The effects of parental involvement on students’ math performance is influenced by various factors, such as the involvement type and parental expectations (Huang et al., 2021; Tang and Tran, 2023). Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the factors that affect the effects of parental involvement on students’ math performance, rather than simply focusing on the quantity and frequency of parental involvement.

The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) provided a valuable theoretical framework for understanding how parental involvement influenced students’ math performance. According to SDT, parental involvement can be divided into positive involvement and negative involvement. Positive parental involvement emphasis on cultivating students’ autonomy in learning and can enhance their intrinsic motivation and learning engagement. When parents provide autonomy support for their children’s learning, it will have a positive influence on students’ academic performance and cultivate their self-efficacy (Joussemet et al., 2008; Feng et al., 2019). On the contrary, excessive control brought about by negative parental involvement can undermine students’ learning autonomy, leading to their inability to truly participate and grasp their own learning, thereby having a negative influence on their academic performance (Xu et al., 2018; Silinskas and Kikas, 2019).

In addition, SDT emphasized that students need to feel connected and supported by others. Parental involvement can cultivate strong emotional bonds and enhance students’ sense of belonging, which is crucial for their motivation and engagement in learning (Ryan and Deci, 2000; Klein, 2019). When parents actively participate in their children’s education while maintaining a supportive relationship, it can improve academic performance of students.

There has long been a lack of a unified concept regarding the definition of parental involvement (Fan and Chen, 2001). Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) argued that parental involvement refers to the resources parents invest in their children in a specific field. LaRocque et al. (2011) suggested that it refers to the behavior of parents in the family and school environment as they aim to support the progress of their children in learning. Epstein (2004) pointed out that parental involvement includes six key types: parenting, communication, volunteer service, home-based learning, decision-making, and community collaboration. Generally, parental involvement refers to a situation in which parents participate in the education of their children directly.

Some researchers have focused on the influence of general parental involvement on student math performance in previous studies, while others have focused on the influence different types of parental involvement have on it, such as providing support and expectations for their children during the education process, actively participating in school activities, and helping their children with homework (Hill and Tyson, 2009; Jeynes, 2012; Veas et al., 2019). The influence different types of parental involvement have on the math performance of students is not consistent (Froiland and Davison, 2016; Abah et al., 2018; Viljaranta et al., 2018; Curtis et al., 2021; Alam and Dubé, 2023; Park et al., 2023), so this study uses type of parental involvement as a potential moderating variable.

In terms of the influence of parental involvement on the academic performance of students, the majority of people tend to consider it from the perspective of the mother (Hindman and Morrison, 2012; Powell et al., 2012). In recent years, as the status of women has improved and attitudes have changed, a growing number of fathers have become involved in the education of their children (Clark, 2005). There is currently no consensus regarding whether or not there is a difference between paternal and maternal involvement. Fathers generally spend more time interacting with their children rather than being involved in other guardianship activities such as feeding or taking care of them (Craig, 2006). In comparison to mothers, fathers exhibit less stimulation when interacting with their children (Belsky et al., 1984). When a mother shows below-average support, the support provided by the father may be particularly important for the child (Martin et al., 2010). Therefore, this study identifies participant as a potential moderating variable.

Skaliotis (2010) noted that the grade level of a student can regulate the relationship between parental involvement and their academic performance. From the perspective of cognitive psychology, many studies emphasized that parental involvement and family learning environment can significantly affect students’ cognitive development and academic performance (Landry, 2008; Roy and Giraldo-García, 2018). The types of parental involvement change with the age and cognitive development of students. From parent–child interaction in the preschool stage to academic involvement and assistance in primary school, and then to emotional communication during adolescence, the influence of parental involvement on students’ academic performance varies (Tamayo Martinez et al., 2022; Prime et al., 2023). In addition, for mathematics learning, the knowledge learned in preschool and primary school is relatively simple, while the knowledge learned in middle and high school is much more difficult, which also affects the types of parental involvement (Olmez and Ozel, 2012). Therefore, this study explores the moderating effect of grade level on the relationship between parental involvement and the math performance of students.

Geographical region may also influence the relationship between parental involvement and students’ math performance. The cultural differences in different geographical regions affect the frequency and type of parental involvement in students’ mathematical learning (Erdem and Kaya, 2020; Xu et al., 2024). Some researchers stated that in Asian cultures, parents may have higher expectations and more direct involvement in their children’s education compared to Western cultures, which is positively correlated with students’ math performance (Huang et al., 2021; Tang and Tran, 2023). In addition, the level of economic development and education policies in different regions can also affect the relationship between parental involvement and students’ math performance (Harju-Luukkainen et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2024). Therefore, this study identifies geographical region as a potential moderating variable.

