As both researchers and educators have sought to more fully understand the complex relationship between parental involvement in education and student outcomes, increasing interest has been given to understanding why parents choose to become involved in their child’s education. Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s revised model of parental involvement in education identifies three general factors that influence parents’ decision to become involved: parental motivating factors including parental role construction and parent efficacy, general invitations and demands for involvement from the child and school, and parental life context. Building from Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, the current study both proposed and examined a model of parental involvement in education for (a) parental involvement at home, (b) parental involvement at school, and (c) parental involvement in academic socialization activities. In addition, this model also assessed how the grade of the student and barriers to parental involvement contributed to parents’ decisions to become involved.

A sample of 468 parents of students (grades 2-8) completed a questionnaire packet that assessed parental role construction, parent academic efficacy, perceived barriers to parental involvement, and parent perceptions of school climate, teacher invitations, and child invitations. Parents also reported their self-perceived involvement in home-related activities, school-related activities, and academic socialization activities.

Results indicated that parent motivations and parent perceived invitations significantly contributed to parents’ decision to become involved in home, school, and academic socialization activities. When tested separately by student grade level, the fit of the model was sustained for parents of all three grade levels. In addition, both the grade level of the student and barriers to parental involvement interacted with specific predictor constructs on the three forms of parental involvement. In particular, work barriers significantly interacted with both parent perceived child and teacher invitations on parental involvement at home and at school.

These findings highlight the importance of personal invitations from both the child and teacher in getting parents involved. In addition, they also provide support for studying parental involvement in academic socialization activities as a separate form of involvement. Future research is needed to more fully understand how parental barriers play a role in parents’ decision to become involved.