Parental Involvement in Schools

Need and Problem for The Study

Lack of parental involvement in a child’s education is an existing problem that teachers and guardians face. When parents are not invested in their children’s future and education, their offspring may experience poor student achievements and growth in various ways (Boonk et al., 2018). For instance, children’s early learning is impacted when parents are not involved in their education (Hornby & Blackwell, 2018). Furthermore, young children may find it hard to adjust to a school’s social environment (Hamlin &Flessa, 2018). In addition, disengaged parents who fail to take an interest in their children’s academic life promote school failures as such actions can create future students who do not like studying or gaining information.

Significance of the Study

Talking to parents from various communities can help the whole society examine its deep assumptions about parental involvement. Through the study, educational stakeholders will be able to gain insights into why some parents feel disengaged from school settings. In addition, the study will allow teachers and parents to comprehend the barriers to engagement in students’ academics from a personal perspective (Hill et al., 2018). As a result, parents and educators can collaborate to find a better way to re-envision family involvement in educational settings.

Conceptual/ Theoretical Framework

In attempts to indicate the factors that influence children’s success in studies, it is crucial to consider parental involvement in the process along with the teacher’s participation in the education. Although professors are the main providers of information to the students, they can hardly impact the adolescents’ activities outside the school. However, if parents are attentive to the process of the child’s education and interested in the program, then they can impact the attitude towards the studies, control the operation of self-study and assist with the homework if needed. Thus, the concept implies that parental engagement can shape the children’s perception of the study in a positive way and contribute to a more systematic approach to learning through individual work.

Another theory is that parental interest in school life benefits not only students and teachers but the whole system in general. Even aside from the educational activities, any additional questions such as electives, innovations, events, and many more. Caregivers can add fresh outlooks on the issues and help the administration to view some moments from a different perspective. For example, the distant learning consultation with parents could allow the schools to create a comfortable schedule, effectively manage the program and redistribute the study materials so that parents could assist their children.

Literature Review

The central theme of the paper is parental involvement in school education. Boonk et al. (2018), Hamlin and Flessa (2018), and Hill et al. (2018) provided information about the positive and beneficial impact that it has on children’s academic achievements. However, Hornby and Blackwell (2018), on the contrary, state that there are certain barriers for parents to participate in their student’s studies, and there might exist possible drawbacks.

The foundation of the research methodology comes from phenomenology, which demonstrates how to learn from others’ experiences. Zahavi (2018) and Neubauer et al. (2019) identify how to use their concepts to collect data from secondary sources effectively. Vu (2021) and Coleman (2022) discuss how validity and reliability are important the qualitative research, and, through their works, they determine its vitality. Stahl and King (2020) and Lemon and Hayes (2020) support the previous findings by observing them in the wider concept of trustworthiness. Carcary (2020), Doyle et al. (2020), Howitt (2019), King et al. (2021), Marshall et al. (2022), and Theofanidis and Fountouki (2019) provide various findings on the qualitative research which recognize the necessity of the credibility, trustworthiness and ethical factors in the study. Manti and Licari (2018) and Artal and Rubenfeld (2017) focused on the ethics in the studies and measures that should be taken to ensure the safety of the people and active consent.

Purpose, Research Question, and Sub-Questions

The study’s purpose is to comprehend the essence and meaningfulness of teachers’ and parents’ lived experiences of their involvement and engagement in schools. The overarching research question explores how teachers and parents perceive the significance of their lived experiences of their participation in teacher-parent communication. In addition, the study will examine several sub-questions as indicated below.

1. How do teachers and parents describe lived experiences of their involvement in teacher-parent engagement?
2. How do teachers and parents perceive and interpret the meaningfulness of their involvement in teacher-parent engagement?

Limitations and Delimitations

Limitations of qualitative research: despite being unique, qualitative research’s main disadvantage is its time consuming, especially when interpretations are limited. Moreover, knowledge influence and personal experience observations and conclusions make it time-consuming (Marshall et al., 2022). Next, it is impossible to verify the study’s findings since, most times, research questions are open-ended and rely on participants’ opinions (Marshall et al., 2022). Lastly, investigating causality is challenging and requires thoughtful planning to guarantee accuracy in the obtained results

Delimitation of qualitative research: delimitation is a measure of the researcher’s control based on the applied theoretical objectives, background, variables, and research question. It represents understanding why the researcher considered using specific measures and not others. Through this, delimitation provides why an investigator rejects a particular course of action in a proposed study by giving a brief rationale of the selected actions (Theofanidis & Fountouki, 2019). For example, why a particular sampling technique was used in a proposed study may be provided.

