Using Digital Media for Family and School Communication

With the emergence of digital information sharing, the usage of digital media for parent-teacher communication is increasing globally. However, digital communication still lacks complete acceptance and confidence by both teachers and parents. The research conducted by Bordalba and Bochaca explored the usage of emails and online platforms for the purpose of two-way communications. The primary research data was obtained using information from interviews with 30 families, 35 teachers from 11 different schools in Spain. There were two key areas that demanded focus:

1. Beliefs about the medium
2. Beliefs about the context

Background

The level of involvement parents have towards schooling and child’s educational success greatly impacts the student’s academic progress. For this reason the governmental institutions in Europe have emphasized parent involvement with schools to ensure they attain their target of less than 10% early leavers by 2020. When parents and schools have a frequent and transparent flow of information regarding the student academic progress, this propagates confidence, trust and respect between both the parties. However for many schools there is low-quality level of communication because, there are various barriers that impact effective communication such as incompatible work schedules, cultural barriers and socio-economic differences.

Although the usage of ICT such as emails, mobile devices and online platforms has immensely increased, these device are frequently used for one-way broadcasting of information. The researchers were perplexed as why these devices have not been frequently used for two-way communication between parents and schools? 

Research on ICT Between Schools and Parents

Bordalba and Bochaca selected twenty schools on the basis of purposeful sampling, the schools further recommended samples of parents on the basis of various factors such as size, rural or urban settings and varying socio economic backgrounds. The interviews were conducted on the basis of purposeful sampling too, of five teachers and five parents for each school. Of these schools five were labelled ICT because they had some form of e-communication with parents and the rest were non-ICT. The data waa collected over a period of several months (April- November 2014).

Research Findings

• The study concluded that the beliefs about context impact immensely on the implementation of emails and online platforms. The communication process involves two agents, the parents and the teachers and each comes with their own predispositions. There is a need for alignment between these two parties for successful implementation of the framework. 
• Another implication of the research is that there is a need for combining both the methods for a win-win situation . Some teachers form ICT schools implied that digital media are suitable tools for communicating basic information where as for complex messages it is better to have face-to-face communication.  Thus according to Bordalba and Bochaca the main role of ICT is to redistribute the channels and opt for the most suitable one depending on the nature of the message.
• The research findings also suggested that the parents and teachers are more willing to adapt to the ICT methods if they are promoted by the management for school-family communication. The management needs to take the first steps to adapt this methodology.

References

Bordalba M.M. & Bochaca J.G., Digital media for family-school communication? Parents' and teachers' beliefs, Computers & Education (2019)