Creative Education
2013. Vol.4, No.5, 299-303
Published Online May 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.45044
Supporting the Success of Students—One of the
Factors to Optimize the Role of the School
through Its Cooperation with the Family
Sc. Vlora Sylaj
Department of Pedagogy, University of Prishtina, Prishtina, Kosovo
Received February 5th, 2013; revised March 7th, 2013; accepted March 21st, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Sc. Vlora Sylaj. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attri-
bution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
This article aims to contribute to the growing interest and consideration to support the success of students
by the school and the family. This actually leads to the optimization of the role of the school. Through
answering the research questions, the paper could serve readers to reflect for the better cooperation be-
tween parents and school in terms of supporting the success of students. This study reflects upon the im-
portance of qualitative collaboration, namely to enrich the public opinion with the valuable information
about the cooperation between school and home. The purpose of this article is to ascertain whether it af-
fects the level of contacts between school and family by supporting the success of students from the
school. This study used quantitative method and aims to find answers to the following questions: What
are the school and the family factors that support the success of students? Does this affect the level of
contacts between the family and the school? Research hypothesis: The level of contacts between the
school and families affected by the support by the school for students’ success. We have included 400
teachers and 400 parents from rural areas in this study, as well as 300 teachers and 300 parents of fourth
classes’ from the urban areas. They come from the various city schools in Kosovo. Systematic sample
was randomly selected, and we have compiled the questionnaire. A team of pedagogues, who have been
previously trained to use this questionnaire, took attitudes of both subjects. Data were analyzed by SPSS
20 program. The study has reached some findings and conclusions. Participants’ responses indicate that
the level of contact between the school and families is affected by the factor supporting the success of
students by the school.
Keywords: Optimization; School; Family; Family Involvement; Cooperation
Introduction
Parents make many efforts for development, education and
achievements in the child’s success in school. Family involve-
ment in the child’s success means everything to the family in
order to support the success of children from different direc-
tions in terms of higher achievements, learning, being an advo-
cate for them when they have a problem, and to cooperate ef-
fectively with the school in this regard. However, for higher
student’s achievements, the support of the family is not enough;
success must be lead by the school’s professional commitment
in this regard. While the commitment of the school to support
students’ success in school means that, firstly the school must
recognize assessment standards, to continuously keep families
informed about student’s success in school. Family should be
provided with information about improvement of the student’s
success in school. The family should be contacted as soon as
possible for any student’s delays in lessons. Schools need to
motivate students to do their best. Family should be enabled to
take part in the monitoring of the child’s performance in school.
When it comes to student’s achievement, of course they are
not all the same. We presented challenges in collaboration be-
tween the school and family to support student success. Why it
is not considered a challenge? Because, the school should first
draw up quality programs for students’ achievements. More-
over, having in mind that students’ achievements are not the
same, and then the strategy for working with the family in this
respect cannot be the same. The family certainly considers the
school responsible for the success of the child. Expecting the
child’s success to come only through the support from school,
sometimes families even blame the school for their obligations
and responsibilities to support the child’s success.
Nevertheless, despite this, it is a moral obligation and re-
sponsibility above all, that parents and schools pass these barri-
ers and give their best to achieve the best results in students’
success. The student’s success should be supported until he
becomes an adult. Even to support the success of his own fam-
ily, and during his entire education career, although adult child/
student should take his responsibilities for learning.
Survey’s Methodology
Operational definitions: Family is a group of individuals re-
lated by blood, marriage or cohabitation approval. Family

S. V. SYLAJ
should be more involved and participate in school. School is the
educational institution in which the organized activity of up-
bringing and education of the young generation takes place.
Establishing the highest level of school role through coopera-
tion with the family. Cooperation between school and family
are activities and cooperation agreements between them to
achieve common goals.
The aim of the study: This study aims to reveal the relation-
ship between the family and school contacts for cooperation
between school factor, as it is to support the success of students
by the school.
Study questions: Does the support affect the success of stu-
dents from the school level meetings between school and fam-
ily? Do you have significant differences on this issue between
the family and school environment when families comes from
urban and rural areas?
Research hypothesis: Supporting student’s success increases
the level of contacts between the school and the family.
Second hypothesis: To support the success of students from
the school is top notch.
Alternative hypothesis: Level of meetings between school
and home is not dictated by the fulfilment of cooperation be-
tween the school and family factors such as to support student’s
success.
