Abstract
The percentage of students who graduated on time from California high schools in the 2010-2011 school year rose 1.5% from the previous year. However, there is still a concerning percentage of students who are choosing to drop out of school (California Department of Education, 2012). It is groups of these students, as well as others, whose grades, attendance, and work completion are inconsistent. The desire to determine why students succeed or fail was the catalyst for this study. A review of the literature pertaining to this topic revealed a multitude of possible influences to school success. However, this study focused on only two of these possible influences: parental involvement and parental expectations. Part of the reason for the focus on these topics was for educators to understand how parental involvement and parental expectations are related to student success in a specific setting, thereby bringing possible areas for improvement into the foreground that have the capacity to increase student achievement. Data for this study was collected by using student surveys and interviews. The surveys were created to measure factors related to parental involvement and parental expectations. Approximately sixty students participated in the survey process. After the surveys were completed, interview questions were generated to expand and explain the initial findings from the survey. A total of six students participated in the interviews and responses from five of those interviews were used. The data offered by both the surveys and interviews were then analyzed and interpreted, providing the study’s final conclusions and answers to its research questions. This study asked two primary questions: 1. For students in an independent study school in Northern California, what is the relationship between levels of parental involvement and academic outcomes? 2. For this same population of students, are the academic expectations parents have for their children related to academic outcomes? For the first question, it was determined that a positive relationship exists between parental involvement and academic achievement. The answer to the second question was that parental expectations do not influence students to perform at a level that meets their parents’ expectations.