Qualitative Research Design

The chosen research design is phenomenology which describes structures and textures of the significant meaning of lived experiences of a particular phenomenon that has impacted a person. Descriptive phenomenology is utilized when researchers want to tell a specific phenomenon in a study as well as document their biases (Zahavi, 2018). In contrast, interpretive phenomenology allows prior engagement with research questions that ask for the experience’s meaning.

Phenomenology is advantageous because it enhances a better understanding of various meanings attached to different experiences of people. The prospect of getting in-depth and authentic accounts of other phenomena experienced by groups of people as well as individuals increases. Phenomenology lacks an objective measure of reliability because it offers subjective accounts of lived experiences (Neubauer et al., 2019). In addition, it may not be possible for people to eliminate their presuppositions while considering other individuals’ opinions and views.

Data Collection

The data collection methods to be used are interviews and document reviews. Interviews are often conducted face to face and can be structured or unstructured. Document reviews provide a way to collect data through a review of existing internal or external documents and may include PowerPoint presentations, daily reflection diaries, and questionnaires. Both interviews and document reviews are time-consuming, which may impact a study’s progress. Furthermore, researchers need to collect responses and organize them, which requires extra attention. Interviews and document reviews provide the prospect of gaining understanding from personal interactions (Doyle et al., 2020). The use and assessment of open-ended questions allow flexibility and improve several points of view.

Interview Questions

The interview questions that will be used in the study include the following:

Parents’ Interview

Can you describe your child’s school and staff?

• How many children do you have, and how old are they?
• What are their grades and overall academic performance?
• Do you like the school and its staff?

How is the school’s teacher-parent communication?

• Do you communicate with your child’s teachers, and what methods do you use?
• Are the communication methods beneficial?
• What qualities can improve the school and why?

Teachers’ Interview

What is your experience as a teacher?

• How many years have you taught?
• How many students do you teach, and at what grades?
• Do you have a good relationship with your students?
• Do you often communicate with children’s parents?

Why do you think schools lack parental involvement?

• Are parents involved in school activities?
• Is communication important in parental involvement?
• Do teachers have positive partnerships with parents?

What is the major concern in parental absence?

• Do you think academic success is affected by parental absence?
• How is student behavior when parents are involved versus when they are not?
• Do parents participate in parent-teacher conferences to learn more about students’ academic performance and behavior?

Demographic Description and Sampling

The study’s sample will originate from Oscar E. Rodriguez Rivera school in Morovis, Puerto Rico, with 31 teachers and 231 students. Important to note that it will be used for only ten teachers to interview. Because it is an elementary-level school, students will not be questioned, but ten parents will be interviewed. In terms of sampling, there are two types, including non-probability and probability. Probability sampling refers to a sampling type that enables researchers to create statistical generalizations to greater populations since every population member stands a selection chance. In contrast, non-probability sampling indicates that people who can partake in a study may not be given a fair opportunity. Purposive sampling is selected based on a population’s characteristics and a study’s objective. It can be useful in settings where a targeted sample is required quickly (Howitt, 2019). Maximum variation purposive sampling is selected to offer diverse views and detailed insight into the specific phenomenon under examination.

Data Analysis

The study will use a phenomenological analysis consisting of five steps. First, the researcher will make sense of the whole by carefully reading the entire description. Second, the process proceeds to discrimination of meaning units after the first step. Ultimately, the process eliminates irrelevant meaning units and redundancies. Third, the data will be transformed into psychological language by emphasizing the essence of a participant’s statement. Fourth, the meaning units will be synthesized into consistent views of the participant’s lived experience (Zahavi, 2018). Finally, a final synthesis will be conducted to capture an experience’s essence fully.

Strategies For Reliability

Several strategies can ensure the study is reliable and valid. First, the study will utilize member checking to ensure research outcomes are trustworthy and transparent. The member checking technique assesses the intentionality and maintains context. Question-answer validity involves paraphrasing the comments of participants to clarify and confirm the intended meaning (Vu, 2021). It allows the interviewer to check whether the interviewee has the correct interpretation of the questions.

Another technique that can validate research results is the audit trail. It relies heavily on findings from participants’ responses while ignoring the preconceptions and biases of the researcher (Coleman, 2022). An audit trail is an in-depth approach that entails the interviewees’ narratives and a description of data collection and analysis in a transparent manner. Audit trails challenge researchers to be careful and intentional about record keeping in the study (Carcary, 2020). In addition, audit trails provide an account of analytical steps taken by a researcher to improve transparency.

Data triangulation and maximum variation will be used to enhance the study’s reliability. Data triangulation uses different perspectives and methods to produce more comprehensive findings. In addition, maximum deviation allows researchers to collect data from wide views. As a result, the study will gain increased credibility through the sampling technique (Lemon & Hayes, 2020). Maximum variation does not need a large sample but allows multiple insights about a particular phenomenon.

