Parent-teacher Communication Research Articles

Communication between Parents and Teachers of Special Education Students: A Small Exploratory Study of Reddit Posts

Communication between teachers and parents is an important research topic in the field of special education. Although this type of communication is fraught with challenges such as conflict and lack of trust, there are also some success factors such as collaborative two-way communication and the use of appropriate technologies to facilitate communication. In this paper, we set out to explore this topic in more depth, by examining the experiences of parents and teachers of special-needs students when it comes to communication. A small exploratory qualitative study of social media posts from Reddit is performed. The aim is to shed light on the experiences of parents and teachers. The findings show that both parts of this dyadic relationship have mixed experiences, but the general sentiment is skewed towards the negative. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on parent-teacher communication.

Parent–teacher communication for children on the autism spectrum: An examination of communication skill use and problematic communication

AbstractThe purpose of this investigation was to examine communication skill use and related characteristics, as well as factors associated with problematic communication during conferences, in parents and teachers of children on the autism spectrum (AS). Participants were 36 parent–teacher dyads who completed questionnaires on communication, defined within the Listen, Educate, Assess, Partners, Support (LEAPS) Model, as well as measures on problem‐solving and relationship quality. Parents reported more frequent use of LEAPS‐defined skills than teachers, as well as a more positive view of problem‐solving and relationship quality. Both parents and teachers reported similar levels of problematic communication. Problematic communication was inversely associated with problem‐solving and relationship quality for parents. For teachers, problematic communication was inversely related to skill use and relationship quality. Communication during parent–teacher conferences may be improved through LEAPS‐based communication training for both teachers and parents. This training may diminish problematic communication and align cross‐setting intervention practices, and subsequently optimize outcomes for children on the AS.

Effect of Parental Involvement on Perceptions of Physical Education

This study sought to address the large gap in the literature regarding parents’ roles and views about physical education programs. Guided by Epstein’s model of parental involvement, this study investigated the effect of increased parental involvement in a child’s physical education program on parents’ perceptions of that program. Participants included 31 parents (28 female, 3 male) of students enrolled in fifth- through eighth-grade physical education classes at a school in the Southwestern United States. The design employed was a pre–post mixed-methods design. Over 6 weeks, the physical education teacher increased communication with parents through twice-weekly newsletters, weekly emails, family homework assignments, and family physical activities. Parents completed three validated surveys and open-ended questions, while the teacher kept field notes across the intervention. Parents increased their positive views of physical education, communication with teachers, and ideas about the importance of the field as well as their perceptions of their connections with physical education and ability to support their students in developing healthy lifestyle behaviors. Four themes emerged from the data including (a) lifetime physical activity, (b) socialization, (c) immediate benefits of physical education, and (d) parental support. The results of this study suggest that regular, open parent–teacher communication regarding physical education programming plays an important role in promoting the field. Extra effort by teachers in facilitating opportunities for parental engagement led to more positive perceptions and value of the physical education program by parents. This investment of teacher time is essential for maintaining positive parents’ and students’ perceptions of quality physical education programming and creating more partners and advocates for the field.

Teacher-Parent Relationships, Forms of Communication and Factors that Affect Them

Most parents want to be more involved in education, however, in practice, it can be challenging to achieve an effective relationship and communication between the parents and the teachers. The aim of this study is to find out whether selected demographic factors influence teachers’ views of the teacher-parent relationship and which the preferred ways of teacher-parent communication are. In this study, we processed data collected in a sample of 139 teachers of Hungarian ethnic schools (i.e. Slovak teachers working in Hungary). According to the findings hereof, teachers from urban areas perceived their relationships with the parents to be more positive than the teachers from rural areas. As gender differences, we found that female teachers preferred messages and telephone calls. As far as age differences are concerned, we found that older teachers preferred individual meetings with parents and open days. We also found that urban teachers preferred messages more than their rural colleagues. The contribution of this study lies in the fact that it provides a better understanding of the different aspects of the teacher-parent relationships and communication.

