Parental Involvement and Students’ Cognitive Outcomes in Korea

Studies of parental involvement and children’s education in a variety of contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationships between parental involvement and student outcomes depend upon specific local contexts of family and education. Korean education is distinctive with its high prevalence of private tutoring, which not only imposes an economic burden on parents but also requires parents’ time and efforts to select the best kind of private tutoring for their children and to keep track of their academic progress by interacting with private tutors. Here, data from a longitudinal survey in Korea that has traced 7th-graders for two years were used to investigate the determinants and the effects of parents’ private tutoring–related activities in comparison to other types of home-based and school-based parental involvement. Multivariate analysis shows that parents’ efforts in selecting and monitoring private tutoring are significantly associated with increased math and English test scores. Features of Korean education in which private tutoring becomes an important strategy for parents to enhance children’s education are described, and the broader implications of the findings, beyond the local context, are discussed.