their children succeed in school. Therefore, administrator or center directors should share this same regard for involvement and set the tone for a school culture that has high expectations for parental involvement. Collaboration will be needed between parents and teachers to maintain the expectation in the Head Start and Early Head Start centers. Teachers and center directors should consider the theory of planned behavior to account for parental intentions to become and remain involve with their child. Chiefly, teachers and center directors should communicate clearly that all parents have an important role to play in children’s learning success.

Recommendations for Future Research

Continued research on parental involvement is needed to further support a significant correlation with and contribution to the prediction of parental involvement by immigrant/refugee parents in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start programs. The problem of parental involvement in children’s education in Head Start or Early Head Start programs was a primary focus in the study, although other problems arise in immigrant/refugee families. Findings were delimited to only those variables being measured in relation to parent involvement and the theory of planned behavior. The criteria for participants’ enrollment in this study were immigrants and refugees, which eliminated some families from participating even though they would consider themselves a part of this population. This study delimited the population to only the geographic regions in southern California being sampled and whose children were enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs. Expansion to a wider geographic region, other programs that serve the early childhood population and more diverse parent populations would serve to further validate the current findings.

The current study has only focused on the three factors contributing to parent intentions for involvement as defined by TPB, but other factors may affect parental intentions for involvement. This delimitation had a potential effect on the examination of relationships among beliefs/attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral controls, and parental intentions. One effect was that other variables could contribute to parent involvement or a lack of involvement that were not measured or not included in TPB and so were not accounted for in the study; therefore, the prediction formula would be limited. Future research should attempt to identify additional factors that might be particular to one people group. Researcher seeking to gain a better understanding of demographic characteristics that may conflict with parental involvement and parental intention outcomes would serve to further inform TPB (DeLoatche et al., 2015).

Another recommendation would be for studies to examine the effect of biases and prejudices based on languages, races, religions, and socioeconomic statuses. Including a wider sample of a diverse demographic population, such as Chinese, Somalians, or Iranians for more findings would also be worthwhile. Investigations of both immigrant and non-immigrant families’ educational involvement practices in Head Start programs might also serve to reveal differences that may need to be addressed by program directors to further increase involvement (Sibley & Brabeck, 2017). More research is needed to explore teacher-parent relationships that are developed within the programs, particularly with the immigrant and refugee populations, and in which teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of the program. Research on the teacher-parent relationship could advance understanding of the benefit of having positive intentions related to parents’ involvement in the HS/EHS programs (DeLoatche et al., 2015; Perry & Langley, 2013).

Conclusions

This quantitative correlational study utilized a correlation analysis to measure the degree of an association among the variables and a multivariate regression analysis to assess the magnitude with which TPB variables could predict parental intentions for involvement in schooling. The measures of attitudes and beliefs, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control perceptions, and intentions of immigrant and refugee parents were significantly related to each other and predicted 50% of the variance in parents’ intentions for involvement in AKA Head Start and Early Head Start programs resulting in rejection of the null hypothesis. The findings are consistent with the theory of planned behavior applied to explain parent involvement for parents with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The variables examined significantly predicted the reported intentions of parental involvement in early childhood education programs. The findings of this study would support the theory of planned behavior as applied to parent involvement of immigrant and refugee parents whose children are enrolled in HS/EHS. Information collected in the study is useful for training for Head Start educators in order to meet the needs of immigrant and refugee families and involve parents. Competence training should be provided in HS/EHS programs.

Future research on parental involvement in the HS/EHS programs should continue. The most effective efforts for improving parental involvement must be reinforced and built in early childhood education by a program executive director, a center director, educators, and policy-makers. These professionals always wish to increase parental involvement in the programs to be successful; however, the number of immigrants and refugees’ families is rapidly growing each year, which affects the way HS/EHS programs operate. Finding an appropriate method of increasing parental intentions to participate in their children’s education helps address the centers’ responsibility of increasing parent involvement and the immigrant and refugee family would benefit. An important task to promoting children’s early education is getting parents involved in their programs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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