The importance of the study: This study is important because
it affects the support to students’ success in school and it estab-
lishes the contacts with the family. Also, note that the relation-
ship between these variables is the same in urban and rural
areas.
Limitations of the study: This study may be limited by the
following factors:
 Teachers may be cautious in providing information in col-
laboration with the family.
 Restrictions on giving honest responses may also encounter
family.
Population and sample: The population of this research are
all teachers and parents of elementary schools in Kosovo.
Population is determined numerically and the largest number of
pupils comes from rural areas. Since it is the large population to
study the problem, we have defined the version of the study—
sampling was done through systematic random selection. The
sample included 300 teachers and 300 parents of fourth grade
school from urban areas in Kosovo, and 400 teachers and 400
parents of school fourth grade from rural areas in seven regions
of Kosovo.
Instrument applied. We have applied research assessment to
determine the relationship between students’ success support
from the school and the level of contacts between school and
family. We applied comparative research for the comparison of
differences in school and family attitudes and cooperation be-
tween them.
Applied instrument is a questionnaire for parents and teach-
ers, which consists of questions through which we discover
how the success of students is supported by the school. The
questionnaire consists of five scales: “strongly agree”, “agree”,
and “undecided”, “disagree”, and “strongly agree”.
Examination of the Literature
All studies in the field of cooperation between the school and
family shows that parental involvement in the school is the
educational factors in higher student’s achievements. If parents
are knowledgeable and present in their children’s school life,
children will be motivated and achieve better results (Schumm,
2005). Motivation provided by the child’s parent and its sup-
port are decisive elements in the child’s success in school (Bo-
jagjiu, 2009).
Research has found that parents who provided active support
to their children contributed more in their children’s success in
school. More than those who offer passive support. Parents less
effective in this regard, there are those who do not support their
children. Parents should help their children and encourage them
to achieve success (Berger, 2000). However, of course, support
the success of children/students must be done by schools,
through professional support.
Joyce Epstein (1995, 2001) has based its practices in a part-
nership model and cooperation and shared responsibilities be-
tween families and schools. “There are many reasons for school,
family, and community partnership to exist. Partnership can
improve school programs and school climate, to provide ser-
vices and family support, parental skills and leadership. Con-
nect families with others in school and in the community, and
help teachers with their work. However, the main reason to
create such partnerships is to help all young people to succeed
in school and in later life …” (Epstein, 1995: p. 702). Over the
years, Epstein has found that parental involvement is crucial to
success. A small number of schools have had as their purpose
to make cooperation through training and external support
(Fullan, 2001).
While Decker, considers that the most accurate predictor of
student success in school is not the welfare status, but the ex-
tent to which the student’s family is able: 1) Create a home
environment that encourages learning; 2) Communicate expec-
tations and achievement; 3) Become more involved in their
child’s education at school and community (Decker, 2003).
In their study of family involvement in school, Henderson
and Mapp (2000), reached the conclusion that the evidence is
consistent, positive and convincing that families have a major
impact on their children’s performance in school and life. The
researchers also show that children whose parents: 1) Provide
high expectations and aspirations; 2) Assist and control the
children’s homework; 3) Participate in parent meetings and
parent-teacher associations; 4) Talk to their children about
school, tend to have higher grades, superior performance on
tests of achievement ... (Catsambis & Beveridge, 2001; Fan &
Chen, 2001; Muller, 1993). Researchers have found correlation
between the quality of partnerships and student achievement.
Schools with high quality partnership programs report greater
volunteerism of parents and their participation in school events.
Involvement in the decision making process. In addition, more
involvement in the students’ homework, that require interaction,
rather than lower quality school programs (Sheldon, 2005;
Sheldon & Van Voorhis, 2004). Given the importance of coop-
eration between family and school achievements of students,
we should aim to be efficient in cooperation, as this will have
on impact on the nation. When at the family, community,
schools and systems are strong, the nation is strong, too (Kreso,
2004).
Results of the Study
Data in Table 1 shows that teachers in urban areas considers
that their support to student’s success is high, 94% of them out
of total of 300 teachers have expressed such an approach, while
300

S. V. SYLAJ
Table 1.
Support success of students by teachers of the urban environment.
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Low 1 .3 .3 .3
Medium 16 5.3 5.4 5.7
High 282 94.0 94.3 100.0
Valid
Total 299 99.7 100.0
Missing System 1 .3
Total 300 100.0
5.4% of them consider theirs support level being average. Ta-
ble 2 shows the relationship between the support for the suc-
cess of students by teachers of the urban area and the level of
their meeting with the family. The relationship is linear, posi-
tive and substantial and statistically significant (r = .568, p
= .003, n = 300). We can conclude that the level of families and
school meetings increases thanks to higher support of the suc-
cess of students by teachers in urban areas.