Parent–Teacher Interactions during COVID-19: Experiences of U.S. Teachers of Students with Severe Disabilities

In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted all aspects of society across the globe including healthcare, employment, social interactions, and education. In many parts of the world, abrupt school closures caught teachers off guard, as they were forced to immediately shift their practices from in-person to online instruction with little-to-no preparation. Furthermore, during this time, many parents of school-aged children vacillated between multiple roles associated with their employment, household caregiving activities, and supporting their children at home. These challenges were especially challenging for teachers and parents of students with severe disabilities. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of U.S. teachers of students with severe disabilities regarding interacting with parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, including when schools initially closed in March 2020 and then reopened in September of 2020. This manuscript outlines six key themes highlighting parent–teacher interactions: (a) parents directing school decisions, (b) teacher inability to meet parent expectations, (c) parent–teacher communication, (d) parents as teachers, (e) parent exhaustion, and (f) teacher helplessness.

Listening to Filipino parents’ voices during distance learning of their children amidst COVID-19

ABSTRACT Given that the experiences of Filipino parents around distance learning education amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been overlooked in research, this study used an embedded mixed methods design to survey 837 Filipino parents’ needs regarding distance learning of their children under primary level during the pandemic. Findings revealed that although the parents generally appeared ready for the new set-up, certain overwhelming observations regarding their responses indicated their needs and/or concerns. Specifically, they need orientation, training, or workshop on distance learning, knowledge and skills facilitative to distance learning, excellent internet access, support on the psychological burden, consideration of teachers, increase of teacher scaffolds, preference for face-to-face classes, and constant parent-teacher communication. These concerns of the parent-stakeholders in the Philippine educational landscape are pivotal in shaping educational infrastructure during emergency times like the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Study on Parental Participation in The Literacy Learning Process of The Children with Special Learning Disability

The purpose of this research is to examine parental participation in the literacy learning process of students with special learning disability, based on the views of parents and teachers. This study is designed as phenomenological research. During the data collection process of the research, teacher and parent interviews were conducted. Descriptive analysis was performed using the MAXQDA qualitative data analysis program. As a result of the study, parents state that children with special learning disability have negative experiences due to the difficulties and unwillingness of the child in learning academic skills during the literacy education process. On the other hand, teachers stated that they could not get the support they expected from the family due to the insufficient teacher-parent communication and cooperation in the literacy education process of the child, and the inadequate and incorrect information that the families have. In addition, teachers stated that they need to cooperate with families and have the family help their children doing homework and repeat the studies with their children at home. Parents, on the other hand, stated that to be able to participate in their children's education, they need to acquire knowledge and skills about special learning disability, sound-based sentence methods and teaching principles. Although all of the teachers emphasized the need for family participation in the literacy education process and for families to receive education on this issue, they stated that they have not provided any training to the parents before.

Communicating Digitally: Building Preschool Teacher-Parent Partnerships Via Digital Technologies During COVID-19.

During COVID-19, many schools in the United States restrict parent visits and parent-teacher face-to-face meetings. Consequently, teachers and parents rely on digital technologies to communicate and build partnerships. Yet, little is known about their perceived experiences with digital communication. To contribute knowledge to this area, this study investigated the perceptions of the classroom teacher and parents of preschool children concerning their experiences of communicating with each other via digital technologies during COVID-19. The participants consisted of one teacher and three mothers of 3-year-olds in the same classroom of a private childcare center serving preschool children from mostly middle-class backgrounds in a northeastern state of the United States. The teacher and parents were interviewed individually and virtually via Zoom for 30–60 min (M = 45 min). A thematic analysis uncovered four salient themes: (1) modes of digital communication between the teacher and parents, (2) the nature of digital communication, (3) limitations of digital communication, and (4) digital communication via ClassDojo. The ClassDojo theme further revealed three subthemes: (1) ClassDojo for promoting proactive parent involvement, (2) ClassDojo for building teacher-parent partnerships, and (3) the use of limited functions of ClassDojo. The data were triangulated by analyzing teacher-parent communication artifacts on ClassDojo, which confirmed the findings related to the use of this digital platform.

