







































 

 

 

 

 

How Does Parental Involvement Affect 

Children’s Academic Development from 

A Core Literacy Perspective? 

Wenyan Liang, Ran Sun, Xiaomei Ye

Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Abstract. This study explores the influence of parental involvement on 

children’s academic development, and comprehensively defines the indi-

cators of children’s academic development from the perspective of core 

literacy. Based on urban and rural household registration status and 

regional migration, children in China are divided into four categories. 

Three main findings are as follows. First, parents’ direct learning par-

ticipation can hardly benefit children’s academic development, regard-

less of what type of children. Specifically, this type of parental participa-

tion has a significant negative impact not only on academic test score of 

all children, but also on all academic development dimensions of  chil-

dren who have rural to urban migrant experience. Second, parents’ emo-

tional participation behavior can effectively promote the academic de-

velopment of children, regardless of migration type. Third, parents’ cul-

tural participation has a positive effect on local urban children’s aca-

demic development, while it has a negative effect on the learning will-

power and curiosity of urban-urban migrant children who move from 

one urban area to another in different provinces/districts. Under the 

background of mass internal migration and rapid urbanization, our find-

ings provide implications for parents to better participate in their chil-

dren’s education in the context of rapid population movements and ur-

banization. 

Best Evid Chin Edu 2019; 1(2):109-130. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.19.ar1026 

Keywords: Parental involvement; Academic Development; Core Literacy; Rural 

Hukou (Household Registration); Regional Migration 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 110 

 

Research Background and Problem 

XPLORING the impact of parental involvement on children’s academic de-

velopment is a key research issue, while helping parents improve their partic-

ipation is regarded as a way to promote children’s academic development 

(Fan & Chen, 2001). For example, the United States has implemented some home-

school cooperative programs such as “Head Start”
1
 and “Success for All”

2
 to help 

parents from disadvantaged groups to better participate in their children’s learning 

(Currie, 1997; Hill & Tyson, 2009). In China, some researchers have tried to explore 

the influence of parental involvement on children’s academic development based on 

different samples from different regions or different educational stage. However, as 

China has experienced rapid internal rural-urban migration or regional migration, and 

almost all of public welfare such as education is depending on household registration, 

then further studies are required to explore the research question mentioned above. 

On the one hand, most related studies only focus on children’s test scores (Hill 

& Tyson, 2009; Altschul, 2011; Jona et al., 2013; Wilder, 2014), while a single di-

mension of outcome would be no longer in line with the demand of future society. In 

fact, there will be full of uncertainty and challenges in the future, it requires that chil-

dren’ academic development should be comprehensive and diverse. As Heckman et 

al. (2006) pointed out that the disciplinary knowledge taught by schools in the era of 

information and globalization is depreciating at an accelerating rate; as a result chil-

dren must not only acquire subject knowledge, but also acquire the literacy and skill 

of adapting to varied complex situations. That means if we overlook children’s de-

velopments in areas which are not measured by subject test scores; we will not only 

hinder children’s ability to have a high quality and happy life, but also affect the 

country’s labor quality and social well-being. In the existing literature, only very lim-

ited number of scholars express concern regarding the effects of parents’ participa-

tion on children’s academic developments other than test score: self-educational ex-

pectations (Brooks et al., 1997; Gonzalez et al., 2002), learning effectiveness (Fan & 

Williams, 2010), learning autonomy (Shao, et al., 2016), et al. However, these stud-

ies are mostly carried out by psychologists and not educators, measures of parental 

participation are decentralized and sporadic. Without a common framework, it is dif-

ficult to obtain a holistic conclusion through existing researches. 

 
 

About the Author: Ran Sun, Anhui, Master’s Student of the Department of Education, Beijing Normal University, 

Email: ransunsunny@163.com 

Xiaomei Ye, Henan, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Education, Beijing Normal University, Email: 

iikeer@163.com. 

Correspondence to: Wenyan Liang, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Institute for Economics of Education, Faculty of 

Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China, Email: liangwenyan@bnu.edu.cn or 
wenyan_liang@163.com. 

Funding: Major research projects of the Ministry of Education  ”The research on the relationship between educa-

tion and economic development and the contribution of them (15JZD040)”,  special fund for Disciplinary Con-

struction in 2017 by the Department of Education of Beijing Normal University. 

Conflict of Interests: None. 

 

E 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 111 

 

On the other hand, among the previous related researches which focused on ur-

ban children’s education development under the background of internal population 

migration, authors just focuses on RUMC (Zhou & Wu, 2008; Shao, et al., 2016). In 

fact, according to population migration and existing hukou (Household Registration, 

in Chinese “户口”) segmentation policy, the urban resident children can be divided 

into four types: local urban children (LUC) without any migrant experience; rural-

urban migrant children (RUMC) moving from rural to urban areas within the same 

province/district; urban–urban migrant children (UUMC) moving from one urban 

area to the other in different provinces/districts; and children who had moved from 

rural to urban areas in different provinces/districts with dual mobility experience 

(DMC). And ensuring each type of children gain better education is the basis for 

promoting social integration. Obviously, focusing only on DMC cannot explore the 

complete relationship between parental involvement and children’s academic devel-

opment in rapidly urbanizing China. Then it cannot provide specially and helpful 

suggestion for the improvement of parental involvement for different kinds of chil-

dren. 

Compared with the existing researches, this current study tried to gain im-

provements in the following two aspects. First, based on the framework of core liter-

acy, we construct a more comprehensive indicator for the measurement of children’ 

academic development. These indicators will cover both test-score and non-test score 

indicators. Second, according to hukou and regional mobility situation, we divide 

urban resident children into four types: LUC, RUMC, UUMC and DMC. Then, we 

explore and compare the relationship between parental involvement and children’s 

academic achievement in such four children categories. 