Wilder (2023) highlighted that academic performance evaluation method can affect the strength of the relationship between parental involvement and academic performance. Different evaluation types for the math performance of students may also yield different results. If there are problems with academic achievement evaluation, the credibility of any conclusions will decrease (Andrews and Harlen, 2006). Academic performance evaluation is mainly divided into standardized test and custom test. Standardized test generally has a stricter confidence interval and a smaller test score standard deviation, while custom test is easily influenced by many factors or biases of the evaluator. When using custom test to report student math performance, a significant correlation may be found between parental involvement and student math performance (Jeynes, 2005). Therefore, this study explores whether math performance evaluation type has an influence on the relationship between parental involvement and math performance.

Math knowledge is not a single component and it encompasses many aspects, including understanding concepts, calculation skills, problem-solving, and algebraic reasoning (Milburn et al., 2019). Conceptual understanding and calculation skills are fundamental knowledge that requires lower personal abilities from students, which makes it easier for students to learn. Problem-solving and algebraic reasoning belong to advanced knowledge and require high personal abilities from students, so some may experience difficulties in learning. Currently, there is a lack of consensus on whether parental involvement has the same influence on different types of math knowledge (Purpura et al., 2020). Therefore, considering whether evaluation content can affect the relationship between parental involvement and math performance is necessary.

Study publication year may moderate the relationship between parental involvement and math performance. The rapid development of information technology in modern society has brought more content and forms to the mathematics learning of students, particularly the development of related learning software and the popularization of online learning, which have enabled students to learn mathematics at home (Sarmiento, 2017). This also provides parents with greater opportunities to be involved in the learning of their children. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, parental involvement has faced more opportunities and challenges. Many national and local policies have also started advocating the importance of parental involvement in education and encouraged parents to play a greater role in education, which will help improve the academic performance of their children (Panaoura, 2021). As a result, the relationship between parental involvement and student math performance may become stronger.

In summary, the aim of this meta-analysis is to quantitatively integrate previous research results, provide an updated and comprehensive perspective on the influence parental involvement has on math performance, and investigate the aspects that will affect this relationship.

Firstly, this study will calculate the overall effect size of the correlation between parental involvement and math performance. It will then examine whether there are differences in this correlation between involvement type, participant, grade level, geographical region, evaluation type, evaluation content, and publication year.

The literature search and inclusion of this study were jointly conducted by two authors. This study used electronic retrieval to collect English journals and dissertations (government documents, conference papers, etc., were not included in the search scope) from 2015 to 2024 regarding the relationship between parental involvement and students’ math performance (the last retrieval date was May 8, 2024). The databases searched included: Google Scholar, ERIC, EBSCO, Web of Science and ProQuest.

Two rounds of literature searches were conducted. The literature search went through two rounds of procedures. The first round involved conducting extensive searches using keywords. During the search process, we found that although there were many related articles on the relationship between parental involvement and students’ academic performance, these articles often used comprehensive scores combined with other subjects (such as GPA) for students’ math performance. In order to conduct a more in-depth study on the influence of parental involvement on students’ math performance, we used the following search formula, combined with three search fields: topic, title, and full text: (parental involvement OR parental engagement OR parental participation) AND (math performance OR mathematics performance OR math achievement OR mathematics achievement OR math outcomes OR mathematics outcomes).

In the first round, a large-scale search was conducted, and 957 articles were obtained. In the second round, retrospective literature search was used, and 5 articles were obtained by searching the references of the literature obtained in the first round. Following the deletion of 323 duplicate articles, 639 articles were obtained.

In the first round of screening, 283 pieces of irrelevant literature were excluded by reading the article title and abstract. The following criteria were used for screening articles in the second round: (1) articles had to be empirical studies, review studies were not adopted; (2) sample size was clearly reported; (3) the evaluation methods and content for math performance were reported; and (4) the correlation coefficient between parental involvement and the math performance of students was clearly reported. 25 articles with a total of 42 effect size were ultimately included in this study (see Figure 1).

For the convenience of data analysis, the included articles in the meta-analysis needed to be encoded. The coding content included author, effect size, sample size, participant, involvement type, grade level, geographical region, math performance evaluation type, evaluation content, and publication year.

To ensure coding accuracy and reliability, the coding in this study was completed by two authors separately. Cohen’s kappa coefficient was used to analyze the consistency of the two authors coding results. According to statistics, the coding consistency rate between two authors was 95.1%. Then, the two authors discussed their differences, reached a consensus, and completed the final codes. The final coding results can be seen in Tables 1, 2.

