The role of parents' expectation of success and parental involvement in prediction of primary and secondary school students' academic success

This study is a descriptive research that aims to define the relationship between parental involvement, parents' expectations about education and elementary, secondary school students' academic success. The study is conducted in Kastamonu city, in defining the sample of the study, socioeconomic level variance is highly considered. According to this, the data of the study is also obtained from Devrekani, Daday, Taşköprü, İhsangazi and İnebolu districts' elementary and secondary schools that have different socioeconomic and sociocultural qualities than Kastamonu city schools. On the basis of this specified qualification, study includes nine elementary and nine secondary schools in total. 420 parents have voluntarily participated in the research after the purpose of the study explained to them. The data of the research is obtained by applying Sheldon and Epstein's (2007) Scale for School and Family Involvement in Elementary Schools, subscale of parents which has been adapted into Turkish by Oğuz (2012). While there is only one dependent variable of the study (academic success), there are six independent variables (parents' educational status, parents' income level, child's gender, parental involvement at home, parental involvement at school, parental expectation). Within the research, in determining the relation between variables, t-test and chi square are used; in analyzing the data about related variables' predicting level of academic success, logistic regression is used. In the end of analyzes, it has been concluded that parents' level of education, parents' level of income, parental expectation and parental participation at home are significantly connected with children's academic success. On the other hand findings revealed that academic success is not significantly related to children's gender and parents' participation at school. It was seen that the most important predictor of a child's academic success is the success expectation of parents.