Literature Review and Research Hypothesis 

Indicator Framework for Children’s Academic Development on the Framework of 

Core Literacy 

Children’s academic development indicators can be mainly divided into two catego-

ries: 1) existing and directly available test performance indicators. These indicators 

can measure the academic achievement aspects of subject knowledge and other liter-

acy skills; 2) specially designed and collected non-test score indicators. These indica-

tors can measure the academic achievement aspects of learning abilities and attitudes 

(Chu, 2016). Studies regarding children’s academic development have traditionally 

focused on the first category. Though it is important for children’s education and so-

cial economic achievement (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2008), it is insufficient to 

adapt the demand of the uncertain and challenging in future society (Chu, 2016). Alt-

hough the second category indicators are often overlooked, they have benefits for 

children’s long-term development and social well-being (Heckman et al., 2006).  

What specific indicators should be included in assessment of a child’s academic 

development? The “China Student Development Core Literacy” report, released in 

2016, provides us a guided framework. Among the six aspects of core literacy pro-



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 112 

 

posed by the above report, the three aspects – cultural literacy, scientific spirit, and 

learning to learn-are closely related to academic development. Specifically, the as-

pect of cultural literacy emphasizes the basic ability of applying knowledge and skills; 

it includes indicators such as test scores and grades. The aspect of scientific spirit 

emphasizes value standards, thinking modes and behavioral expressions formed dur-

ing the student’s learning process; it includes indirect academic development indica-

tors such as learning willpower and learning curiosity. The aspect of learning literacy 

emphasizes students’ choice of learning methods, the performance of the learning 

process assessment and regulation; it includes indicators such as t self-learning abil-

ity, self-education expectations and other indirect academic development.  

Among the existing literature, many scholars have studied children’s academic 

development under the core literacy framework based on theoretical discussion 

(Yang, 2017) or international comparison (Chu, 2016). However, few scholars con-

duct empirical research based on the perspective of core literacy to assess the influ-

ence of parental involvement on children’s academic development. This is the focus 

of current research.  

Parental Involvement on Children’s Academic Development 

Referring to the study of Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994), we divide parental in-

volvement into three categories: direct learning participation, emotional participation, 

and cultural participation. 

Firstly, direct learning participation (DLP) refers to parents directly intervening 

in the child’s learning process, including checking homework, guiding homework, 

attending parent meeting, etc. In the existing literature, only a few studies conclude 

that parents’ DPI significantly improves children’s test scores (Li, 2017). Most stud-

ies have found that such parental participation behavior has no positive effect on 

children’s academic test scores and can even have negative effects. (Sui-Chu & 

Willms, 1996; Patall et al., 2008; Zhao & Hong, 2012; Li & Zheng, 2016). Nonethe-

less, some studies that use non-test scores as a result variable suggest that such par-

ticipation has a positive effect, for example, to enhance children’s learning willpower 

(Gonzalez et al., 2002; Fan & Williams, 2010), learning adaptability (Plunkett et al., 

2008) and self-educational expectations and learning autonomy (Gonzalez et al., 

2002). 

The second type of parental involvement is emotional participation (EP) that re-

fers to parental communication with their children and corresponding responsiveness 

to their children’ needs. Such participation includes parents communicating with 

their kids and discussing matters related to school and study. Research suggests that 

EP can improve children’s academic test scores (Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996; Zhao & 

Hong, 2012), promote children’s self-learning ability (He & Li, 2000), learning will-

power (Huang & Huo, 2014), learning autonomy (Liu & Teng, 2016) and other non-

test scores. 

Finally, cultural participation (CP) refers to parents guiding their children to 

participate in various cultural activities, including accompanying children to read, 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 113 

 

visiting museums, and watching cultural performances. Studies suggest that parental 

CP behavior not only helps improve children’s academic test scores (Grolnick & 

Slowiaczek, 1994; Altschul, 2012; Sibley & Dearing, 2014), but also enhances chil-

dren’s interest in learning, their learning power, etc. (Brooks et al., 1997; Wang & 

Sheikh-Khalil, 2014). However, cultural participation has higher requirements for 

parental literacy, and its positive impact is mainly observed in the upper middle class 

(Sibley & Dearing, 2014). 

Furthermore, after reviewing related literature, we found that the indicators 

chose by existing researches are scattered and not system. Each author only chose a 

few indicators in each paper, which restricts the comprehensiveness and comparabil-

ity of research conclusions. In current research, we study the impact of the above 

three types of parental involvement on children’s academic development under a uni-

fied analytical framework and outcome indicator framework. We propose the follow-

ing three hypotheses: 

H1: The more parents’ DLP, the better their child’s academic development would be. 

H2: The more parents’ EP, the better their child’s academic development would be. 

H3: The more parents’ CP, the better their child’s academic development would be. 

Migration, Hukou Segmentation, and Parental Involvement  

As mentioned above, Children living in cities are divided into LUC, RUMC, UUMC 

and DMC.  Compared to children of the first category, the last three categories of 

children experience migration across of rural-urban or urban-urban or both. In a 

sense, RUMC, UUMC and DMC can be regarded as “outsiders” towards their cur-

rent living city. 

Due to the long-term existence of the urban-rural and regional divides in China, 

LUC, RUMC, UUMC and DMC differ in family socioeconomic status. First, parent 

of non-agricultural hukou, which are LUC and UUMC, have higher educational at-

tainment, higher-level occupations and more stable jobs than the parent of other two 

types of children (Feng & Chen, 2016: 67-70). Second, local parents, which are LUC 

and RUMC, are more familiar with the local labor market than other two types of 

non-local parents. Thus, local parents are more likely to have local social resources 

which lead to advantage in better job market (Xie, 2012). Third, as there exist differ-

ent requirement for job skill among different regional labor market, then adult would 

face inescapable mismatch in inflow areas’ labor market, so non-local parents’ in-

come level, job stability and flexibility would be affected (Xie, 2012). Presumably, 

we infer that, among such four types of children, their social and economic status of 

households sorting from highest to lowest would be: LUC, UUMC, RUMC and 

DMC. 

Previous studies have shown that, parental involvement behavior is closely re-

lated to family socioeconomic level. First, among disadvantage families, lower eco-

nomic income, longer and less flexible working hours, and higher unemployment 

risks would limit parent participate in their children’s learning and life (Wu et al., 

2017). Second, among disadvantage families, as parents have lower levels of 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 114 

 

knowledge and cultural literacy, which would limit them attach importance to their 

children education and have higher expectation for their children. As a result, these 

parents are more likely to lack planning in their children’s educational involvement, 

especially ignore emotional participation and cultural participation (Altschul, 2012). 