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL EVALUATION OF THE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS IN EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES

<p>The aim of this study is to make a multidimensional evaluation of the use of social networks in educational processes, based on the opinions of Turkish Teachers. This study examines how teachers use social networks in education, how often they use which social networks, for what purpose they use social networks, whether social networks are useful or not, and how social networks should be used for quality education. In this study, phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used. The study group of the research consists of 26 Information Technologies Teachers selected by criterion sampling method. Research data were collected with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. In this study, qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used together. Qualitative data obtained through interviews were subjected to content analysis, while frequencies and percentages of quantitative data were calculated. In the research, the majority of the participants used social networks frequently/very frequently in education; social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram are mostly used in education; it has been determined that the participants find it useful/very useful to use social networks in education, that the use of social networks in education provides teacher-student, student-student and teacher-parent communication, facilitates cooperation and solidarity with education stakeholders, and facilitates resource and material sharing.</p><p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0962/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Lived Experiences of Teachers, Parents, and Learners in Science Amidst Pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic has affected the educational system worldwide. Policies were created and implemented to guide the schools to offer flexible learning. Nevertheless, its implementation was partly in favor of those on the mainland. So, the author explored the lived experiences of teachers, parents, and learners in Science about their problems encountered, coping mechanisms, and perception of the learning modality in an island school. With this, an in-depth interview was employed to gather the data and was triangulated through observation and focus group discussion. Thematic analysis revealed that the complexity of the topics, the conduct of experiments and its materialization, and the unreliability scores of the learners were Science teachers' problems; their coping mechanisms were teacher-parent communication, additional learning resources, and house-to-house visitation; their perceptions disclosed that the learning modality is difficult. Participants' perception of the modular approach is attributed to their problems and coping mechanisms. Hence, the Department of Education may provide professional opportunities such as seminars, workshops, and training to enhance the skills of the teachers needed and relevant to the current setting of education. Keywords: Lived Experiences, Coping Mechanism, Problems Encountered, Perception

Barriers and Recommendations From Parents in Rural Areas: Experiences With Individualized Education Programs

This study explored the experiences of Head Start parents who were becoming involved in their pre-school–age children’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) process. Seven participants from the rural Midwest engaged in focus group ( n = 2) or interview ( n = 1) format discussions regarding barriers to involvement in the IEP process and recommendations to alleviate these barriers. Qualitative analysis with thematic coding was used to interpret the data. Results indicated that parents believed they lacked necessary information that could increase their advocacy for their children and reported the wording of the IEP was too difficult to understand. In addition, parents felt that their negative emotions barred them from being active members at IEP meetings. Parents noted that Head Start’s encouragement and positive parent–teacher communication helped alleviate some barriers but believed that a yearly class on IEPs and more frequent one-on-one meetings would help them become better advocates for their young children.

Parents' Views on Initial Literacy Teaching in the Distance Education Process

The aim of this study was to determine the views of parents of primary school 1st grade children regarding their experiences in primary literacy teaching in the distance education process. For this purpose, qualitative phenomenology was used as a research design. The study group of the research consists of 76 parents of students studying in the firstgrade branches of two different primary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. The data of the study were collected with a standardized interview form and demographic information test prepared by the researchers. The data collected with the standardized interview form were analyzed using content analysis. As a result of the analyzes, 4 themes and categories and codes were formed under these themes, based on the experiences and opinions of the parents regarding the first literacy learning in the distance education process. The themes revealed are, respectively, the theme of tools used or recommended outside of textbooks, the theme of teacher-parent communication in the distance education process, the theme of the role of parents in homework, and the theme of their views on online lessons in the distance education process.

Developing Test Performance Communication Solutions in a Teacher-Researcher Partnership

ABSTRACT Individual-level score reports represent a common artifact in teacher-parent communication about standardized tests. Previous research has documented challenges in communicating student achievement. Researchers have also leveraged teachers in the process of score report design. Little is known, however, about teachers’ experiences with using score reports in authentic settings. In this study, we used a participatory action research approach in a year-long clinical partnership with four elementary teachers to iteratively propose and assess tools and strategies to support the communication of student test performance. Teachers achieved some success in their efforts, but experienced challenges of sustainability and anticipated peer buy-in. Findings from this study also illustrated a strong presence of tensions in the teachers’ work related to testing and communicating test performance. Overall, involving teachers in participatory research inquiry yielded novel insights for extending score report research and improving operational practice in test companies.

