A multiple case study of parent involvement with grade 8 learners of mathematics

The learning of mathematics is a worldwide concern. International studies over the last decade place South African learners amongst the lowest achievers. Although various initiatives have been tried there does not seem to be any improvement. In the USA and UK initiatives include the involvement of parents and these have been implemented with great success. One of the parent involvement programmes from the USA, the Family Maths Programme has been in South Africa since 1996. This programme has been successful in South Africa but is confined to parents of grades 4-7 children. However, there is no programme for parents of high school learners. As grade 8 is usually the first high school year in South Africa, this study focuses on parents of grade 8 children and their involvement in their children’s mathematics learning. It consists of an initial survey of grade 8 parents’ (from an urban school) mathematical backgrounds and experiences and their involvement in their children’s education. Using key points from the survey and elements from the literature review and other sources, the researcher designed a parent assistance programme for mathematics which was conducted with three groups of parents of grade 8 children from the same high school. Each group of parents was exclusive and the same set of procedures was applied to each group, making this study a qualitative multiple case study, within the interpretive research paradigm. The parent-assistance programme consists of a parents’ workshop and completion of journals over a 7-week period. Parents documented their interactions with their children in structured journals, a process known as participant journaling. After this journaling period, parents and children were surveyed on this interaction by means of follow-up questionnaires. This was followed later in interviews with the parents and mathematics teachers, separately. After the completion of all three case studies parents and children participated in focus group discussions to discuss and share experiences of the programme. The interrogation of the data, on two levels, suggests parents’ and children’s perceptions of mathematics were likely to be positively influenced. The data also suggest that children were likely to become more confident and to improve in mathematics. vi KEY CONCEPTS Perceptions of mathematics Parental involvement Parent-assistance programme for mathematics LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1 Sociological Paradigms 60 Figure 3.2 Mathematics learning sequence of a child 61 Figure 4.1 Presentation and analysis of data 100 Figure 5.1 Interpretation of data (second level) 134 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Parents’ perceptions of mathematics (from the initial survey) 93 Table 6.1 Case study 1: Parents’ perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 162 Table 6.2 Case study 2: Parents’ perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 163 Table 6.3 Case study 3: Parents’ perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 164 Table 6.4 Case study 1: Children’s perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 165 Table 6.5 Case study 2: Children’s perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 166 Table 6.6 Case study 3: Children’s perceptions of mathematics (before and after) 167 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Initial survey of parents 177 Appendix 2: Lesson taught to parents of grade 8 learners 181 Appendix 3: Discussion document at parents’ workshop 183 Appendix 4: Journal 194 Appendix 5a: Follow-up questionnaires for parents 202 Appendix 5b: Follow-up questionnaires for children 204 Appendix 6: Grade 8 Mathematics Year Plan 206 Appendix 7: Summary of data collected in all case studies 211 Appendix 8: The perceived effect of the parent-assistance programme on learner achievement in mathematics 213