In contrast, among advantage families, parents would have higher quality involve-

ment. Owing to they own high-level learning experience, they can not only teach 

their children knowledge and learning strategies in subtle ways, but also carry out 

parent-child communication more effectively (Wu et al., 2017). Third, according to 

the theory of social reproduction, schools have the attributes of the upper middle 

class, which makes it difficult for parents from disadvantage families to adapt to the 

culture and ideology of the school when communicating with teachers or participat-

ing in school activities (Sui-Chu & Willms, 1996; Li & Zheng, 2017). At the same 

time, some researchers even found that schools may show discrimination against 

such parents (Wu et al., 2017). Fourth, specific to immigrant groups, they would also 

face the obstacles in the aspects of cultural customs, social rules, languages, et al., 

this would inevitably hinder such parents carry out parent-teacher communication or 

CP behaviors (Altschul, 2011). As a result, the quantity and quality of parental in-

volvement for LUC, UUMc, RUMC and DMC would be descending. 

According to relevant research, the influence of parental involvement behaviors 

of different socioeconomic groups on children’s development cannot be completely 

determined (Nguon, 2012; Li & Qiu, 2016). Thus, in current research, whether the 

effect of parental involvement on academic development would have difference 

among such four children types is uncertain. If such impact effects are different be-

tween among such four children types, targeted guidance information is required for 

each type of parent to help them better involved in children’s education. Since many 

related studies in the past only focus on some of these types (Zhou & Wu, 2008; Liu 

& Teng, 2016), the conclusions may not be comparable, they cannot provide targeted 

and effective information for parental involvement in special type of children either. 

To this end, we attempt to verify hypotheses 1-3 for each type of children group. 

Data and Variables 

Data 

Data in this study are collected from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) base-

line database. In current paper, we do not include all samples of CEPS, but only keep 

grade 8 (junior) students who study and live in urban areas. Furthermore, to ensure 

consistency of the sample, this study retains 9727 children with no missing values for 

all dependent, explanatory and control variables. We define place of residence and 

household registration in the same province as local, and the household registration 

in the province as a flow. Combining urban and rural household registration and mo-

bility, the research sample is divided into four groups (number of individuals in 

group): LUC (4688), RUMC (2973), UUMC (785), and DMC (1231) (the composi-

tion ratio is shown in Figure 1). 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Variables 

 

Academic Development Variables 

 

Based on the core literacy framework, the academic development variables include 

two types: 1) test score indicator, specifically, the class scores of children’s self-

evaluation
3
, and 2) non-test score indicators, including learning willpower, learning 

curiosity, and self-learning ability and self-education expectations. Among these, 

learning willpower is based on responses to “even if the body is a little uncomforta-

ble, or there are other reasons to stay at home, I will still try to go to school” and 

“even if the homework takes a long time to finish, I will continue to do my best.” 

Learning curiosity is measured by reported agreement with the statement “I am very 

curious about new things.” Self-learning ability is measured by response to “I can 

learn new knowledge quickly.”
4
 Self-education expectation is highest expected by 

the students’ reported expectations
5
. 

 

Parental Involvement 

 

Parental involvement is divided into three categories
6
: DLP, EP, and CP. The aspect 

of DLP includes four items: 1) how frequently parents check their children’s home-

work; 2) how frequently of parents guide children as they do their homework; 3) par-

ents willingness to participate in parent conferences; and, 4) the frequency of parents’ 

active contact with teachers. The aspect of EP includes two items: 1) the frequency of 

parents and children discussing school events; and 2) the frequency of parents and 

children discussing the child’s relationship with teachers. The aspect of CP includes 

four items: 1) frequency of parents and children reading together; 2) frequency of 

parents and children exercising together; 3) frequency of parents and children visiting 

museums and zoos together; and 4) frequency of parents and children watching a 

game or performance together. To facilitate interpretation of results, we conduct a 

factor analysis
7
 for the items in each category and take the first common factor score 

to synthesize data as indexes for each aspect of parental involvement. 

 

Control Variables 

 

To reduce estimation bias and identify true effects as much as possible, we introduce 

control variables from three resources: individual, family and school. Individual level 

Control variables include gender, grade, cognitive test scores, number of siblings, 

agricultural household registration, and inter-provincial mobility. Family-level con-

trol variables include the parents’ maximum number of education years
8
, the family’s 

economic status
9
, and whether the child was living with their parents. School-level 

control variables include teacher ratios of bachelor, school conditions
10

, and school 

rankings (1 = lower middle, 2 = upper middle, 3 = best). 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Description and Comparison of Variables 

 

To better understand the characteristics of the four categories of children, Table 1 

describes the values of different types of children in each variable. 

In terms of parental involvement, the parents of LUC scored highest in the three 

types of participation behaviors, followed by the parents of UUMC parents, and the 

last two are parents of RUMC and DMC. In terms of children’s academic develop-

ment, LUC score the highest in terms of test score ranking, self-learning ability and 

self-education expectation, followed by UUMC, and finally two types are also 

RUMC and DMC. Fortunately, the two types of children who experience rural-urban 

migrant have shown a slight advantage on the aspects of learning willpower and cu-

riosity. As a result, from the perspective of absolute value comparison, comparing to 

regional migrant status and such hukou segmentation, rural-urban migrant status and 

such hukou segmentation show larger negative influence on parental participation 

behavior and three aspects of children’s academic development.  

In terms of control variables, there are also some meaningful findings. For ex-

ample, for the cognitive ability test scores, the scores of LUC, UUMC, RUMC and 

DMC decrease sequentially, which perfectly mirrors the ranking of the four groups in 

the test-based academic development score? The rank of cognitive ability test scores 

is identical with academic test score that means we could solve the “negative choice” 

problem” – the worse the score, the more parents participate in child’s education”. In 

addition, the average values of the parental maximum educational level and family 

economic status of RUMC and DMC are lower than the other two types of children 

significantly. Besides, RUMC are far ahead in the indicator of not living with parents 

compared with other three types of children. This is because the parents of RUMC 

send their children to local urban areas for further education and RUMC are more 

likely to choose to stay with relatives, teachers or live at schools due to the similarity 

of cultural backgrounds and the richness of social relations. 

