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This chapter provides an introduction to the research context and rationale for the study. The project addressed three research questions:

The literature review (a) investigates the underlying dimensions of the parental involvement concept in current research literature and how these dimensions are related to educational outcomes; (b) explores which dimensions show the most significant relationship with student attainment, and reading literacy in particular; and (c) determines whether cultural differences exist between countries in the perception of relationships between parental involvement and student achievement. The review identifies four key dimensions of parental involvement and provides an analysis of existing studies on parental involvement and student achievement.

This chapter builds on the parental involvement factors defined in chapter two, and examines how these may be reflected in the IEA’s PIRLS-2011 home, student and school questionnaire. Five scales to measure parental involvement are proposed and described.

This chapter presents a psychometric framework aimed at identifying and modeling cultural differential item functioning (CDIF) in multiple ways. One line of modelling uses the residual approach to identify CDIF, and country-specific and random item parameters for the affected items. A second approach uses a non-standard application of the bi-factor model. The results of all approaches for each of the five parental involvement components provide insights into the extent to which they are affected by CDIF.

The relationships between the five parental involvement components and student literacy were modelled using latent multilevel modeling. The models incorporated data from all 41 participating PIRLS countries. Outcomes for the components entered as fixed effects are presented. Models with random slopes at county level for two components establish whether their effect differs across countries. Comparing the outcomes of the multi-level models for different modeling approaches of the CDIF in the parental involvement constructs reveals the impact of CDIF.

The goal of this study was to establish whether there were cultural differences in the measurement of parental involvement in PIRLS and, if so, whether correction for these differences revealed new associations with reading literacy. Although some of the constructed scales for parental involvement may require improvements to improve reliability, the scales remain internationally valid. Analyzing the impact of CDIF on the estimates of country means and on the outcomes of latent regression analyses established that CDIF did not influence the results. This study contributes to the field of educational research by modeling the relationships between parental involvement and student learning over a large number of educational systems. Most importantly, the work confirms that there is a positive relationship between parents’ early literacy activities and students’ reading literacy, and conversely, a negative relationship between parental help with homework and students’ reading literacy.