Abstract:

This paper explores the impact of a secondary education online course on changing the mindsets of preservice teachers’ role in family engagement practices in their future classrooms.

The study was guided by three questions:
1. Does the length of the course make a difference in perceptions that preservice teachers form about parent involvement and family engagement?”
2. What changes in preservice teachers’ perceptions in family involvement emerged from the pretest and posttest?
3. What changes in preservice teachers’ perceptions in family involvement emerged from the pretests to the posttests which guide this study?

Methodology:
Ninety (n=90) preservice teachers completed the course during one of the two sessions in the 2016 academic year – winter session or summer session. Two scales were used as part of the pretest and posttest for each separate class. The first pretest/posttest scale was a set of six researcher-designed items, referred to as PTA Standards and Preservice Teacher Beliefs about Family Involvement Scale. The six items closely aligned with the PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships (2012). The second 17-item scale is referred to in this study as Preservice Teacher Beliefs about the Importance of Family Involvement Practices Scale drawn from Feuerstein’s (2000) survey items, which examined parent involvement on overall completion rate in high school.

Findings:
Cronbach’s Alphas for the PTA Standards and Preservice Teacher Beliefs about Family Involvement Scales were acceptable for both instruments. Three of the six independent items showed significant level of improvement from the pretest to the posttest in the winter session; this was also mirrored in the summer session. In addition, mean total scores showed a significant level of improvement. Total posttest scores for winter session were compared to total posttest scores for summer session using an independent samples t-test. There were no significant differences.

Conclusions:
The Preservice Teacher Beliefs about the Importance of Family Involvement Practices Scale total level of mean scores in both the winter and summer session demonstrated an overall significant level of improvement. In both sessions, preservice teachers also reported significant improvement in their perceptions of beliefs in the importance of family involvement in 75% of the items.
A second question explored in the study was what changes in preservice teachers’ perceptions in family involvement emerged from the pretest and posttest. In the winter session, there were three changes based on the PTA standards. In contact, in the summer session, there was only one shift. A third area of comparison was guided by the question: what changes in preservice teachers’ perceptions in family involvement emerged from the pretest to the posttest which guide this study? In the winter session, there were shifts in 11 beliefs about the importance of family involvement practices. In comparison, there were 13 shifts in the summer session.

It appears from the findings in this study systematically delivered curriculum that focus on the importance of family engagement practices helps increase awareness of the importance of families playing a role in the classroom and in their child’s learning. One area that will be included in the next iteration of this study is authentic interactions with families; these are essential in order for preservice teachers to recognize the strengths of families.

Keywords:

Family engagement, secondary preservice teachers, online learning.