The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed methods study was to investigate factors contributing to positive and negative outcomes of parental involvement in mathematics education of their children. The differences were explored by comparing and contrasting parental attributes such as attitudes, beliefs, and expectations between European-Australian and Asian-Australian backgrounds of parents as well as gender and year level of students. The explanatory sequential mixed methods design comprised of a quantitative survey followed by qualitative interviews to help explain and complement the quantitative findings. A mixed methods approach was chosen because of its strength to include both quantitative and qualitative data minimising the limitations of each individual method. A conceptual framework including parental attributes, parent-child involvement factors, and student outcomes was developed to guide the study. Those parent-child involvement factors were found to be parental encouragement, family rules, home discussion, homework involvement, entertainment deprivation, perceptions of control, provision of private tutoring, and student self-concept.
Data collection involved obtaining quantitative results from surveying secondary school students (N= 128) and their parents (N = 85) in Melbourne and then following up with eight purposefully selected parent-child dyads to explore those results in more depth using qualitative results. Responses from parents and children were gathered using two separate questionnaires, which were similar to each other. Each of those questionnaires consisted of Likert scale type, multiple choice, and open-ended questions. Face-to-face interview questions for parents and children were also similar and open-ended.
Survey data recorded in Qualtrics databases were imported into two SPSS files and analysed using statistical analysis techniques such as correlation, cross-tabulation, independent samples t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to find significance and effect size. In further analysis of quantitative data confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were involved using SPSS AMOS software to find factor scores. To organize and analyse interview data, content analysis techniques such as coding and querying were involved using NVivo software. Finally, the results of both quantitative and qualitative analyses were connected and compared drawing interpretations to answer research questions.
Keywords: mixed methods, parental involvement, mathematics education, student outcomes, questionnaires, interviews