AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Over the past several decades, research has indicated that when parents are involved in their childs academic endeavors, their children are more likely to succeed in school. However, these findings are not congruent with the perceptions of every parent. For example, several parents reported that as their children become older, their level of involvement should decrease, while other parents felt as if their non-involvement will not have an effect either way on their childs academic performance. The focus of this study was to investigate the ways college students perceived their parents involvement. Particularly, the overall objective of the study was to measure differences between groups based on the participants gender, grade point average, age, classification level, their parents income level and educational attainment. For this study, a survey design was employed to collect data. Two-hundred two (n=202) community college students participated in two empirical studies. The Parental Involvement Assessment (PIA), formulated by the researcher specifically for this study, was used to gather the data. In the preliminary study, Cronbachs Alpha on the instrument was found to be 0.819. Several ANOVAs were performed in order to determine the differences between groups on a number of measures. The results of this research indicated that parental involvement contributes to community college student success, regardless of gender. In addition, parents with higher income levels were more likely to be involved. Additionally, students who were not aware of their GPA indicated that they would know their GPA if their parents were involved. Last, amid other results, findings indicated that students with higher GPAs were more likely to be rewarded for grades, were more likely to be encouraged by their parents, and were more satisfied with the level of parental involvement. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed. Key words: parental involvement, academic achievement, community college, community college students, student perceptions