Educators and researchers have long considered parental involvement to be an integral factor in the success of students. However, parental involvement is low in many U.S. schools. Guided by Epstein's parental model, the purpose of this case study was to examine teachers' perceptions and experiences of parental involvement at an inner-city K-8 center in the United States which has had low parental involvement over the last 5 years. The overarching research question concerned teacher perceptions and experiences regarding communicating with parents, encouraging learning at home, and parents volunteering. Data sources consisted of interviews, questionnaires, and unobtrusive data. Purposeful sampling was used to identify the 11 teacher participants. Data were transcribed, coded and analyzed for various themes. The findings indicated that teachers perceive parental involvement to be important when they communicate with parents, when parents encourage learning at home, and when parents volunteer. The themes that emerged from the data were (a) the importance of parental involvement, (b) reinforcing learning at home, (c) communication, (d) encouraging parental involvement at school, and (e) increasing parental involvement. Based on the findings, a policy recommendation was developed to enhance the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) currently in place at the study site. This project could lead to positive social change by assisting the staff at the K-8 center in developing a PTSA program that may encourage parents to become more involved. Their efforts may provide a model for other schools struggling with a lack of parental involvement.

Lack of parental involvement is an issue in the educational system because parents and teachers do not understand each other's views. Research has shown that when parents and teachers provide students with support, student achievement increases. The problem of teachers' and parents' lack of common understanding of parental involvement was addressed in this study. Epstein's model of parental involvement and the theory of planned behavior served as the theoretical framework of this qualitative, exploratory, phenomenological study to explore the perceptions of 5 teachers and 10 parents who were purposefully sampled. The research questions were focused on parents' and teachers' perceptions on parental involvement in supporting students' achievement. Data were analyzed using of Moustakas's steps for phenomenological model. Trustworthiness was ensured through peer review, member checking, and descriptive research notes. Findings from the data collected from face-to-face interviews identified 3 themes: parenting and learning at home, volunteering and decision making, and communicating and collaborating with the community. The 3 themes overlapped with components of Epstein's model of parental involvement and were evident in the participants' answers to the interview questions. The resulting project was a white paper designed to educate the community about problems with parental involvement, provide solutions to the issue, and help parents and teachers to work collaboratively to improve student achievement. The project contributes to social change through formative feedback for the major stakeholders regarding ways to promote efficient and effective practices for both parents and teachers to promote student learning.

This study examined the effect of a parent-implemented reading intervention on children's reading fluency. Five elementary school students identified as at-risk for reading failure participated in the study with their mothers. Baseline data for each student was collected before parents were trained by the researcher in implementation of the intervention procedure. Parents implemented the intervention four times per week for five weeks, while the researcher continued to collect assessment data twice per week. Follow-up data were then collected for each student two weeks after the intervention ended. The effects of the intervention were evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design. Reading fluency was measured using Curriculum-Based Measurement of reading fluency (CBM-R) Results showed that three students had decreasing trends during baseline, but showed increases in reading fluency scores during the intervention and follow-up phases. A fourth student's scores during intervention and follow-up showed improvement over baseline scores, but with decreasing trends. The fifth student showed little change between baseline and intervention phases. Treatment integrity and social validity data also were collected. Integrity data indicated some variability in parents' implementation of the intervention, while social validity data revealed that parents and students liked the intervention program and found it helpful.

With the increase of national income, cosmetic products have become the daily necessities, its development is closely related with the trends; Furthermore, younger groups start to use the cosmetic products, making the cosmetic products market has expanded each year. According to the Euromonitor¡¦s analysis, the facial care products account for the highest proportion of sales on cosmetic products market in Asia. According to the analysis of the cosmetic industry in 2008 also pointed out that the consumer spend in facial care products are accounted more than 38% in cosmetic products market. However, the current study focused mainly on the overall cosmetic products, facial care products made for less than the depth of the study, this study was expected to discuss the purchase decision in facial care products market. This study will discuss the consumer purchase decision in facial care products market and reference in Zaichkosky (1985). The purpose of this study is to develop and discusses the involvement and purchase decision in facial care products whether there was significant difference. The EKB model is chosen as a conceptual framework and focus on facial care products consumers in Taiwan area. The simple random sampling method is used to obtain 300 effective samples from 335 questionnaires sent out. The methods of factoring, Scheffe test, variance, Schema¡¦s test, Chi-square statistics are used to analyze the sampled data. The method to measure consumer involvement is Kapferer &Laurent¡¦s¡uThe Consumer Involvement Profile¡v, the five dimensions to measure including : importance, pleasure, sign, the risk of purchase, risk probability. Each dimension uses Likert¡¦s five point scales. The study results show that the consumers with different involvement levels, demographics variables have positive effect towards product involvement. On the purchase decision making behaviors variables, their purchase motivation, information sources and evaluation criteria are significantly different. Finally, according to the characteristics of consumers with different involvement levels, this study provides the marketing strategies, as a reference for the facial care products companies to plan their future marketing strategies.

