Translational research in action: The use of technology to disseminate information to parents during the COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of parental confidence in using technology on parental engagement in children's education at home during COVID-19 lockdowns: evidence from 19 countries

The COVID-19 pandemic brought dramatic changes to society, and many temporary changes, such as lockdowns and school closures, have had lasting effects on education and learning. School closures temporarily moved education to the home, where parents had to take responsibility for their children's education, and technology became an essential tool for supporting learning. This study examines the impact of parental confidence in using technology on parental support for children's education at home during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Researchers and educational officers from 19 countries conducted an online survey from May to July 2020 and collected data from 4600 parents with children 6-16 years old. Participants were selected via snowball sampling. Data were analyzed quantitatively using simple tabulation, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression. The results showed a relationship between parental support for children's education at home and parental confidence in using technology in all participating countries except for Pakistan. Furthermore, the data indicated that in almost all participating countries, parental confidence in using technology greatly impacted parental engagement in children's education at home, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43545-023-00672-0.

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.

How Students and Principals Understand ClassDojo: Emerging Insights

ClassDojo is a classroom communication and behavior management app intended to "bring every family into [the] classroom" (www.classdojo.com). The features of the platform include a points system to facilitate classroom management, instant teacher-parent communication (on the individual or class level), and student portfolios (among others). While ClassDojo claims to be used in over 95% of schools in the United States, there is little known about how students or principals interact with and understand the platform's features and data. Drawing upon a mixed-methods study in a small state in the Southeastern United States, this article offers empirically driven insight into how students and principals perceive new digital education apps like ClassDojo. In particular, this analysis speaks to stakeholder attitudes toward the use of the app with regard to if and how it is mediating student-teacher and student-parent relationships. In so doing, this article offers early insights from a state-specific case into how the use of and experience of ClassDojo is situated within the broader educational experiences of students.