Research Procedure

Several issues must be fulfilled before the research. For instance, approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) is needed. To gain support, IRB will ensure that risks to various subjects are reduced through conservative scientific procedures. In addition, subject selection must be equitable, and informed consent must be sought from every issue and properly documented (Howitt, 2019). Furthermore, the study’s research plan must accommodate data monitoring.

Gaining approval from places or institutions where the research will be conducted is another challenge. A request to the institution to conduct research will be made. The researcher must complete relevant resource and program utilization forms and get the required signatures. Once the relevant documents are finished, it is critical to send them to the proposed research institution (Howitt, 2019). However, the forms must be signed by IRB, after which an institutional certificate is issued.

Informing participants of their actions and rights constitutes the clause of informed consent. The informed consent process entails information exchange between subjects and researchers. The process involves explaining the research, including its purpose, benefits, participation alternatives, risks, and procedures. As a result, participants can ask questions and allow subjects enough time to consider their decision (Manti & Licari, 2018). The final step entails assessing if a potential issue comprehends the research, its benefits, and risks.

The strategies used to validate the research must be clearly stated. For instance, member checking allows researchers to investigate whether the interviewees understand the meaning of their comments during their interview. Audit trails enable researchers to record every detail of their research process to promote transparency (Howitt, 2019). Finally, data triangulation will be used in data analysis to lead to diverse results.

Trustworthiness

The four components of trustworthiness – confirmability, credibility, dependability, and transferability – align to present commonality when finding shared realities in constructive processes and facilitate the creation of unique, reliable outcomes in qualitative research. Credibility raises concerns about a study’s findings regarding the reality-congruency relationship, where the researcher seeks to understand how some ideas share their interactions with others (Stahl & King, 2020). Dependability is about the level of trust the findings have, where much is questioned about how reliable the built information is based on the surrounding events. Transferability concerns questions surrounding the descriptions and patterns within different contexts and how they may apply to others (Stahl & King, 2020). Lastly, confirmability is built on how close to objective reality research can get where researchers rely on accuracy and precision in a study’s practice.

The usage of credible sources for the research is incredibly vital to its quality and trustworthiness. They build the foundation of the study and contribute to the proper structure of the knowledge and information. Considering the confirmability of the findings, it is necessary to consider the possible limitations and errors while staying objective in the assessment of the results. It includes the elimination of personal biases and prejudices and the readiness to deliver the information if it does not align with the opinion or perception of the researcher. Therefore, to properly address the central component, it is critical to use sources that meet all the criteria of trustworthiness and impartially apply the data to the topic of study.

Research Bias/Researcher Bias

Bias about the topic is researcher bias, which was developed by the desire to influence the study’s outcome in a particular manner. Researchers can mitigate researcher bias by using different people to code the data, verifying with more data sources, and having participants review outcomes (King et al., 2021). Address ethical considerations will be by ensuring participants sign an informed consent form while the information they provide is confident and anonymous (Artal et al., 2017). Transferability is an issue of concern since it is only possible when a researcher’s thick description offers a rich portrait of practical situations in other circumstances (Stahl & King, 2020). Moreover, it helps determine how the findings can be shared in different contexts by researchers.

In addition, the person who conducts the study should perform individual work regarding the perception of the topic. Firstly, it is necessary at the beginning of the research to identify the personal thoughts and opinion about the subject, realize if there is an expectation of the desirable outcome and consider it throughout the process. While analyzing the information, it is helpful to think from time to time if the judgment is objective or is biased by the researcher’s opinions and prejudices. Moreover, the study should include as many different sources from various authors as possible to compare the findings and not concentrate only on those articles that reflect any prejudgements.

Ethical Considerations

One of the main elements of qualitative research is an ethical consideration. Whether it is a questionnaire or an experiment involving people, all the processes should be transparent and clear between both sides. The person conducting the study should receive active consent from the participant to be engaged in the examination and permission to share the results (Manti and Licari, 2018). Even using secondary sources in this research, for example, it is vital to ensure the data gained from the participants was received volunteer with the agreement of the people. Therefore, even using already existing sources, it is necessary to examine their study methods and analyze them from an ethical perspective.

Conclusion

Overall, parental engagement in the children’s studies has a positive impact on the children’s academic achievements and contributes to the higher results in school. Moreover, it might increase the general productivity and functionalism of the education system in public since the caregivers are able to provide different perspectives on the study. During the research, credible sources were used and considered ethical and trustworthy elements of the studies, with the exclusion of personal biases.

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