Three purposes of this study are (1) to explore the general pattern of Turkish fathers&rsquo / and their own fathers&rsquo / involvement level, (2) to investigated the possible effect of perceived own father involvement level on fathers own involvement level to their 0-8 year-old children&rsquo / s lives (2) to examine the determinants of fathers&rsquo / involvement into their 0-8 year old children. The participants in this study were 528 biological-resident fathers, who live in different districts of Ankara, the central city of Turkey. All of these fathers have at least one child who is between the ages of 0 and 8. The data of this study were collected through three different scales, Fatherhood Scale ( Dick, 2000), Inventory of Father Involvement ( Hawkins et al.,2002) and Suppose Support Scale (Yildirim,2004). In addition to these scales a demographic information form was also sent to fathers. The data were examined through a statistical analysis program. The results of descriptive analysis illustrated that fathers of both generation mostly engage in activities related to their provider role and their least engagement occurs in activities related with availability. MANOVA results indicated that there is a mean differences among three groups of fathers in the IFI 1 (Mother support and teaching) and IFI 3 (Availability) variable. On the other hand, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis indicated that only fathers&rsquo / age, their age of being father and their perceptions about how their suppose support them are significant predictors of fathers&rsquo / involvement level in their 0-8 year-old children&rsquo / s lives. Results of this study suggest the following implications. First, fathers, mothers or even children should be educated about the importance of paternal involvement. Second, in the current study two scales related with father involvement were adapted to Turkish culture. These two scales can be used in further research. Third, since different factor structures have been yielded through EFA from original factor structure, this study supported the idea that father involvement and fatherhood is a cultural issue. Although cultural issues were considered during adaptation process, since scales about father involvement were developed in Western cultures, evaluations about fathers&rsquo / involvement were done according to Western criteria. This study can encourage researchers to develop a cultural conceptualization of fatherhood and father involvement.

Around 14,000 men in New Zealand are the primary caregiver for their children, yet little recent research has focused on this phenomenon. Seventy fathers were recruited from the community, consisting of 35 primary-caregiving fathers, and 35 secondary-caregiving fathers. Participants completed a variety of measures which gathered data about their developmental history, personal characteristics, marital relationship, work and economic factors, social network factors, and child characteristics. Results indicated that primary-caregiving fathers earned significantly less income than secondary-caregiving fathers; were significantly more likely to identify with non-Pakeha ethnicity, and were significantly more likely to have no educational qualifications than secondary-caregiving fathers. Primary-caregiving fathers also rated their relationship with their mother as having significantly more care. Primary-caregiving status was predicted by older age of fathers, and increased parenting self-efficacy. Implications of the results are discussed, as are strengths and limitations of the study, as well as future directions for research.

The word diversity can be described as being different or having differences. Furthermore, it also relates to variety or assortment. Diversity forms an integral part of society worldwide. It consists of many different aspects which are all evident in different ways in society. These aspects of diversity include culture, religion, race, language, socio-economic class, gender, ability, etc. Diversity also exists in education as an important part of society. Parental involvement is viewed by many people as an important part of the education process. It has many positives which include improved academic performance of the child, understanding of the schools circumstances, having a more positive attitude towards the school, improved community involvement and a positive school climate. Parental involvement enhances the complete learning experience of the child and focuses on the total development of the child. It includes the making of a commitment and the forming of a partnership between parent and school which is also fundamentally prescribed by legislation. When this partnership is engaged in properly there is a definite positive outcome for both the child and the school. Fundamentally, the purpose of parental involvement lies in the opportunities that it offers all the stakeholders involved to contribute towards the upbringing and development of the children. Managing the involvement of parents should be well planned and directed. School managers need to take into account the issue of diversity in relation to parental involvement. Schools have to make use of creative strategies and approaches as they deal with differences among people which need to be respected in such a way that everyone can be integrated into the school system. Diversity amongst people has an influence on parental involvement and need to be managed to good effect. Ultimately, positive parents will educate positive children who are what we strived for. What is interesting from the results of the study is that the respondents that participated in the research are of the opinion that racial differences as an aspect of diversity doesn‟t have a significant influence on parental involvement. Diversity aspects that are viewed as having a / Thesis (MEd (Education Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