This study adopted the meta-analysis method, which is a comprehensive statistical analysis that is based on existing research results (Borenstein et al., 2021). Firstly, the initial effect size of each study was extracted, which is the correlation coefficient r between parental involvement and the math performance of students. Fisher’s Z-transform was then applied to r and weighted based on the sample size with 95% confidence.

For intervals, the calculation formula was Z = 0.5 × ln [(1+ r)/(1-r)].

The instrument used in this study was Comprehensive Meta Analysis 3.0 software, which is specifically designed for calculating the effect size and total effect size of each original study, and analyzing the heterogeneity of effect sizes in different contexts based on moderating variables.

This meta-analysis included 25 articles with 42 independent effect sizes, with sample sizes ranging from 41 to 2,167,729 for each study. The overall effect size and heterogeneity analysis results of parental involvement on mathematical performance are shown in Table 3 and the forest plot (Figure 2). There are two indicators for a heterogeneity test: Q and I². When Q is significant and I² > 75%, it is considered that there is significant heterogeneity between studies, and the random-effect model should be chosen for analysis (Huedo-Medina et al., 2006).

The results showed a Q value of 24,730.955, with p < 0.001, and an I² value of 99.834%, which indicates significant heterogeneity among studies, so the random-effect model was used for analysis. The random-effect model showed the overall effect size of parental involvement on math performance to be 0.115 (p < 0.001), with a 95% confidence interval of 0.079 to 0.152. This proved that parental involvement has a significantly positive influence on the math performance of students.

Meta-analysis requires a publication bias assessment as a means of ensuring research result reliability. Publication bias assessment in this study involved two steps. Firstly, the funnel plot (Figure 3) showed that the effect sizes of the studies were evenly distributed on both sides of the average effect size, and most of the effect sizes were distributed in the upper middle, with fewer effect sizes at the bottom. This shows that the possibility of publication bias in the study is quite small. Secondly, the Egger’s regression test showed a p-value of 0.98, which is far greater than 0.05. This indicates that there is no publication bias in this study (Egger et al., 1997).

The overall analysis results show there to be significant heterogeneity in the influence parental involvement has on math performance. To gain a deeper understanding of the factors that affect the relationship between parental involvement and math performance, this study conducted moderating variable analysis on father or mother, involvement type, grade level, geographical region, math performance evaluation type, evaluation content, and publication year to determine whether parental involvement affects student mathematical performance differently in different contexts. The results of the moderating variables analysis can be seen in Table 4.

Meta-analyses on the relationship between parental involvement and academic performance in recent years have found parental involvement to have a positive influence on the academic performance of students (Castro et al., 2015; Erdem and Kaya, 2020; Ates, 2021; Wilder, 2023). Henderson and Mapp (2002) noted that when schools, families, and communities jointly support learning, children are more likely to enjoy learning more and do better. When parents are involved in the education of their children, students will feel that their parents provide them with a sense of security and connection in their studies, which helps enhance their learning motivation (Gonzalez-DeHass et al., 2005). At the same time, parental involvement plays a vital role in the emotional and cognitive development of adolescents (Hampden-Thompson and Galindo, 2017; Berkowitz et al., 2021).

Math is essential for national development and many countries have implemented policies to promote math teaching and learning as a means of improving the quality of math education (Muraina and Ajayi, 2011). However, many students continue to face many difficulties in math learning, which leads them to lose confidence and causes anxiety (Mamolo, 2022). In comparison to math, literacy and language skills receive more attention from parents as they often think that their mathematical abilities are weak and that they cannot provide assistance to their children in mathematical learning (Berkowitz et al., 2021). Some parents even hope that teachers and schools take sole responsibility for the mathematical learning of their children (Cannon and Ginsburg, 2008). This study conducted a meta-analysis on the influence parental involvement has on math performance, the results showing that parental involvement has a significantly positive influence on it, which indicates that parental involvement is necessary for mathematical learning. Panaoura (2017) noted that parental involvement can help students develop the confidence and perseverance that are needed for mathematical learning. Parental involvement is essential for helping adolescents develop their self-efficacy (Schunk and Miller, 2002). Students with low self-efficacy may avoid math that they perceive to be difficult, while students with high self-efficacy may persist in math learning while obtaining satisfaction, which will encourage them to perform better in math (Margolis and McCabe, 2004; Schunk and Zimmerman, 2006). Therefore, parents should be advocated and encouraged to become involved in the math learning of their children.

Seven moderating variables were chosen in this study. The analysis results showed there to be differences in participant, involve type, grade level, geographical regions, and evaluation content.