An investigation of socioeconomic status and parental involvement in students' English achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between socioeconomic status and parental involvement in students’ English achievement for students in the northeast of Thailand. The participants were 72 caregivers of Mattayomsuksa 1 (Grade 7) students, through purposive sampling for quantitative study. A qualitative study was employed. The participants were divided into two groups of the five lowest scoring students. The quantitative analysis was employed to analyze the questionnaire. For the qualitative analysis, a thematic analysis was adopted to analyze the interview and field notes.
The finding turned out that in both the parents of the five highest scoring students (group A) and the parents of the five lowest scoring students (group B), socioeconomic status and parental involvement have a positive relation to students’ English achievement. The study showed that students tend to be better in learning when they live with their parents. Furthermore, better parental socioeconomic status is able to support students by allowing them to attend tutoring schools and provide learning materials. In addition, parental involvement in students’ English achievement was related to the level of parents’ education.