A Phenomenological Study of Parental Involvement in COVID-19 Schooling

Gibson, Charles Robert (2021) A Phenomenological Study of Parental Involvement in COVID-19 Schooling. Doctoral thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

Parental involvement in education is a necessity for student success. Appropriate parental involvement is by nature a subjective concept, and parents, teachers, and school administrators all have their own ideas of what parental involvement includes. But what of parental involvement during the COVID-19 Pandemic? This study was conducted to explore parental involvement in COVID-19 schooling among parents, teachers, and school administrators in a junior high setting of suburban Arizona. The study seeks to understand these stakeholder groups ‘lived experiences’ during the pandemic and their ideas of what parental involvement includes. Participants in this study were taken from three different stakeholder groups at the junior high setting: parents, teachers, and school level administration. All subjects come from a suburban Arizona school district. Upon achieving IRB approval, the researcher reached out to building level principals to ask if they would like to participate in the study. Once a principal agreed to participate, they sent out a Qualtrics questionnaire link to their teacher and parent stakeholder groups which asked potential subjects questions about parental involvement, and their contact information so they may be reached out to for participation in personal interviews. Each interview subject was asked a common set of questions based upon their stakeholder grouping. Personal interviews were recorded, transcribed, reviewed for accuracy, and thematically coded. The findings of this study suggest that the role of communication is more important than ever coming from school to parent. The school to parent communication can play the role of limiting anxiety among the parents. Further, the study finds that among this communication, teachers and parents both have increased time demands for parental involvement. Where the parent had more of a managerial role ensuring their students could log in to class, most teachers reported a heightened time demand for communications with families. This time demand was largely also felt by school principals during remote stages of COVID-19 schooling. The findings of this study also suggested that COVID-19 schooling creates a “window into the classroom,” where parental involvement takes on a different context than ever before in educational history.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	Junior High; Parental Engagement; Parental Involvement; Phenomenology; School Principal Leadership; Arizona; Parent-Teacher Communication
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1603 Secondary Education. High schools
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Education > Educational Leadership
Date Deposited:	25 Feb 2022 19:26
Last Modified:	25 Feb 2022 19:26
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/5762

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