Teacher Report of Invitations to Parental Involvement
Last updated: May, 2005

This scale is reported in Hoover-Dempsey, Walker, Jones and Reed (2002). It was adapted from Epstein, Salinas & Horsey (1994), Epstein (1986), Stipek (D. Stipek, pers. comm., December 1998) and from a local program-wide evaluation effort (see Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2002). The scale assesses teachers’ reports of their invitations to parents for involvement during the school year.

This scale parallels the scale Teacher Beliefs about the Importance of Specific Involvement Practices. However, the response scale and prompt were changed as appropriate for the specific task here.

The measure employs a six-point, Likert-type scale: 1=never, 2=once this year, 3=once each semester, 4=once a month, 5=once every 1-2 weeks, 6=1+ time(s) each week.

Alpha reliability for the scale as reported in Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2002) was .89 for both pre-test and post-test administrations.

Participants were asked to respond to the following prompt:
“In this section, please indicate HOW OFTEN YOU have done each of the following this year”

1.	Have a conference with a parent.
2.	Contact a parent if the child has problems or experiences failure.
3.	Contact a parent if the child does something well or improves.
4.	Involve a parent as a volunteer in my classroom.
5.	Tell a parent about the skills the child must learn in each subject I teach.
6.	Provide specific activities for a parent to do with the child in order to improve the child’s grades.
7.	Give a parent ideas about discussing specific TV shows with the children.
8.	Assign homework that requires a parent to interact with the child.
9.	Suggest ways to practice spelling or other skills at home before a test.
10.	Ask a parent to listen to the child read.
11.	Ask a parent to help the child with homework.
12.	Encourage a parent to ask the child about the school day.
13.	Ask a parent to visit my classroom.
14.	Ask a parent to take the child to the library or community events.
15.	Give a parent ideas to help him or her become an effective advocate for the child.
16.	Send home ‘letters’ telling parents what the children have been learning and doing in class.

References:

Epstein, J.L. (1986). Parents’ reaction to teacher practices of parent involvement. Elementary School Journal, 86, 277-294.

Epstein, J.L., Salinas, K.C., & Horsey, C.S. (1994). Reliabilities and summaries of scales: School and family partnership surveys of teachers and parents in the elementary middle grades. Baltimore, MD: Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children’s Learning and Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students, Johns Hopkins University.

Hoover-Dempsey, K.V., Walker, J.M.T., Jones, K.P., & Reed, R.P. (2002). Teachers Involving Parents (TIP): An in-service teacher education program for enhancing parental involvement. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18 (7), 843-467.