Table 3 shows statistics of teachers who support the success
of students in rural areas, 95% of them expressed that attitude,
and only 3.7% of them consider that their support to the success
of their students is the average. While the results of the study
on the link between student’s success and support of teachers in
rural areas and school’s level of contacts between rural areas
and the same family environment, are presented in Table 4,
which reveals that support to the success of students and the
level of contacts between the school and the family in rural
areas liaison moderate but significant, which means that the
teachers in rural areas supports student’s success, and that in-
creases the level of contacts between their family (r = .499, p
= .005, n = 400).
Study data from Table 5 reveals that from all surveyed fami-
lies that come from urban environment 85% of them consider
that support the success of their children by teachers is in high
level, only 10% consider it is medium level and none of them
valued low-level. As Table 6 shows that teachers support the
success of students from urban school, based on the family
responses, increases the level of meetings between them and
school (r = .377, p = .000, n = 300).
The data in Table 7 it makes us clear that the families from
rural environment consider high level of children support the
success by school. In total, 90% of parents express this attitude.
High indicator level of rural environment school support chil-
dren’s success. Only 7.8% of families consider this average
level of support and 2.3% low level of support. According to
the data in Table 8 it becomes clear that the family of the rural
environment have moderate positive linear correlation but with
statistical significance between supporting success of students
and the level of contacts between rural environment family and
school (r = .326, p = .002, n = 400), which means that the level
of contacts between rural environment household and school
grows with the support the success of students from school.
Discussion
Our study found that teachers from urban environment highly
support students’ success in school, which factor assumed that
increases the level of meetings between school and family,
study confirmed our assumption by relationship of these two
Table 2.
Correlation between support success of students by teachers of urban
environment and number of family-school meetings.
Nr. meetings Supportsuk
Pearson Correlation 1 .568
Sig. (2-tailed) .003
Nr. Meetings
N 300 299
Pearson Correlation .568 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .003
Supportsuk
N 299 299
Table 3.
Support success of students by teachers of rural environment.
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Low 1 .2 .3 .3
Medium 15 3.7 3.8 4.0
High 383 95.0 96.0 100.0
Valid
Total 399 99.0 100.0
Missing System 4 1.0
Total 403 100.0
Table 4.
Correlation between support success of students from rural and count-
ing teachers meetings between school and family.
How many meeting
have been held with
family on half term Supportsuk.R
Pearson Correlation 1 .499
Sig. (2-tailed) .004
How many
meeting have been
held with family
on half term N 400 399
Pearson Correlation .499 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .004 Supportsuk.R
N 399 399
Table 5.
Support success of students from families of the urban environment.
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Medium 33 10.6 11.0 11.0
Valid
High 266 85.3 89.0 100.0
Total 299 95.8 100.0
Missing System 13 4.2
Total 312 100.0
factors through Pirsons Correlation. So we discovered that as
much is supported students success from the school, the family
will be more cooperative with it - school.
In the interest of our study it was to understand also the stay
of rural environment teachers on supporting student’s success
by them, and our study found that teachers from this environ-
ment highly value supporting success of students from schools,
also we found that supporting success by rural environment
teachers increases level of meetings with family. We found that

S. V. SYLAJ
302
Table 6.
Correlation between support success of students from families of the
urban environment and counting family-school meetings.
On half term haw many
meeting been held wi th
teacher regarding your
child
Supportsuk.R
Pearson
Correlation 1 .377
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
On half term haw
many meeting been
held with teacher
regarding your child N 300 299
Pearson
Correlation .377 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
Supportsuk.R
N 299 299
Table 7.
Support success of students from rural environment family.
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Low 9 2.3 2.3 2.3
Medium 31 7.8 7.8 10.0
High 360 90.0 90.0 100.0
Valid
Total 400 100.0 100.0
Table 8.
Correlation between support success of students from rural and count-
ing family to family-school meetings.
