Abstract
In 1995 and 1997 Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler proposed a theoretical model of the parental involvement process. Taking a psychological perspective, the model explained why parents become involved in their children’s education and how their involvement makes a difference in student outcomes. In this article we describe our efforts to operationalize Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler’s explanation and how, in turn, those efforts led to revisions in their theoretical model. Because investigations of the full model are ongoing, in this article we discuss only revisions in the original model’s first 2 levels, which focus on psychological and contextual contributors to forms of parent involvement. We conclude with a discussion of how our work exemplifies the reciprocal relation between theory and measurement and suggest how other researchers might use our scales to assess links between parents’ psychological motivations for involvement and their involvement behavior