Parent’s Education and Children’s Test ScoresGarrett Jennings, Department of Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences, and Honors College

Faculty Mentor: Diane Verrill, Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences, and Honors College

I would like to explore the relationship between the test scores of students in math and the education of their parents. I posit that students with educated parents will have higher standardized math test scores. For this study I will request test scores and the corresponding data about the students’ parents’ education from the College Board. The data will then be organized according to the test scores and the education level of the parents. The test scores will be organized by grouping them into sets such as 1 for 600 to 1200, 2 for 1201 to 1800 and 3 for 1801 to 2400. This will then be compared to the education level of the parent of the child. The education level will be grouped based on degree acquired: 1 for no high school completed, 2 for high school diploma or GED, 3 for Associate’s Degree, 4 for a Bachelor’s Degree, 5 for a Masters degree, 6 for a Doctorate and 7 for Professional School Completed.

There are many ways that parents influence their children’s education. The different kinds of involvement affect the children in different ways and may even have negative effects. Boys and girls are typically dealt with in different ways by their parents. However, students seem to be most affected by how they perceive their parents to care about their achievement (Sehee, Sung-Kyung, Sukkyung, & Chih-Chun, 2010).

Sehee, et al. (2010) asked students how involved their parents were and if they had high aspirations for them. Over a period of five years, the students were also monitored to see how well they did in their math classes. In the end, it was found that the way that a student did in previous math courses usually affected the way that they performed in the later ones. Prior performance is more influential than parental influence. Parental influence and the push for achievement were also affected by the performance of the student in previous courses—the better a student did, the more likely the parent was to push them to do well. They did not find a statistical difference between male and female students once they had reached middle school.

Parental involvement can also impact the way that teachers perform. When parents get involved, the teacher will have more confidence to teach their students properly. Race and ethnicity play major roles in the ways that the parents will get involved in their children’s education. Social capital had the least significant effect, while parents’ educational expectations had the most significant effect on students’ math scores. However, different variables had differing effects on students of different races and ethnicities, and involvement and effectiveness were found to vary between whites and minorities (Wenfan & Qiuyun, 2005).

A correlation between the test scores of parents and the test scores of their children also seems to exist. Parents who make high test scores in mathematics tend to have children who make high mathematics test scores. Although adopted children are not as affected by the intelligence of their parents as biological children, they are still affected in important ways. Children who began learning basic math at an early age tended to show higher scores and become better at more advanced mathematics as they progressed. Sex also seems to be a factor, as boys tend to score higher at age seven in mathematics while girls score higher in reading. The income of the parents is also beneficial to the student and can have an impact, with students coming from high-income families showing higher scores (Brown, McIntosh, & Taylor,. 2011).

Warren Burggren, Ph.D., Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Vish Prasad, Ph.D., Vice President for Research and Economic Development

Michael Monticino, Ph.D., Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Gloria C. Cox, Ph.D., Dean, Honors College

 Su Gao, Chair, Department of Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences 

Brown, S., McIntosh, S., & Taylor, K. (2011). Following in Your Parents' Footsteps? Empirical Analysis of Matched Parent-Offspring Test Scores. Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics, 73 (1), 40-58. doi:10.1111/j.1468- 0084.2010.00604.x Sehee, H., Sung-Kyung, Y., Sukkyung, Y., & Chih-Chun, W. (2010). The Reciprocal Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Mathematics Achievement: Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Modeling. Journal of Experimental Education, 78(4), 419-439. doi:10.1080/00220970903292926 Wenfan, Y., & Qiuyun, L. (2005). Parent Involvement and Mathematics Achievement: Contrast Across Racial and Ethnic Groups. Journal of Educational Research, 99(2), 116-127.

http://www.aamozgar.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/SAT.jpeg

http://www.noodle.org/sites/default/files/math-student.jpg

http://img.gawkerassets.com/post/11/2012/03/function.png

http://highschoolmediator.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SAT-Test.jpg

http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/math.jpg

http://jquah.freeshell.org/images/circ-triangle.png

For this project, I would like to research the effect of parents’ education levels on the test scores of their children. What is the extent of the effect that they can possibly have on their children’s learning abilities?

BACKGROUND LITERATURE REVIEW

METHODS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AKNOWLEDGMENTS