 

The Influence of Parental Involvement on the Academic Development of Different 

Types of Children 

 

Based on the research framework presented above, we take the academic develop-

ment as the dependent variable and the parental involvement behaviors as the main 

explanatory variables for constructing a regression model for estimation. Since the 

data has a nested structure of student within school, this study sets up a two-level 

model. To test hypotheses 1-3 for each type of children group respectively and com-

pare the heterogeneous effects of different children groups, this study will introduce 

the interactions among hukou segmentation, migration status and parental involve-

ment behaviors in the model. The benchmark model of this study is: 

 

Level 1: 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 117 

 

       
             

 

 

   

   
 

 

   

    
          

 

 

   

    
            

 
    
 

 

   

                  

 

   

                                 

 

   

 

(1) 

Level 2: 

     
 
   

 
               

 

   

 

(2) 

 

Here, equation (1) is the individual-level model, where xueye
s
ij denotes the s

th
 

academic outcome of interest (s = 1, ..., 5) for an individual i, residing in school j and 

PI
e
ij denotes the e

th
 parental involvement indicator(e = 1, 2, 3)

11
. Further, the dummy 

variables – rural and migrant – reflect hukou segmentation and regional migration 

status respectively. Besides, contr_ind and contr_fam are individual-level and family-

level control variables, e0ij is an individual-level random error term. Equation (2) is 

the school-level model, where contr_sch are the school-level control variables, and 

 0j is the school-level random error term. We will introduce academic development 

indicators respectively in turn and construct five models. Table 2 presents the results 

from all aforementioned estimating regressions. 

Next, in models 1-5, we calculate the linear combination of which includes the 

coefficient of parental involvement behavior  , the coefficient of the interaction be-

tween parental participation behavior and rural  , the coefficient of the interaction 

between parental participation behavior and migrant  , and the coefficient of the in-

teraction among parental participation behavior, rural and migrant  . After that, we 

conduct statistical tests and identify the impact of parental involvement behaviors on 

academic development of each type of children group in detail (Table 3). What’s 

more, comparing the heterogeneous effects among different types of children is our 

focus (Table 4). Based on the results presented by Tables 3 and 4, we draw the fol-

lowing conclusions: 

 

The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Test Score Indicator 

 

Firstly, parents’ DLP has a significant negative impact on the test scores of LUC, 

RUMC and DMC, which is contrary to Hypothesis 1. Only in UUMC, there is a non-

significant negative effect, but Hypothesis 1 is still not verified. In terms of inter-

group, the negative effects of parents’ DLP on the test scores of RUMC and DMC 

are significantly greater than that of UUMC, and the negative effect of parents’ DLP 

on the test scores of DMC is also significantly greater than that of LUC. In sum, par-

ents’ DLP cannot improve the academic test scores of any type of children, and sig-



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Table 1. The Description of Characteristics Based on Hukou and Migration 

Status Samples. 

 
Dimension Index LUC RUMC UUMC DMC 

Parental 

Involvement 

DLP 
Direct learning participation 

behavior index 
0.090 -0.097 0.99 -0.099 

CP 
Cultural participation behavior 

index 
0.129 -0.178 0.124 -0.102 

EP 
Emotional participation behav-

ior index 
0.065 -0.030 0.042 -0.094 

Academic 

Development 

Test score 

indicator 
Last final test class ranking 3.222 2.991 3.122 3.017 

Non-test 

score indi-

cators 

Learning willpower 3.340 3.406 3.274 3.339 

Learning curiosity 3.515 3.542 3.478 3.498 

Self-learning ability 3.117 2.965 3.019 2.942 

Self-education expectations 17.36 16.49 17.03 16.17 

Control 

Variables 

Individual 

Level 

Gender ( 1= Female, 0= 

Male ) 
0.511 0.488 0.508 0.491 

Grade 9 ( 1=9
th
 grade, 0=7

th
 

grade) 
0.482 0.487 0.375 0.389 

Cognitive ability test score 0.309 0.015 0.111 -0.044 

Single child ( 1= Yes, 0= No) 0.741 0.349 0.536 0.269 

Rural hukou  ( 1=Yes, 0= No) 0.000 1.000 0.000 1.000 

Migration status(1= Yes, 

0=No) 
0.000 0.000 1.000 1.000 

Family 

Level 

Father/ mother maximum 

education years 
12.91 9.715 12.97 9.633 

Family's financial situation 2.972 2.775 2.987 2.833 

Parental living conditions         

Parents are at home 82.57% 74.10% 82.55% 86.03% 

Father is not at home 8.85% 10.12% 9.55% 4.96% 

Mother is not at home 3.20% 2.76% 3.18% 2.52% 

Parents are not at home 5.38% 13.02% 4.71% 6.50% 

School 
a 

Level 

School running conditions 0.710 0.679 0.725 0.705 

The ratio of teacher with 

bachelor degree or above  
0.898 0.781 0.932 0.877 

School ranking 2.332 2.025 2.061 1.894 

Note: a-The indicator for this dimension is the inter-school level average of the schools where the various 

groups of children are located 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Table 2. Two-Level Regression Model of the Effect of Parental Involvement on 

Children’s Academic Development. 

