UC Riverside

Students with disabilities tend to experience more challenges and have lower homework completion as compared to non-disabled peers (Epstein et al., 1993). Evidence suggests that parental involvement in homework can significantly improve children with disabilities’ homework completion and achievement (Zhang, Hsu, Kwok, Benz, & Bowman-Parrot, 2001). However, there have been relatively few studies that have examined the factors that are associated with higher levels of homework involvement for parents of children with disabilities (Frew, Zhou, Duran, Kwok, & Benz, 2013). The purpose of this study was to conduct a preliminary investigation on the factors associated with homework involvement of parents of children with disabilities. To determine these factors, data were analyzed from a sample of 11,941 parents from the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the 2016 National Household Education Surveys Program. Using a hierarchical regression analysis, this study examined the relationship of family characteristics, school outreach efforts, parent satisfaction, and parent beliefs in relation to homework involvement. Generally, parents of children with disabilities are significantly less satisfied with their child’s school and had lower expectations for their child’s postsecondary outcomes as compared to parents of children without disabilities. Preliminary results indicated that a child’s disability status impacted the association between parents’ satisfaction with their child’s IEP services with homework involvement, as well as expectations with homework involvement.