Parental Involvement in Homework HOOVER-DEMPSEY ET AL. PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN HOMEWORK Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey, Angela C. Battiato, Joan M. T. Walker, Richard P. Reed, Jennifer M. DeJong, and Kathleen P. Jones Department of Psychology and Human Development Vanderbilt University The article reviews research on parental involvement in student homework. It is focused on under- standing: why parents become involved in their children’s homework; which activities and strate- gies they employ in the course of involvement; how their homework involvement influences stu- dent outcomes; and which student outcomes are influenced by parents’ involvement. Findings suggest that parents involve themselves in student homework because they believe that they should be involved, believe that their involvement will make a positive difference, and perceive that their children or children’s teachers want their involvement. Parents’ involvement activities take many forms, from establishing structures for homework performance to teaching for under- standing and developing student learning strategies. Operating largely through modeling, rein- forcement, and instruction, parents’ homework involvement appears to influence student success insofar as it supports student attributes related to achievement (e.g., attitudes about homework, perceptions of personal competence, self-regulatory skills). Recommendations for research fo- cused on the processes and outcomes of parents’ homework involvement are offered, as are sug- gestions for school practices to enhance the effectiveness of parental involvement in homework. Parental involvement in education has received much atten- tion in recent decades as various school-improvement efforts have sought to enhance student learning. Although careful to suggest that parental involvement is an adjunct to well-developed educational programs, many investigators have reported that parental involvement, including involve- ment in student homework, is related to student achievement and personal attributes conducive to achievement (e.g., self-regulation, perceptions of academic competence; e.g., Delgado-Gaitan, 1992; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Xu & Corno, 1998). Although questions have been raised about the value of parental involvement in homework (e.g., Casanova, 1996; Cooper, 1989; Levin et al., 1997), most school practice suggests that elementary and secondary students throughout the United States are asked to do homework, and parents are often asked to become involved in supporting students’ home- work performance (e.g., Cooper, 1989; Roderique, Polloway, Cumblad, Epstein, & Bursuck, 1994). This review is focused on parents’ motivation for in- volvement in homework, the content of their involvement, the mechanisms through which their involvement appears to influence student outcomes, and the consequences of their involvement. Its purpose is to integrate research find- ings across a variety of studies within a theoretically sound framework to allow the identification of empirically grounded themes and the derivation of warranted sugges- tions for research and practice. We have drawn on a broad range of primarily recent litera- ture across several disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology) as related to varied levels or domains of educa- tional interest (e.g., early childhood, elementary, secondary, special education). This literature base includes studies incor- porating explicit attention to parents’ homework involve- ment as well as related sources helpful in understanding parents’ involvement decisions, the content of their involve- ment, and its outcomes. Key characteristics 1 of studies fo- cused on some aspect of parental involvement in homework (summarized in Table 1). As evident, this set of studies is var- EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 36(3), 195–209 Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Requests for reprints should be sent to Kathleen V. Hoover-Dempsey, Depart- ment of Psychology and Human Development, P.O. Box 512, Vanderbilt Univer- sity, Nashville, TN 37203. E-mail:kathleen.v.hoover-dempsey@vanderbilt.edu 1 Key characteristics include study purposes, design, participants, and homework involvement measures. Purposes are described as the study’s general goals, which in many of these studies extended beyond focused ex- amination of parents’ homework involvement. Design is designated in three general categories: survey defines studies focused primarily on examining and describing naturally occurring phenomena; intervention defines studies focused on the development and testing of efforts intended to change some element of the homework involvement process; case study defines those studies examining and describing in some detail elements of the homework involvement process in a very small sample of children, parents, or families. Participants include basic characteristics (as available in each report) of stu- dents, parents and teachers examined in the study. Homework measures de- scribe those portions of instruments or methods used to derive data on home- work involvement (measures related to other study variables or purposes are generally not included).