  

Test Score 

Indicator 

Non-Test Scores Indicators 

Learning 

Willpower 

Learning 

Curiosity 

Self-

Learning 

Ability 

Self-Education 

Expectations 

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 

DLP ( λ1 ) 
-0.103*** 0.077*** 0.064*** 0.033** -0.015 

(0.021) (0.014) (0.016) (0.016) (0.061) 

EP ( λ2 ) 
0.183*** 0.091*** 0.048*** 0.097*** 0.408*** 

(0.023) (0.015) (0.017) (0.017) (0.066) 

CP (λ3 ) 
0.095*** 0.010 0.013 0.097*** 0.226*** 

(0.024) (0.017) (0.019) (0.019) (0.071) 

DLP*Rural hukou (ρ1) 
-0.031 -0.043* -0.075*** -0.018 -0.108 

(0.034) (0.023) (0.026) (0.026) (0.099) 

EP*Rural hukou (ρ2) 
0.020 -0.001 -0.010 -0.008 0.123 

(0.035) (0.024) (0.027) (0.027) (0.104) 

CP*Rural hukou (ρ3) 
-0.048** -0.005 -0.036 0.032 -0.313*** 

(0.025) (0.027) (0.030) (0.030) (0.115) 

DLP*Migration status ( 1) 
0.072 0.007 -0.037 0.99 -0.140 

(0.053) (0.036) (0.041) (0.041) (0.157) 

EP*Migration status ( 2) 
0.016 -0.022 -0.071 -0.014 0.002 

(0.057) (0.038) (0.044) (0.044) (0.166) 

CP*Migration status ( 3) 
-0.056** -0.073* -0.105** -0.060 -0.000 

(0.029) (0.042) (0.047) (0.047) (0.179) 

DLP*Rural hukou* Migra-
tion  status( 1) 

-0.135* 0.005 0.091 0.018 0.051 

(0.073) (0.049) (0.056) (0.056) (0.213) 

EP*Rural hukou* Migration 
status ( 2) 

-0.039 -0.019 0.058 -0.006 -0.104 

(0.076) (0.051) (0.059) (0.058) (0.222) 

CP*Rural hukou* Migration 

status ( 3) 

0.082 0.102* 0.074 0.020 0.494** 

(0.082) (0.056) (0.064) (0.063) (0.241) 

Constant term 
2.637*** 3.600*** 3.619*** 2.803*** 14.978*** 

(0.122) (0.075) (0.076) (0.089) (0.444) 

Individual control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 

Family control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 

School control variables Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 

Random residual standard 
deviation 

          

School level 0.145 0.080 0.065 0.099 0.606 

Student level 0.992 0.675 0.770 0.767 2.907 

School sample 66 66 66 66 66 

Student sample 9677 9677 9677 9677 9677 

Note: 1. *- indicates significance at the level of 0.1,  **- indicates significance at the level of 0.05, and ***- 
indicates significance at the level of 0.01 

 

 

 

 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Table 3. The Impact of Parental Involvement on the Academic Development of Four Types of Children Groups. 

  
Test Score Indicator 

Non-Test Scores Indicators 

Learning 
Willpower 

Learning 
Curiosity 

Self-Learning 
Ability 

Self-Education 
Expectations 

Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value 

DLP 

LUC  (λ1) -0.103*** [-4.934] 0.077*** [5.457] 0.064*** [4.014] 0.033*** [2.067] -0.015 [-0.25] 

RUMC  (λ1+ρ1) -0.134*** [-4.918] 0.034* [1.827] -0.011 [-0.522] 0.015 [0.714] -0.123* [-1.638] 

DMC  

(λ1+ρ1+φ1+ζ1) 
-0.196*** [-4.74] 0.046* [1.625] 0.043 [1.326] 0.042 [1.307] -0.212* [-1.747] 

UUMC  (λ1+φ1) -0.031 [-0.623] 0.084*** [2.487] 0.027 [0.716] 0.042 [1.107] -0.156 [-1.073] 

EP 

LUC  (λ2) 0.183*** [8.126] 0.091*** [5.961] 0.048*** [2.726] 0.097*** [5.595] 0.408*** [6.175] 

RUMC  (λ2+ρ2) 0.203*** [7.417] 0.09*** [4.846] 0.037* [1.869] 0.089*** [4.224] 0.531*** [6.596] 

DMC  

(λ2+ρ2+φ2+ζ2) 
0.180*** [4.25] 0.049* [1.696] 0.024* [1.723] 0.070*** [2.133] 0.428*** [3.448] 

UUMC  (λ2+φ2) 0.199*** [3.819] 0.069** [1.965] 0.024 [0.584] 0.084*** [2.087] 0.409*** [2.686] 

CP 

LUC   (λ3) 0.095*** [3.897] 0.01 [0.617] 0.013 [0.71] 0.097*** [5.19] 0.226*** [3.177] 

RUMC  (λ3+ρ3) 0.047 [1.484] 0.005 [0.237] -0.023 [-0.941 0.129*** [5.306] -0.087 [-0.932] 

DMC  

(λ3+ρ3+φ3+ζ3) 
0.073 [1.58] 0.034 [1.093] -0.054 [-1.51] 0.090 [1.526] 0.407 [1.021] 

UUMC  (λ3+φ3) 0.038 [0.676] -0.062* [-1.615] -0.091** [-2.074] 0.038 [0.863] 0.226 [0.356] 

Note: 1. *- indicates significance at the level of 0.1,  **- indicates significance at the level of 0.05, and ***- indicates significance at the level of 0.01.  2. The values in paren-

theses are T values. 3. The values in the “Coefficients” column in the table indicate the specific effects of parental involvement on the academic development of each type 

of children. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 121 

 

 

Table 4. Inter-group differences in the influence of parents’ participation in the development of four types of children’s academ-

ic development. 

