FAMILY INVOLVEMENT WITH MIDDLE-GRADES HOMEWORK - EFFECTS OF DIFFERENTIAL PROMPTING

A middle-grades homework intervention was investigated to determine if variations in prompting families to be involved with mathematics home work would influence their level of involvement. The extent to which f amily involvement was a predictor of student achievement in mathematic s was also examined, as were the relationships among family involvemen t, student achievement, and parent education level. Families in the 2 prompted groups were significantly more involved with mathematics home work than were families in the no-prompt group. Level of family involv ement was not significantly related to student achievement on the post test. However, students across the 3 groups whose parent(s) held a 4-y ear college degree scored significantly higher on the posttest than di d students neither of whose parents held a college degree, even though reported levels of family involvement were nearly identical across pa rent education levels. Qualitative data elicited in follow-up intervie ws with family members indicated that ''quality of involvement'' with homework merits examination in future research.