Introduction
Parental involvement is the heightened emotional connection to the educational organization that a parent feels, motivating them to become more involved in its activities. The importance of parental involvement in children’s education is due to the proven positive impact of parental participation in children’s school life on their well-being (Mang’era Abaya et al., 2017). However, there is still no complete picture of the content and forms of parental involvement, and the effectiveness of various methods of family-school communication implemented today remains debatable.
Teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement in school life and parental behavior are influenced by their conscious and unconscious attitudes, legal norms, and everyday reality that build barriers or, conversely, stimulate involvement. Suppose the school maintains the educational practices that emerged during the era of priority of public education. In that case, teachers may be inclined to relegate the family to a secondary role in children’s education, and parents may be disengaged from the educational process. For Latin America, the relevance of parental involvement is linked to educational reforms that do not yet allow them to be motivated to participate in children’s school life (Lara & Saracostti, 2019). The problem of low involvement comes to the forefront in the elementary grades.
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.
Research in Puerto Rico on this topic has not been done for a long time, and if it has been done, it has been too small and not comprehensive. The study seeks to fill the information gap on the ways parents participate in the educational process, which can vary depending on the family, child, and school characteristics. Through this study, it will be possible to fill current information gaps and allow educational and social organizations to influence the relationship between children and parents.
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.
The organizations that will benefit most from this study are those dedicated to increasing parental involvement in education. These are often social child welfare organizations and school psychologists concerned about children’s well-being. For example, the Fathers and Families Coalition of America focuses on developing strategic leadership and appropriate techniques to support children. This coalition will benefit from the research because it will understand which factors are most critical in determining parental involvement. The Comité de Programación y Ubicación will provide insight into how teachers feel about parental involvement. Based on this, the committee can work with the parents to develop an individualized plan for the children and identify potential gaps.
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.
In this regard, parental involvement in schools is a possible way to increase the effectiveness of the educational process. This notion is formulated by several theories and concepts that confirm the positive impact of parental engagement in schools. Under parental contribution, there is increased control and motivation in the child since relatives are involved in the process of completing educational tasks. The purpose of the work is to review several theories and notions regarding parental involvement in schools and how it impacts the educational process.
It is worth noting that the chosen topic is widespread for study, which formulates many pieces of research and ideas explaining the impact of parental participation in schools. Thus, the first notion is a study conducted by Sujarwoto, Erma Kusumawardani, Lis Prasetyo, and Herwin, in which they concluded that parental involvement in schools has a positive impact on education (Sujarwoto et al., 2021). It is articulated by several forms of engagement, namely parent/child contact, parent/teacher contact, and child/parent/teacher contact. When all three of the above types of communications are successfully performed, the positive impact on the learning process increases. The child/parent/teacher contact is considered to be the most effective since the relationship between the child, and the teacher is improved, and motivation and the child’s awareness increase. Parental control and involvement will make it easier for the student to adapt to new conditions since one will not feel alone.
In addition, there is the language model, which explains the need for parental involvement in schools in terms of the issue of immigrants. In this work, the authors found that parental participation in the child’s education and the negotiation process contribute to better adaptation to the new community (Herrera et al., 2020). It is formulated by the difficulties a child may face when immigrating to a new community and studying. Problems include cultural, social, and linguistic differences between the old and new communities and distinctions in traditions. Besides, parents can establish contact with teachers to improve the negotiation process through participation. It includes a discussion of the features of adaptation and the development of techniques for better and faster accommodation to new conditions (Herrera et al., 2020). Further, under the child/parent/teacher contact, one has the opportunity to discuss some of the issues that concern the student directly.
The barriers that arise when migrating to a new community can significantly impair the quality of education for a child. It articulates the necessity for parental involvement in the school and the reasons why a lack of engagement can harm a student. A similar conceptual framework can be noticed in the study of the importance of parental participation concerning Asian immigrants. Parental involvement is essential to improve outcomes for Asian immigrants due to their cultural and traditional backgrounds (Sheldon & Vorbeck, 2019). It includes, for example, features of religion, which formulates a particular attitude towards oneself and the world, and ways of self-identification. In this aspect, the implication of parents will help to discuss with the child and teachers how to level out cultural differences and make the adjustment process cognitive and painless. Again, it requires contact with the student’s parents in order to be able to discuss the most effective methods and strategies directly.
