Abstract
Parents’ and teachers’ well-functioning communication supports their partnership and also benefits pupils’ well-being. Today, communication largely takes place using electronic tools. In the current study, Finnish parents’ (N = 1123) and teachers’ (N = 118) opinions on digital communication in urban and rural areas were studied by applying a new 14-item Digital Communication Scale (DCS) created for the purpose. The three-factor structured DCS was used to elucidate parents’ and teachers’ views on their partnership, feedback, and clarity of messaging. In contrast to some negative headlines and myths, the main finding of our study was overall satisfaction with digital communication, which was seen as supporting the parent-teacher partnership and providing valuable information on pupils’ development and their everyday issues. In particular, rural parents seemed satisfied with digital communication as a partnership-building tool. However, the view of parents was that they received less encouraging feedback about their children than teachers believed they had given. On the other hand, teachers experienced more ambiguity in digital communication than parents. This was more salient among urban teachers than among rural teachers. To summarize, rural parents and rural teachers saw digital communication as serving their collaboration better than did their urban peers. The results of the current study can be used for further development of parent-teacher communication in digital environments.
Highlights
We investigate Finnish parents’ and teachers’ views on how digital communication (DC) promotes their partnership
In order to study parent-teacher DC in detail, we developed a new measuring instrument, the Digital Communication Scale (DCS)
Data were collected from volunteering parents and teachers from one urban and one rural municipality in Finland. e psychometric qualities of the DCS were satisfactory, showing a clear threefactor structure with 14 items. e factors were named as follows: FI partnerships, F2 encouraging feedback, and F3 unclear communication
Summary
We investigate Finnish parents’ and teachers’ views on how digital communication (DC) promotes their partnership. In the most-often used DC platform (in more than 90 percent of Finnish schools), teachers can inform parents about the events of the schooldays, provide shorter or longer written feedback on pupils’ studies and their grades, furnish information about timetables, and maintain diverse communication with parents. In order to study parent-teacher DC in detail, we developed a new measuring instrument, the Digital Communication Scale (DCS) With this scale, we sought to understand the differences between parents’ and teachers’ views of DC in three different domains: partnership, feedback, and clarity of messaging. (2) How do parents and teachers from two different locations view the role of digital communication in (a) building and maintaining partnerships, (b) receiving and giving feedback, (c) conveying understandable messages?
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