Perspectives of Teachers on Parental Involvement in Elementary Schools

Presentation given at the Georgia Educational Research Association (GERA) Conference.

Although parent-teacher interaction is a key factor in children’s education, teacher education programs has paid little attention to this issue. This study compares preservice, beginning and experienced teachers’ perspectives on parental involvement in elementary schools. While a total of 227 preservice, beginning and experienced teachers participated in the quantitative part, twenty-one preservice, beginning, and experienced teachers participated in the qualitative part. The “Parental Involvement Questionnaire” created by Epstein was used to examine the perspectives of preservice, beginning, and experienced teachers on parental involvement. The results from the study suggest that while participants hold positive perspectives on each of the six dimensions of parental involvement, as the teachers’ years of experience increase, they value more on parental involvement. While preservice teachers opt for parental involvement at home, beginning and experienced teachers prefer parental involvement in school. Based on the results, this study makes recommendations on what would be useful during teacher education programs in terms of increasing their parental involvement knowledge, and skill.