 

Test Score 
Indicator 

Non-Test Scores Indicators 

Learning 
Willpower 

Learning 
Curiosity 

Self-Learning 
Ability 

Self-Education 
Expectations 

Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value Coefficient T Value 

DLP 

RUMC V.S. LUC  (ρ1)  -0.031 [-0.924] -0.043* [-1.888] -0.075*** [-2.887] -0.018 [-0.698] -0.108 [-1.087] 

RUMC V.S. UUMC  
(ρ1-φ1) 

-0.103** [-1.829] -0.05 [-1.305] -0.038 [-0.881] -0.027 [-0.629] 0.033 [0.199] 

DMC V.S. UUMC  
(ρ1+ζ1) 

-0.166*** [-2.579] -0.038 [-0.865] 0.015 [0.305] 0.000 [-0.009] -0.057 [-0.301] 

DMC V.S. RUMC   
(φ1+ζ1) 

-0.063 [-1.275] 0.012 [0.361] 0.054 [1.404] 0.027 [0.706] -0.090* [-0.182] 

DMC V.S. LUC  
(ρ1+φ1+ζ1) 

-0.094*** [-2.044] -0.031 [-0.997] -0.022 [-0.61] 0.99 [0.245] -0.197** [-1.963] 

UUMC V.S. DMC   (φ1) 0.072 [1.344] 0.007 [0.182] -0.037 [-0.893] 0.99 [0.222] -0.14 [-0.897] 

EP 

RUMC V.S. LUC (ρ2) 0.02 [0.574] -0.001 [-0.046] -0.01 [-0.373] -0.008 [-0.293] 0.123 [1.19] 

RUMC V.S.  UUMC  
(ρ2-φ2) 

0.005 [0.080] 0.021 [0.532] 0.061 [1.341] 0.006 [0.122] 0.121 [0.706] 

DMC V.S. UUMC  
(ρ2+ζ2) 

-0.019 [-0.278] -0.02 [-0.442] 0.047 [0.911] -0.014 [-0.272] 0.019 [0.096] 

DMC V.S. RUMC  
(φ2+ζ2) 

-0.023 [-0.462] -0.041 [-1.21] -0.014 [-0.351] -0.02 [-0.504] -0.103 [-0.697] 

DMC V.S. LUC  
(ρ2+φ2+ζ2) 

-0.003 [-0.062] -0.042 [-1.306] -0.024 [-0.644] -0.028 [-0.746] 0.021 [0.147] 

UUMC V.S. DMC (φ2)  0.016 [0.275] -0.022 [-0.58] -0.071* [-1.922] -0.014 [-0.309] 0.002 [0.011] 

CP 

RUMC V.S. LUC  (ρ3) -0.048** [-1.924] -0.005 [-0.193] -0.036 [-1.199] 0.032 [1.051] -0.313*** [-2.723] 

RUMC V.S.  UUMC  
(ρ3-φ3) 

0.008 [0.137] 0.068 [1.538] 0.069 [1.372] 0.091** [1.828] -0.313* [-1.649] 

DMC V.S. UUMC  
(ρ3+ζ3) 

0.034 [0.47] 0.097** [1.956] 0.038 [0.67] 0.052 [0.921] 0.181 [0.85] 

DMC V.S. RUMC  
(φ3+ζ3) 

0.026 [0.467] 0.029 [0.776] -0.031 [-0.724] -0.04 [-0.929] 0.494*** [3.05] 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 122 

 

DMC V.S. LUC  
(ρ3+φ3+ζ3) 

-0.022 [-0.429] 0.024 [0.683] -0.067 [-1.678] -0.008 [-0.196] 0.181 [1.194] 

UUMC V.S. DMC  (φ3)  -0.056** [-1.919] -0.073* [-1.746] -0.105** [-2.209] -0.06 [-1.259] .000 [-0.002] 

Note: 1 and 2 are the same as above; 3.The values in the coefficient column of the table indicate the difference in the effect of tntergroup taking the latter group of children 
as the reference group. 

 

 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 123 

 

Figure 1. The Composition of Children According to Hukou Segmentation and 

Migration Status. 

 

 

 

nificantly reduces the academic test scores of all except UUMC. Especially for 

RUMC and DMC, the negative effects are strongest.  

Secondly, parents’ EP has a significant positive impact on the test scores of all 

types of children, which supports Hypothesis 2. No significant differences between 

groups are observed. This shows that if parents can communicate more with their 

children about their schools and teachers, academic test scores of all types of children 

would be improved significantly. What’s more, the effects do not differ from each 

other due to hukou segmentation and migration status. 

Finally, parents’ CP has a significant positive impact on the test scores of LUC, 

while the impact is not significant in the other three types of children groups. There-

fore, Hypothesis 3 is only verified in LUC. In terms of intergroup, the effects of par-

ents’ CP on the test scores of RUMC and UUMC are significantly lower than that of 

LUC. This means that only LUC can improve their academic test scores through 

more parents’ CP. 

 

The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children’s Non-Test Score Indicators 

 

In this section, we similarly uncover the effects of parental involvement on each non-

test score indicator of each type of children from the perspective of parents’ DLP, EP 

and CP. 

 

Learning Willpower 

 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 124 

 

Firstly, parents’ DLP has a significant positive impact on the learning willpower of 

all types of children, so Hypothesis 1 is supported in each type of children groups. In 

terms of intergroup, the effect of parents’ DLP on the learning willpower of RUMC 

is significantly lower than that of LUC, but there is no significant difference among 

the other children groups. Secondly, parents’ EP has a significant positive impact on 

the learning willpower of the four types of children, supporting Hypothesis 2. Pair-

wise comparisons between groups reveal no significant intergroup differences upon 

this effect. Finally, parents’ CP has a significant negative impact on the learning 

willpower of UUMC, which rejects Hypothesis 3. Meanwhile, there are positive but 

non-significant effects in the other three categories of children and Hypothesis 3 is 

not verified, either. In terms of intergroup, the influence of parents’ CP on the learn-

ing willpower of UUMC is significantly different from that of LUC and DMC. 

 

Learning Curiosity 

 

Firstly, parents’ DLP can significantly improve the learning curiosity of LUC, which 

means Hypothesis 1 is verified in this type of children. In contrary, the effects of par-

ents’ DLP on the learning curiosity of RUMC, UUMC and DMC are non-significant 

and Hypothesis 1 is not supported. In terms of intergroup, the effect of parents’ DLP 

on RUMC’s learning curiosity is significantly lower than that of LUC. Secondly, 

parents’ EP can significantly improve the learning curiosity of LUC, RUMC and 

DMC. Thus Hypothesis 2 is supported in above three types of children groups. But 

there is positive but non-significant effect in UUMC, reflecting Hypothesis 2 is not 

testified in UUMC. Focusing on the intergroup, the effect of parents’ DLP on UUMC 

is significantly lower than that of LUC. Finally, parents’ CP can significantly impede 

the learning curiosity of UUMC and Hypothesis 3 is rejected. Meanwhile, the effects 

of parents’ CP on the other three types of children groups are not significant, and 

Hypothesis 3 is not supported. Focusing on the results of pairwise comparisons, we 

can conclude that the impact of parents’ CP on UUMC is significantly lower than 

that of LUC. 