On half term haw
many meeting been
held with teacher
regarding your child
Supportsuk.R
Pearson
Correlation 1 .326
Sig. (2-tailed) .002
On half term haw
many meeting been
held with teacher
regarding your child N 400 399
Pearson
Correlation .326 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .002
Supportsuk.R
N 399 399
it is at the same level of students supporting success by teachers
on both environments, also support of success by teachers of
both environments as factors affects the number of meetings
between school and family, and it is known that more frequent
meetings lead to higher level cooperation between these two
factors school and family, and does not end here, the higher
level meetings certainly contributes to higher student achieve-
ment.
We can conclude that family from urban environment be-
lieves that the success of their children is supported from school,
considering this support as high level. With insignificant dif-
ferences with 10% more than urban environment family, rural
environment family defends the position that their children’s
teachers support children’s success in school even more. Also,
we found that the family of the urban environment and urban
environment teachers, supporting student success increases
cooperation between family and school. We found that even at
rural environment family support children’s success increased
the level of its meetings with the school.
Our study thus reveals that schools from both environments,
highly backs student success, conclusion that is found on both
school and family environments, also we conclude that level of
meetings between family and school increases with higher sup-
port student success in school. There are no significant differ-
ences between urban and rural environments.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Our study showed that support student success is very im-
portant factors in the cooperation between school and family
and even increases meeting level between them.
Based on our study results school is standing good in support
the student success. However the study shows that as much as
supportive student’s success is from school as much as coop-
eration between school and family will be. So, disturbing is the
fact that the school does not have a strategy for higher student
achievement, while it is known that it is not enough that stu-
dent’s success only to be supported, but schools must work on
strategies for higher student achievement.
Family shouldn’t leave everything in the hands of school but
to collaborate in student achievement, monitor and support
student learning at home, and certainly when encounter diffi-
culties in this area to address the school as a professional insti-
tution.
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Epstein, J. L. (1995). School/family/community partnerships: Caring
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Epstein, J. L. (2001). School and family partnerships: Preparing edu-
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Appendix
Dear Teachers,
The best way to achieve a satisfactory success of students in
our school is through cooperation between you as a school and
you as a family. This survey gives you the opportunity to show
what schools are doing to support this collaboration. The sur-
vey is anonymous, we appreciate your sincerity.
Thank you for your cooperation. Vlora Sylaj
In the Following Questions Mark Sets X in Family
Welcoming of Schools
1) I feel welcomed at organized meetings.
2) Parents can meet me whenever they need.
3) I show respect to parents whenever they are in school.
4) I do not distinguish parents despite their cultural level,
educational, material, etc.
5) We have a dedicated room at school, where you can meet
child’s teacher.
Effective Communication
6) I make it easy parental communication with me.
7) Teacher informs me regularly regarding various activities
in the school.
8) I communicate with parents and families in multiple ways
(such as, e-mail, telephone, website, parent meetings, working
notebook home visit, etc.).
9) I’d help parents solve problems related to their child.
10) They can communicate with me whenever they need.
Only one of the Alternatives (Squares)
strongly agree agree undecided disagree totally disagree
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strongly agree agree undecided disagree totally disagree
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Information about Families
11) I inform parents with the program (curriculum) of teach-
ing subjects.
12) I indicate what ways of cooperation can be used (parent
meetings, phone, website, home visits...)
13) I inform them with school rules and policies.
14) I offer information about the existence and the number of
Parent Councilor’s in schools.
15) I inform what is the function of these councils.
16) I know (I’ve read) the law on primary education in Kos-
ovo.
Supporting Student Success
17) I inform parents consistently regarding child success.
18) I contact with them only when the child stall in lessons.
19) I encourage students to do better in classes.
20) Students learning difficulties I solve in liaison with par-
ent.
strongly agreeagreeundecided disagree totally disagree
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strongly agreeagreeundecided disagree totally disagree
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Family Confidence in School
21) I have confidence on family that has leading control on
child’s lessons.
22) I have confidence on family that will inform you of any
changes on child’s success.
23) I am confident that the school will inform you of any
change of child’s behavior.
24) Cooperation with the family is essential to me as a
teacher.
Segregation of Duties and Responsibilities
25) I ask parents to discuss with consulting service of school
regarding child’s specific concerns (psychologist, director ...).
26) I have made it clear objectives and tasks parents must re-
alize.
Decision Making
27) Parents participate in making important decisions in the
school.
28) In school decisions are taken without asking a parent.
The Level of C o ntact
29) How many times you meet the parents per half term?
strongly agreeagreeundecided disagree totally disagree
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strongly agreeagreeundecided disagree totally disagree
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strongly agreeagreeundecided disagree totally disagree
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Your Comments if Any
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