Furthermore, the importance of parental involvement correlates with mainstream social development theory. In the paper, the authors point out that in the structural aspect, parental involvement in the child’s education is part of the social development theory (Parke et al., 2019). It is explained by the fact that the social development theory’s task is to describe the qualitative changes in society that help achieve better results. Accordingly, as already noted, parental involvement contributes to improving the child’s learning. Thus, one might notice that the principle of operation is the same, however, in the context of parental engagement, it has a narrower focus. As a result, it is appropriate to interpret parental involvement as part of social development theory.
Speaking about what exactly is the relationship of parental involvement to the theory of social development in theoretical terms, one can highlight several aspects. Firstly, as already noted, the principle of work in terms of the goals of these notions is the same. In addition, parental involvement in schools not only has a positive effect on learning outcomes. It can serve as a method for developing complementary theories and strategies for improving both parental participation and related processes and child learning. In other words, similarly to the theory of social adaptation, parental involvement is a way to develop a theoretical framework for improving processes, in this case, learning performance. Moreover, it formulates how these conceptual frameworks align with and undergird the proposed study. Namely, the items mentioned above frame its effectiveness.
It is worth noting the relationship of parental involvement to student development theory, which has a similar principle of connection to the theory of social adaptation. Student development theory aims to elaborate new and evolve existing ideas about improving student activity (Garvey et al., 2019). It includes a wide range of issues such as relationships between students, housing, teaching, relationships with teachers, cultural differences, equality, and others (Garvey et al., 2019). In this regard, parental involvement may come forward as part of student development theory. Namely, as another method of improving student performance through parental participation. It implies increased control, communication, and the opportunity to discuss the learning process’s specifics directly.
Onwards, an essential part of parental involvement is homework. Namely, the process of fulfillment and assistance by parents to the child in order to complete the task and control the learned material (Herrera et al., 2020). If parents help the child and offer non-standard solutions, the student will be more self-confident since one is sure of success in answering the teacher. It affects both the child’s self-esteem and relationships with students and teachers. In addition, it increases the child’s motivation because one knows that in the case of diligent work, one will be rewarded. Moreover, doing homework with a student improves the relationship between parents and the child, as they are involved in a certain process together. One has the ability to develop methods for adapting to a new community as well.
All mentioned theories and conceptual frameworks align with the proposed study in several ways. First, as already noted, parental involvement is part of some theories. That is, the basic principles of involvement argue the objectives of these theories, however, in a narrower sense. It formulates the need to develop a theoretical basis in this direction, namely as part of other theories. In other cases, the goals of parental involvement are entirely consistent with the purposes of the above approaches. Accordingly, it articulates the relationship between the theories and the proposed work, namely the theoretical development of the issue. Finally, the results that will be obtained in this study will help confirm or refute these theoretical and conceptual frameworks. That is, through practical performance, one has the opportunity to strengthen the theoretical basis of a given issue. Finally, it is necessary to note the importance of parental involvement in the aspect of learning in a broader sense, namely hereditary memory.
Thus, when a child or student develops in conditions of active parental involvement, one subconsciously remembers these mechanisms. In the future, when having one’s own family, one will realize that parental involvement is essential and demonstrate it to their children. In this way, the quality of education of their children will be improved, and an understanding of the importance of involvement for their children will be given. That is, the chain principle helps convey knowledge and the importance of parental involvement, improving the educational process in native memory. To conclude, parental involvement is an important aspect that positively influences a child’s education. Among the theories with which it has similar aims, or it is a part of are student development theory and social development theory. The main reasons for the positive impact of parental engagement are increased control and improved communication. Finally, it is crucial in terms of evolving education through hereditary memory and improving relationships with 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), andTheofanidis 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.
Previous research on parental involvement in the motivation and learning of elementary school children shows mixed results. Mang’era Abaya et al. draws attention to the fact that the transition from elementary to middle school is generally justified by the degree of parental involvement in children’s activities (Mang’era Abaya et al., 2017). In addition, it positively impacts children’s learning outcomes, so the authors point out that parental involvement activities should be present in every school. On the contrary, Erdem and Kaya indicated that the percentage of academic achievement did not increase with parental involvement (Erdem & Kaya, 2020). The study’s authors point out that there was an adverse effect but attribute this to the inability to build good relationships with the children. Although Lara and Saracostti indicate that in Latin America, academic achievement is related to parental involvement, there is not enough supporting data (Lara & Saracostti, 2019). The authors of this paper suggest that the degree of engagement is related to language and cultural factors, as well as parental expectations. Consequently, children can progress to grade levels but do not always have the necessary level of academic achievement.
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.
- How do teachers and parents describe lived experiences of their involvement in teacher-parent engagement?