Changes in Character Virtues are Driven by Classroom Relationships: A Longitudinal Study of Elementary School Children

The purpose of this study is to understand the role of school relationships in shaping students’ character development in middle childhood. Students and teachers completed surveys on student–teacher relationships, peer relationships, social-emotional learning (SEL), parent-teacher communication, and character strengths of fairness, hope, bravery, teamwork, self-regulation, social responsibility, and prosocial leadership. Participants were 1881 Brazilian children in fourth or fifth grade across 288 classrooms and 60 schools. Data were analyzed using a multi-level model framework. Higher student–student relationships were associated with higher starting scores of character strengths paired with a stronger increase among classes whose relationships improved over time. Higher quality student–teacher relationships were associated with a larger increase in character strengths among boys. Teachers’ usage of SEL strategies, student–teacher relationships and student peer relationships were important predictors of both classroom baselines and the change in character strengths across time. Most of the existing literature on character strengths is based on older adolescent samples from affluent countries and with little Latin American representation. This study supports existing literature on the relevancy of character strengths in the educational context, but adds the importance of seeing it as a contextual and relational outcome.

Obstacles to parental involvement in children's education

This study explored new teachers’ perceptions of, and strategies for overcoming the obstacles to parental involvement in children’s education. 30 elementary school teachers with 1 to 5 years’ teaching experience were interviewed. Data were first coded through the grounded theory approach and then analyzed by case and cross case. As found out, obstacles to parental involvement were related to parents’ lack of cognitive readiness, affective preparedness, and physical resources. Strategies new teachers employed to overcome their perceived obstacles included cognitively informing, persistently outreaching, psychologically disarming or comforting, and consciously attending to parents’ individual differences, needs, or personal preferences. Lessons learned from this study will inform both in-service teachers’ efforts to engage parents for optimal student learning outcomes and teacher educators’ endeavors to prepare prospective teachers for more effective teacher-parent communication.

Experiences of the disadvantaged children receiving family and school support in transition to preschool: ‘Mom! Leave my backpack and turn back home!’

ABSTRACT A successful school start is possible with a long and collaborative transition process. In this action research, the one-week transition program in preschool education in Turkey was extended to 8 months and supported with teacher–parent communication to examine children’s transition experiences during the process. The data were collected from 23 Turkish and 2 Syrian children and their families through observation, interview and document analysis and administered to content analysis. The Turkish children were observed to start preschool education more willingly establishing positive relationships with their teachers and peers, while the Syrian children experienced more adaptation problems due to language barriers.

Impacts of Digital Tools in School Classrooms on Parent-Teacher Communication

Impacts of Digital Tools in School Classrooms on Parent-Teacher Communication

Kindergarten teachers and ‘sharing dialogue’ with parents: The importance of practice in the process of building trust in the training process

ABSTRACT Effective school-parent partnerships are in the child’s best interests. Nevertheless, the complexity of the parent-teacher relationship requires the teachers to be trained in parent communication skills. Here, we explore factors that affect the parent-teacher relationship from the perspective of education trainees, who were required to communicate with parents to help children with difficulties with their social skills. In this qualitative research, we used thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with four trainee kindergarten teachers, three kindergarten teacher trainers, and three parents, all involved in such communication processes. Our findings reveal that many teachers minimized parent-teacher communication to avoid potential conflict with parents, and this was mimicked by trainees. However, more experienced kindergarten teachers, confident in their skills and in the respect of parents, were open-minded about communications between trainee teachers and parents, mediated these communications, and found them useful. The findings support the idea mentioned in other literature that training of teachers in future should focus on supervised practice of parent-teacher communication skills to promote a ‘sharing dialogue’.

Promoting Parent–Teacher Communication Within Adapted Physical Education Using the Media Richness Theory

The Media Richness Theory (MRT) is an important framework that has been used to explain how teachers and/or parents may use media to communicate with each other. Choosing an inappropriate medium may instead oversimplify or overcomplicate information, which may negatively influence a child’s participation in physical activity. The purpose of this article is therefore to describe practical examples for adapted physical education teachers to communicate with parents regarding child physical activity using the MRT

‘Come willing to learn’: experiences of parents advocating for their children with severe vision impairments in Australian mainstream education

ABSTRACT This article presents the findings from interviews with thirteen parents of students with severe vision impairment who attend mainstream schools in Queensland, Australia. Participants were interviewed about their experiences in advocating for their children in a range of educational contexts. These experiences varied greatly depending on a number of factors, such as attitudes to inclusivity and ableism, perceptions of vision impairment, school culture, teacher-parent communication, and competing agendas. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the authors provide illuminating data on three broad themes: parents’ experiences of advocating for their children, parents’ experiences of utilising support networks and funding, and parents’ suggestions for schools and teachers. Important recommendations for teachers, schools, parents, students, and service providers are offered, with specific advice to develop a community of care, collaboration, and high expectations for students with vision impairment.