To: Professor Mangini

From: Grace Jo
12/04/2014
Subject: I- search paper
Parental involvement in education
What is the purpose of life? What is your final goal do you want to achieve? What do
you need to achieve that dream? Many people say that study would be the first and easiest
step that can be prepared. Especially the education at an early stage, in this case for the
students under 18, the parental guide with the education has a huge impact on them. Some
assert that there should be no involvement in education as it only makes the kids indolent and
kill their sense of independence. However, Most argue that parental involvement in education
would bring a positive outcome as it accelerates the speed of learning in various ways.
I chose this issue for my research paper since the education became one of the most
important aspect in our life no matter what their age group is, and in the process of making a
stepping stone for a future learning (age group over 18) role of parent is crucial for the kids
under 18. I am also one of them who were hugely influenced by their parent with the learning
habit. To discuss about this topic, first it is essential to know Why the education is so
important in our life?. In the current society, we now have highly-developed technology and
how could we possibly get this? It is because the number of smart people increased. This
social phenomenon created an idea that smart people will come up with a better result and
all the companies desire to employ highly educated applicants. The level of education that
one received will be a way to express oneself and be major factor of their competitiveness. A
line of information about the university or college on their resume is a way that employees

assume the enthusiasm or effort that one put throughout their learning process. This means
that academic elitism is deeply rooted in our society and I could learn this idea from my
parents by getting help from them with my works. That external help from my parent made
me to learn ahead than the other students I wanted to share the idea and persuade people who
only consider about the negative side of parental involvement in education. Moreover, by
doing this research, I could possibly figure out and suggest a better way of learning for both
children and parents. To get the data for persuasion I decided to do research by reading the
articles and interviewing people.
Before I started to search for data, I had to make a plan first. It was some sort of a
guide line to clear the topic for myself. As I posted on the blog I chose my thesis statement
Bias and some detailed data that I should find to persuade the negative side during the
planning. In addition, I also determined to research about various types of involvement and
some academic benefits that parental involvement would bring, to strengthen my argument.
After I have built this plan, I started to find some good linkages with good articles that could
not only support my idea but also form the sympathy of the audience. As I read the article I
could get the ideas from each debating side. Those articles were based on many research that
were done and therefore, the credibility on the article was high and it also represents that not
only myself but also many people are caring about this issue which means my article would
be interesting to many readers. Article worked really well but compare to this, the interview
did not give me much help since the opinions of people were so different. There were some
good opinion but most of them said that they do not really know what kind of effect that
parental involvement had on their learning habit. They all mentioned their learning habit was
made because of the circumstances that they were faced with, or their interest towards the
learning material. In addition, they were thinking about the opposite situation that they grew

up with. What if my parent did not help me and gave me some independence? What if my
parent took care of me more and led me with my learning? Would I have faced any other
features than what I am experiencing now? It seems liked the comments from the others were
not really related to my topic and I would say that this method did not really work. At the end
I collected all the ideas that I have found out and provided from the others. Then I categorize
the information that supports each debating side.
Now I have collected the sources that I need. Some may assert that it is unnecessary
to have parental involvement in education. They said that parental involvement is overrated.
In most cases, children with their parents help performed worse academically. It is important
to adjust the level of participation, since sometimes those help only destroy the kids
enthusiasm and their sense of independence. Kids should have autonomy in their learning,
and the parental involvement would only be a distraction.
However, still greater numbers of parents intend to put more attention on their
childrens education. Why should parents care about the education? It is because it would
bring positive effect on kids learning and even for the future career. There are 6 types of
parental involvement and these are Parenting, Communicating, Volunteering, Learning at
home, Decision-making and Community collaboration. Support from school and education
institutions is required to create the learning environment at home, and active attitude of
parent is also important. Help from their parents brought advantages for various groups
include children, parents, educators and school. For children, Children tend to achieve more,
regardless of ethnic or racial background, socioeconomic status, or parents' education level.
They generally achieve better grades, test scores, and attendance by consistently complete
their homework. Since children could observe an obvious positive result they could have
better self-esteem, become more self-disciplined, and show higher aspirations and motivation

toward school. Therefore, the number of suspension for disciplinary reasons decreased and
fewer students are being placed in remedial classes. This encouraged the students and once
they become senior students, they could have better eye towards their decision making with
their college. In addition, children from diverse cultural background tend to do better when
they were assisted by their parents. For parents, this kind of involvement increase their
interaction and discussion with their children and are more responsive and sensitive to their
children's social, emotional, and intellectual developmental needs. This is also a great way to
solve one of the current social issues which is lack of conversation between family members.
This is possible because they usually have better understanding of the school curriculum and
they are aware of what their children are learning. Once the parents can see the achievement
they will be more confident in their parenting and decision-making skills. Lastly, this will
benefit teachers and the school as teachers can have more job satisfaction according to the
high involvement of students, and at last, school could have a good reputation. Therefore,
parents should be involved since it brings positive impacts on various sides.
By finishing this research, it was a great period of time for me since I had a chance to
learn about researching. This was my first research process, and therefore there were some
points that worked and that did not worked. Something that worked was there was a freedom
with the point of view that I used in this research paper. The concept of this paper was
different compare to the other papers that I have heard before. With the other ones, I should
not be the main agent, but in this case this was an I-search paper so I had less pressure on
my shoulder, especially the hardness that I heard about the other usual research papers. Also,
I think I did fine with sharing both sides opinion and persuade the negative side since I
mentioned both debating side and organize the short paragraph of the other side first and then
the long paragraph of the idea that I argue for. Personally, time management was not a

successful part for me and choosing a topic was also a hard task. If there would be an I-search
paper again, I would like to research about Should the government let the parents do homeschooling or should they make a restriction of compulsory education?.