 

Self-Learning Ability 

 

Firstly, parents’ DLP can promote the self-learning ability of LUC significantly, but 

has a non-significant positive effect on the other three types of children groups, 

which means Hypothesis 1 is only supported by LUC. Further, no significant differ-

ences are observed between groups. Secondly, parents’ EP has a significant positive 

impact on the self-learning ability of all types of children. As a result, Hypothesis 2 is 

supported in all children samplings. Similarly, there is no significant difference in 

terms of intergroup. Lastly, parents’ CP can significantly improve self-learning abil-

ity of LUC and RUMC so that Hypothesis 3 is supported in above two groups. How-

ever, the effect of this behavior on the self-learning ability of UUMC and DMC are 

not significant, of which Hypothesis 3 is not verified. Focusing on the results of 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 125 

 

pairwise comparisons, what draw our attention is that the effect of parents’ CP on 

RUMC is significantly higher than that of UUMC. 

 

Self-Education Expectations 

 

Firstly, parents’ DLP has a significant negative impact on the self-education expecta-

tions for RUMC and DMC, and a non-significant negative impact on the self-

education expectations for LUC and UUMC. Thus, Hypothesis 1 is rejected in all 

types of children groups. Among these groups, the negative impact of parents’ DLP 

on DMC is significantly stronger than LUC and RUMC. Secondly, parents’ EP can 

promote the self-education expectations of all four types of children significantly, 

and Hypothesis 2 is testified completely. What’s more, no differences between 

groups are observed in terms of intergroup. Finally, parents’ CP can significantly 

improve the self-education expectations of LUC, supporting Hypothesis 3. However, 

in the other three groups, Hypothesis 3 is not accepted. Among these groups, the in-

fluence of parents’ CP on the self-education expectations of LUC is significantly 

lower than that of the other three types of children. 

 

Conclusion and Discussion 

  

The first finding of our study is that parents’ DLP has a limited effect on children’s 

academic development. Especially for most academic development indicators of 

RUMC and DMC, there are significant negative effects. Parents’ DLP not only fails 

to improve the academic test scores and self-education expectations of any type of 

children, but also has a significant negative impact on the academic test scores and 

the self-education expectations of LUC, RUMC and DMC. Moreover, the improve-

ment of learning curiosity and self-learning ability occurs only in LUC. In contrast, 

in terms of learning willpower, improvement occurs in all types of children groups. 

Focusing on the results of the comparison between groups, the negative impacts of 

parents’ DLP on the academic test scores of RUMC and DMC are significantly 

stronger than that of LUC and UUMC. Besides, the negative impact of parents’ DLP 

on the self-education expectations of DMC is significantly stronger than that of LUC 

and RUMC. 

We speculate the reason of showing above results is that there is a long-term 

imbalance between urban and rural education in China, with the conditions for run-

ning schools in rural areas lagging behind cities, resulting in agricultural household 

parents with low level education
12

, poor self-learning strategies, lack of long-term 

goals, and falling into low social classes. As a result, they not only lack professional-

ism and effectiveness in guiding and supervising children’s learning process, but also 

may generate frustrating emotions due to classes’ segmentation when communicating 

with teachers (Wu Zhonghan et al., 2017). Hence, Low-quality DLP is likely to con-

vey ineffective learning strategies, repetitive and boring learning content, and re-

sistance to school and learning, which is not conducive to children’s academic devel-



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 126 

 

opment (Sui-Chu and Willms, 1996; Zhao Yandong and Hong Yanbi, 2012). It 

should be noted that while some scholars (Sun, 1998) believe that the “negative se-

lection” problem may lead to overestimating the negative effect of DLP, in this study 

we introduce the students’ cognitive ability score as a control variable to address this 

problem. At the same time, since the negative selection problem theoretically exists 

mainly in the estimation of the test score as the dependent variable, the three non-test 

indicators of self-education expectation, learning curiosity and self-learning ability 

are consistently estimated, and thus we think that negative selection has little effect 

on our results and the research results are robust. 

The second finding of this study is that parents’ EP has a significant role in im-

proving all aspects of academic development for all children groups
13

, and there is no 

significant difference in terms of hukou segmentation and migration status. This find-

ing is consistent with existing literature (Sui-Chu and Willms, 1996; Jr. McNeal, 

1999; Zhao Yandong and Hong Yanbi, 2012; Huang Shuang and Huo Liyan, 2014). 

We believe that this result is due to the fact that through communicating with their 

children more about learning, schools, and teachers, parents can build a closer rela-

tionship and trust with their children, and form social closure with their children, the 

classmates of children, teachers, school and the parents of their children’s classmates, 

which  not only enables children to feel the great attention that parents pay to their 

learning, but also reduces the information asymmetry of parents on children’s learn-

ing process. Accordingly, parents’ EP is a great social capital that can encourage and 

promote the development of children’s academic development. Meanwhile, com-

municating with their children is relatively less constrained by the parents’ own liter-

acy; therefore, parents’ EP can enhance academic development in different types of 

children groups. 

The third finding of this study is that the positive impact of parents’ CP is main-

ly reflected in LUC. This effect is not significant or even negative in rural hukou and 

non-local children’s groups and, in particular, there is a significant negative effect on 

learning curiosity and learning willpower in DMC, indicating that the regional divi-

sion restricts the beneficial effect of parents’ CP on the development of non-local 

children’s academic development. We speculate the reason is that there are cultural, 

social, and psychological integration problems for the migrant children. Specifically, 

due to the differences on cultural and social aspects between the growing surround-

ings and the local region, migrant children’s parents tend to have some difficulties in 

choosing suitable urban cultural resources. Moreover, migrant children may not be 

able to resonate and gain benefits when they participate in relevant recreational activ-

ities, conversely, they are more likely to feel bored or discriminated against in their 

activities, which may restrict the positive effects of parents’ PE eventually. 

