Understanding parental management of information regarding their children

Abstract

Parents and caregivers need to process large volumes of information regarding their children’s education. Effective parental management of this information is critical for parents to actively participate in their child’s educational development. However, existing educational information management tools are designed from the perspective of the educator or student, not the parent. The objectives of this research were to identify how parents currently manage their children’s educational information and identify areas where challenges are perceived and/or realized for parents managing information regarding their children’s education. Two surveys were designed and conducted to gather the data. The first survey was conducted to understand the types of information parents receive regarding their children, ascertain a high-level view of what is done with the data and if there were any perceived difficulties in managing any particular type of data. Based on the results of the first survey, another survey was conducted that focused primarily on parental management of their children’s educational information. The results confirm that parents must manage a large volume of information regarding their children. The majority of issues related to this information management are associated with educational and medical information. Regarding educational information management, web-based software applications used by school districts allow parents to keep track of their students’ academic progress for the school year, but do not effectively allow parents to compare progress across years, integrate educational information from other sources or organize information in ways that may better meet the needs of the parent. For these reasons parents find themselves interfacing with numerous data sources or tools to maintain a current understanding of their children’s academic progress. Few tools are available and/or used by parents to manage the data. The results support the fact that parents need technological solutions to improve their management and use of educational information regarding their children.