- 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.
Data Collection
This study will use the focus group interview method for data collection. Interviews made up of closed questions are formalized, and open-ended ones are called non-formalized. If an interview has both types of questions, it is called semi-formalized. In a formalized interview, there is a specific survey design (usually a questionnaire containing pre-prepared precise question wording and elaborated response patterns). Formalized interview loses most of their meaning if respondents’ answers are not analyzed in terms of their social and demographic (branch and geographic) characteristics. Therefore, it requires the completion of official information, which includes the data about each respondent, the need for which is dictated by the research program.
Informalized interviews are a specific method of collecting information with only a topic and a purpose. There is no specific scheme for conducting the survey. It allows revealing the deep motives of consumers’ actions to study rational and irrational reasons for purchasing behavior (Swain & King, 2022). The format of the informal interview will be used in the study because it allows one to pay attention to each question comprehensively, constantly increasing the power of the answers through additional questions. This technique has much greater success because it focuses the researcher’s attention on the problem as a whole rather than on specific elements (Swain & King, 2022). Although formalized closed-ended questions will be present in the interview, the focus will be on open-ended questioning. 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 questions in the interview are divided into two parts: for parents and for teachers. Each question has sub-questions that allow to reveal the topic and expand the respondents’ answer. All questions are listed in Appendix A at the end of the paper.
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. The distribution of teachers by gender is about the same: about 55% are male, and the rest are female. This school district has a reasonably high graduation rate of 77%, indicating the overall favorability. However, reading and math rates are less than 50%, so we cannot say that conditions are perfect for developing primary skills. In addition, the low enrollment rate in foreign colleges indicates a lack of a base for developing systems to motivate and motivate students. The population of the Barahona area is predominantly white, with the densely populated sectors being urbanized and conventional. However, almost all the school sample belongs to Hispanics, for whom Spanish is the primary language.
The study is qualitative, and disproportionate sample size will be used. The purpose of the study is to determine the differences in parental involvement and non-involvement, that is, the two strata, so a disproportionate sample is recommended for use. A purposive type of sampling will be used: the researcher will self-select participants (Howitt, 2019). The strengths of sampling are the researcher’s ability to select people for the study. Hence there will be a longer and more thorough selection process. Weaknesses are the possibility of researcher error and subjectivity. Also, not all members of the population are equal, and the lack of equal opportunity limits the researcher.
The sample size will not exceed ten people on the teaching staff side and ten people on the parents and relatives of the children. This sample size is justified primarily by the small demographic of the school, so ten people would be sufficient. The parents’ opinion is a substitute for the children’s opinion, as their age does not allow them to be involved in the study. In the study, the sample size was about 48% of the total number of teachers (Mang’era Abaya et al., 2017). The size was chosen using a formula because this study covered multiple schools. However, in the context of this study, a sample size of 10 would be more than sufficient. It is also indicated that sampling differences may be due to the study design (Erdem & Kaya, 2020). Consequently, the choice of sample for the present study is reasonable.
Data Analysis
The methodology of interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was proposed as part of the ideographic approach to qualitative content analysis. Shifting the focus of attention from the object of human experience to its process, phenomenology’s primary goal is to study not the facts of reality but the experience of the person who has come into contact with them (Tamachi et al., 2018). IPA’s ideographic approach is repelled by a case study, which allows for more accurate conclusions based on an in-depth study of a narrower sample of respondents. IPA focuses primarily on small samples whose normative size rarely exceeds fifteen respondents (Neubauer et al., 2019). The sample composition is often homogeneous: respondents have similar characteristics regarding the criteria essential to the analysis, while the specifics of the phenomenon under study are narrow. Such an approach to sample formation suggests that most respondents have a set of common qualities, similar experiences, or other generalizing attributes, which will increase the effectiveness of making parallels during the analysis of the data obtained.
In general, working with textual data in a phenomenological study involves several steps (Zahavi, 2018):
- reading the results in their entirety; general impression, and possible hypotheses: the stage is necessary to determine the general mood in the experience of teachers and parents.
- selection of semantic units corresponding to the research topic: the stage allows to establish the framework in which the respondents’ answers will be valid.
- condensation of meaning of the highlighted units: establishing the specific aspects most emphasized in each group.
- highlighting the themes, marking them: grouping the answers according to the factors of parental involvement.
- generalization of themes (central tendencies), allocation within each theme of variations: analysis of sub-questions for correspondence to the allocated factors.
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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Appendix A
Interview Questions
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?