Parents’ Role in the Virtual Education of Elementary Education Students During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Parental involvement is an important element in children’s education, especially during their first years of schooling. Parents’ participation in school activities has a beneficial impact on their children’s academic performance, behavior and social skills. The aim of this research is to determine the role that parents played in the virtual teaching process of elementary school students during the Covid-19 health contingency, as classes moved online. This empirical study is based on a non-experimental cross-sectional investigation, in which parents (N = 249) from two elementary level academic institutions participated. A 36-item scale designed by Valdés, Martín and Sánchéz (2009) was used. For data analysis, EFA with polychoric matrices and descriptive statistics were used. The findings show an underlying structure of five factors that explain 69.76 % of the variance, with an acceptable absolute fit, structural fit, and parsimony in all goodness-of-fit statistics. The five factors are communication with the school, communication with the child, knowledge of the school, attendance, and help with tasks. The results imply that parent involvement was crucial during emergency remote teaching, especially in regard to maintaining communication among all stakeholders: parents, students, teachers, and school authorities. Though parents report struggling with school activites during emergency remote teaching, they felt satisfied with the quality of services received. Practical implications would be to open and maintain channels of communications among stakeholders.