Parent Engagement in Early Childhood Education: A Multivariate Analysis in the Turkish Context

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This study examined parent engagement in early childhood education in Türkiye and its associations with demographic characteristics. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 496 parents of children aged 66–72 months recruited through convenience sampling with snowball features. Participants completed the 25-item Turkish Parent Engagement in Early Childhood Education Scale, comprising Knowledge and Expectations, Trust and Communication, and Home-Based Engagement. Demographic differences were examined using Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests with false discovery rate correction, followed by multiple linear regression analyses with HC3 standard errors. Overall engagement was high, although Home-Based Engagement was comparatively lower. Respondents with one child reported higher Home-Based Engagement than respondents with two, three, four or more children, whereas the multiple-child groups did not differ significantly from one another. Urban respondents also reported higher Home-Based Engagement than rural respondents. Educational-level contrasts were identified for Total Parent Engagement but not for Home-Based Engagement after adjustment. Home-Based Engagement demonstrated low internal consistency (α = .48; ω = .52). Therefore, findings involving this subdimension should be considered preliminary. The results indicate demographic associations rather than causal effects and require replication using psychometrically stronger measures and more representative samples.