The word diversity can be described as being different or having differences. Furthermore, it also relates to variety or assortment. Diversity forms an integral part of society worldwide. It consists of many different aspects which are all evident in different ways in society. These aspects of diversity include culture, religion, race, language, socio-economic class, gender, ability, etc. Diversity also exists in education as an important part of society. Parental involvement is viewed by many people as an important part of the education process. It has many positives which include improved academic performance of the child, understanding of the schools circumstances, having a more positive attitude towards the school, improved community involvement and a positive school climate. Parental involvement enhances the complete learning experience of the child and focuses on the total development of the child. It includes the making of a commitment and the forming of a partnership between parent and school which is also fundamentally prescribed by legislation. When this partnership is engaged in properly there is a definite positive outcome for both the child and the school. Fundamentally, the purpose of parental involvement lies in the opportunities that it offers all the stakeholders involved to contribute towards the upbringing and development of the children. Managing the involvement of parents should be well planned and directed. School managers need to take into account the issue of diversity in relation to parental involvement. Schools have to make use of creative strategies and approaches as they deal with differences among people which need to be respected in such a way that everyone can be integrated into the school system. Diversity amongst people has an influence on parental involvement and need to be managed to good effect. Ultimately, positive parents will educate positive children who are what we strived for. What is interesting from the results of the study is that the respondents that participated in the research are of the opinion that racial differences as an aspect of diversity doesn‟t have a significant influence on parental involvement. Diversity aspects that are viewed as having a / Thesis (MEd (Education Management))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Education reform efforts in the last fifteen to twenty years at the state and federal levels have provisions for family/community involvement in the schools based on beliefs that partnerships lead to higher student achievement and better outcomes for students, parents and teachers. These requirements have embraced the concept of parent and community involvement in various forms including some aspects of school governance. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 included this concept of participatory governance with the establishment of local school councils (LSC). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe the function and influence of local school councils on school improvement and to provide a better understanding of the role of parent/family and community involvement in those efforts. Data was gathered over a nine month period in three elementary schools in different communities through observation of school council meetings; interviews with various members of the school community, and review of relevant materials. Results of data analysis showed that the function and influence of local school councils on school improvement, and the impact of parent and community involvement on school council function were related to the overall culture of the school. Parent involvement in the school and parent influence on the work of the school council was strengthened by the relationship with the parent organization and other parent involvement activities in the school. The attitude and commitment to parent involvement present in the school culture, as well as, the efforts to recruit parent and community members with the resulting parity in membership also influenced the work of the school council. The results mirrored previous research that showed inconsistencies in the implementation of school councils across the country, that the evidence of their influence on school improvement has been limited, and that schools with existing parent involvement activities before the initiation of school councils had more positive influence on school improvement. Recommendations for further research in family-school relationships, training and oversight of school councils, training for educators, and the allocation of more state and local resources to support school improvement efforts are discussed.

Advertising has been around for thousands of years and has proven to be a valuable asset to company revenue. The methods used in advertising have been examined closely more recently, specifically from a psychological standpoint. The human brain reacts to advertisements in different ways. Low and high involvement advertisements stimulate the brain in the subconscious and conscious state effectively. While each of these advertising methods are useful, complex messaging techniques seem to stimulate recall more effectively than simple messaging. In the age of digital advertising, sponsors look to put new resources to use to ensure paid advertisements are doing their job. With data mining and location based services available, advertisers are getting more in touch with the consumer than ever before. The bombardment of advertising is changing the consumer’s eye for low and high involvement and the advertising industry will be forced to adjust yet again.