In summary, the findings of this study provide some guidelines when parents 

participate in their children’s education. First, in the process of teaching students, the 

school cannot extend the responsibility of direct learning intervention, such as guid-

ance and counseling knowledge, to students’ parents; knowledge conveying should 

remain teacher-led. Due to the lack of professionalism, parents’ DLP not only nega-



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 127 

 

tively affect multiple academic development indicators of the socioeconomic disad-

vantaged rural hukou children groups, but also plays a limited role in the academic 

development of relatively high cultural level children groups. Second, schools should 

encourage parents to communicate more with their children about learning and 

school at home. The social capital built by parents through this kind of emotional 

participation behavior is the key to make up for the weaknesses of class teaching sys-

tem and collective education, which can effectively strengthen positive emotions and 

weaken negative emotions of children, thereby helping children to achieve compre-

hensive academic development. Further, above effectiveness will not change due to 

the difference in hukou and migration status. Third, under the background of acceler-

ating urbanization, the regional differences of cultural systems cause problems of 

educational integration for migrant children. Thus, schools should make good use of 

modern media such as the Internet platforms to provide the parents of rural hukou 

and migrant children with more appropriate recreational activities-related infor-

mation. 

In the future, we can consider to improving the study based on the following as-

pects. First, this paper discussed children’s academic development under the frame-

work of key competences comprehensively and systematically, but the indicators 

used were children’s self-reported data. Hence, the measurement tools need to be 

modified further. Second, although this paper introduced students’ cognitive ability 

test scores to solve the endogenous problems such as “negative selection”, it was still 

difficult to ensure that we obtained the causal effect of parents’ involvement on chil-

dren’s academic development. Therefore, relevant researches need to be improved 

based on quasi-experimental design and other means. Third, based on the hukou and 

migration status, we divided all the children into four types and uncovered, compared 

the effect of parental involvement on the academic development of four types of 

children respectively, thereby offering parents targeted suggestions. However, due to 

the change of migration status and migration periods, the relationship between paren-

tal involvement and children’s academic development may be change corresponding-

ly, so relevant researches need to analyze based on longitudinal data. 

 

 

Notes 

1 The most important and distinctive part of the “Head start” program is to help parents 

better get involved in their children’s learning and life, for example, “providing par-

ents with the trainings about home literacy skills and parenting skills in order to de-

velop their skills to communicate with their children. See: http://www.nhsa.org/. 

2 The “Success for All” program aims to interfere with the learning of students from 

disadvantaged families by guiding family support effectively, for example, “the pro-

gram requires parents to accompany their students to read at home for 20 minutes eve-

ry night, and teachers to provide appropriate guidance for parents.” See: http:// 

www.successforall.org/. 

3 Since there is no uniform academic standardized test in the existing large public data-

bases, it is feasible to use the student self-reported score ranking as a test score indica-



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

Vol.1, No. 2, 2019 128 

 

tor. Although above act may be affect the accuracy and comparability of the measure-

ment, considering that the study focuses on estimating the directionality of the impact 

(positive or negative), we think it is a compromise. 

4 The items of learning willpower, learning curiosity and self-learning ability are all 

ordered variables of 1-4. The higher the value, the better the academic development of 

the corresponding dimensions. 

5 The assignment rules of self-education expectations: “Quit now” = 6 years (seventh 

grade) or 8 years (ninth grade); “Middle school graduation” = 9 years; “Secondary 

school/Technical school” or “Vocational High School” = 11 years; “High school” = 

12 years; “College” = 15 years; “Four-year bachelor” = 16 years; “Graduate” = 19 

years; “Doctor” = 22 years. 

6 In terms of parental involvement, except for “Whether the parents are willing to show 

up the parent meeting” (dummy variable, 1= Yes, 0=No), all the other variables are 1-

4 ordered variables, and the higher the value, the higher the frequency of the corre-

sponding behavior. 

7 In the three types of parental involvement, the variance contribution rate of the first 

common factor is more than 90%, indicating that it can represent most of the infor-

mation in the items included in each parental involvement dimension. 

8 “No education” = 0 year; “Primary school” = 6 years; “Middle high school” = 9 

years; “Secondary school/Technical school” and “Vocational High School” = 11 

years; “High school” = 12 years; “College” = 15 years; “Four-year bachelor” = 16 

years; “Graduate and above” = 19 years. 

9 The assignment rules of family economic conditions: 1 = Poor, 2 = Middle, 3 = 

Wealthy. 

10 In the school questionnaire, 10 questions such as “Is there a laboratory”, “Is there a 

swimming pool” (1 = Yes, 0 = No) are weighted and summed according to the recip-

rocal of the proportion, and then standardized. 

11 Strictly speaking, an ordered logit model should be constructed, but this is not conven-

ient for interpreting the interaction term coefficients. To this end, we construct a com-

mon two-level regression model with each academic development variable as a contin-

uous variable, although the size of coefficients is biased, considering the main focus of 

the study, the directionality of coefficients will not be influenced. 

12 In fact, combined with the data in Table 1 and the existing literature (Xie Guihua, 2012; 

Ma Xiaohong, 2014), the cultural quality of rural hukou parents is significantly lower 

than that of urban hukou parents, while the cultural quality of local parents are lower 

than non-local parents in terms of migration status. 

13 The positive impact of learning curiosity is not significant only for UUMC. 



Liang et al. Parental Involvement and Children’s Academic Development 

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Received: 20 February 2019 

Revised: 07 March 2019 

Accepted: 19 March 2019 

 

 

The Chinese version of this article has been published in China Economics of Education Re-

view 2018; 3(3):40-60. The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE 

by the author(s) and the Chinese journal. 

梁文艳, 孙冉, 叶晓梅. 核心素养视角下父母参与如何影响儿童的学业发展?基于城乡户籍

和区域流动状况的差异分析. 教育经济评论 2018; 3(3):40-60. 


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