The correlation between father involvement and the academic achievement of their children: meta-analysis

Student academic success is a major concern in many societies. Parental involvement is an important factor in student achievement, and numerous studies have shown that parental involvement increases student achievement ( Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005 ; Blazer, 2009 ; Galindo and Sheldon, 2012 ). However, little is known about the individual contributions of mothers and fathers to their children’s education, as most studies have not differentiated between maternal and paternal involvement. Studies that have made this distinction have mostly focused on mothers ( Kim and Hill, 2015 ), although researchers have suggested that fathers also play an important role ( Lamb, 1975 ; Amato, 1994 ; Sarkadi et al., 2008 ). Few studies have been done on this topic, and those that have been done are mostly qualitative studies, while there are few studies that can offer quantitative data on the effect of fathers’ involvement in children’s academic performance ( Fan, 2001 ).

Father’s involvement has become one of the more current topics in education today ( Coles, 2015 ). In the small number of studies dealing with fathers’ involvement and children’s academic success, it is not clear which aspects of involvement are most important ( Paquette, 2004 ).

The very notion of father involvement dates to the 1980s. It is believed to have been conceived between 1984-1987 ( Pleck and Masciadrelli, 2004 ), and in a paper from 1987, Michael Lamb was one of the first to offer the operationalization of this term through three dimensions: interaction (engagement) - availability - responsibility ( Lamb, 1987 ; according to Krampe, 2009 ). There have also been attempts to define father involvement through 4 dimensions: expectations, interest, school involvement and family involvement ( Fagan and Palm, 2004 ).

• ^*Corresponding author: natasa.mladenovic@pr.ac.rs

  © 2022 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).

There are several basic changes to the father’s role over time. First, the changes concern the perception of the father as a parental figure - from the father as the breadwinner of the family, with an emphasis on the material aspect of the role, through the father as a biological necessity, to the father as a parent - in terms of the effects on the development of both the child and the father personally. Also, the concept of the tasks of fatherhood changed - from a father who had the position of moral supervision, to a father who is required to be dexterous in understanding and monitoring the child. Related to this is the change in the concept of fatherhood - from the dominance of the father’s goals and the family program intended for the child, to parenthood as a process by which the child’s development, characteristics and goals are met, directed and integrated. Considering these changes in the role of the father motivated by the historical context, sociologically oriented scholars describe two social aspects of these changes. One of them is the culture of fatherhood and it includes norms, values, beliefs about a man as a parent. Second aspect is implementation or behavior in the role of father. These two aspects do not necessarily have to be synchronous, and it is assumed that the culture changed (and is changing) faster than the behavior itself as a form of adaptation to changes ( Lamb, 2000 ). Although there is a significant shift from the role of the father as a nurturer to the father as a guardian ( Atkinson and Blackwelder, 1993 ), recent studies indicate that the role of the father in society is still shown to be deficient in various ways compared to the role of the mother as a parent ( Phelke et al., 2009 ). The fact is that the 1990s have been declared the “decade of fathers” which brought with it a major shift in research attention devoted to types of fathers, father involvement, the effects of father presence and involvement, fathers’ parenting behavior, fatherchild interaction, etc. ( Tan and Golbderg, 2009 ). Modern generation of men, often known as “modern fathers”, consists of individuals who reject the paternal practices of previous generations, actively and consciously participate in the development of children and spend more time with their children ( Gottzen, 2011 ; Yogman and Eppel, 2022 ; Trahan and Cheung, 2016 ). Modern fathers strive to connect with their children, and focus on the emotional aspect ( Carrillo et al., 2016 ). Moreover, fathers more often than mothers describe parenthood as a central part of their identity ( Yogman and Eppel, 2022 ). Interestingly, there is a growing population of activist fathers who are gaining more attention through social media, by writing and reporting on fathers’ contributions to child development and their fathering practices today ( Scheibling, 2020 ).

There are multiple conceptualizations of father involvement and attempts to define the father’s role in childcare. We will mention some of them. Social-structural approach (father’s involvement as an aspect of division of labor), developmental approach (father’s involvement as a result of developmental changes and adaptation), father’s involvement as a social role (ecological theory), father’s involvement as a behavioral aspect of parental identity… When we talk about the assessment of father involvement after overcoming the dichotomy of understanding the father’s role as present or absent, the focus of research has become the type of involvement, the time and aspects of father involvement, the nature, reasons and context of father involvement. In this sense, great research and theoretical attention is devoted to the understanding of personal factors that have effects on its optimum solution. Addressing individual development and characteristics as potential determinants of father involvement in childcare has opened several very important domains of potential determinants. Fatherhood is one of the important aspects of family development, too. In addition, it is important to look at fatherhood in the context of society. Employed fathers who have positive emotional experience at work, such as autonomy at work, a sense of belonging to a team and job satisfaction, are associated with a more pronounced emotional closeness with the child, even when the father spends less time with him ( Day and Padilla-Walker, 2009 ). The involvement of fathers has positive effects on children at all ages. The relationship with the father remains significant even in adulthood. The quality of the relationship with the father significantly contributes to life satisfaction, a lower expression of distress in adulthood, regardless of the quality of the relationship with the mother ( Amato, 1994 ; Chung et al., 2020 ). Long-term effects on adult children’s life satisfaction and mental health and better adaptive capacities in adulthood ( Lewis and Lamb, 2003 ) have also been observed in another research. Apart from the children, the father’s involvement has a positive impact on his personal development and the development of the family.

Some evidence suggests that fathers are spending more time with their offspring than they did in the past ( Lamb, Pleck and Levine, 1985 ), although these findings are not consistent ( Coverman and Shelley, 1986 ). In any case, most researchers agree that fathers’ involvement is important for men themselves, their children, and their wives ( Baruch and Barnett, 1986 ; Easterbrooks and Goldberg, 1984 ). Fathers who spend more time caring for their children may influence the development of secure attachment ( Palkowitz, 1985 ), and their children benefit from these improved attachments ( Lamb, 1975 ; Lamb, 1980 ).

School-aged children whose fathers are involved in care, upbringing and education achieve better academic results. They receive higher grades more often, have better quantitative and verbal abilities

( Campbell, 1973 ; Goldstein, 1984 ), have higher grade point averages, and generally perform better on tests than their peers ( Astone and McLanahan, 1991 ; Cooksey and Fondel, 1996 ). Children of involved fathers are more likely to live in homes that are cognitively stimulating ( Jeynes, 2007 ). Also, they prefer to enjoy school, have more positive attitudes towards school, get involved in school-related activities…

Although expectations regarding fatherhood have increased, the parenting literature is still more focused on mothers. Mothers are believed to be more involved in childcare and education than fathers ( Amato, Dorius and Lamb, 2010 ). The literature related to fatherhood does not offer much material related to father involvement and children’s education.

The decision to conduct a synthetic study looking at the effects of father involvement on children’s academic performance arose from the lack of meta-analyses on this topic. In the literature, we found at least 10 meta-analyses dealing with the effects of parental involvement on various aspects of children’s academic life ( Fan, 2001 ; Jeynes, 2007 , 2012 ; Hill and Tyson, 2009 ). There are meta-analyses looking at the effects of father involvement on children’s cognitive development ( Pedersen, Rubinstein and Yarrow, 1979 ). Also, most authors show more interest in family structure and parental involvement than they do in father involvement ( Jeynes, 2015 ). Likewise, different studies have focused on different aspects of fathers’ involvement, and therefore a meta-analysis would be an ideal method to synthesize these different perspectives and provide one general measure of effect.

Materials and Methods