Designing to Support Parental Involvement in Computer Science Education: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The value of Parental Involvement (PI) in children's education is well established. There is also evidence that the quality and quantity of PI can be improved by well-designed interventions. However, PI in Computer Science (CS) Education provides a particular challenge for parents; their educational experience often dates from before the recent resurgence of CS Education at K12 level and they therefore feel they lack the skills and resources to support CS learning. This is also a challenging area for researchers and practitioners as there is a lack of available research to support best practice in the provision of suitable PI supports and interventions.

The research described in this dissertation looks to address these problems by providing evidence-based support for the design of such interventions. Specifically, its contributions include: the identification of factors relating to parental attitudes towards PI in CS Education; the development and validation of a corresponding research instrument to measure these factors; the development of Design Principles for interventions targeting these factors in order to have an impact on PI in CS Education; and the national roll-out of model interventions that conform with these Design Principles and a preliminary investigation into whether participation in such activities has the potential to impact the quality and quantity of PI in CS Education.

Underpinned by a pragmatic research philosophy, a mixed-methods research methodology was employed by the study using elements of a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach. Relevant factors situated in the context of parental computing behaviours and attitudes in the family context were identified using a literature review, with face validity being provided by an expert focus group. The factors that emerged included computing usage, availability, confidence and experience. In order to confirm these as factors, a survey instrument was developed and completed by a large sample of parents (n=1228). Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the instrument measures five constructs, namely 'Confidence', 'Attitude to PI', and 'Motivation for PI', and two types of 'Usage': Creation and Consumption. Results of Pearson's correlation revealed significant positive relationships between confidence and both positive attitudes towards, and motivation for, PI, with linear regressions confirming that confidence was a significant predictor of both. Regression analysis also identified that creative usage was a predictor of positive attitudes to PI, and that programming experience was a predictor of attitude to, and motivation for, PI.

The understanding of the predictors of PI attitudes and motivation gleaned from the survey, along with a Literature Review to identify appropriate pedagogy, informed the development of the Design Principles for interventions to support PI in CS Education. The principles were used in the development of family creative coding workshops which were iteratively implemented and evaluated as Design Experiments. CPD workshops to train facilitators were also evaluated to further enrich understanding. As well as serving to triangulate and further develop the findings of the survey, the evaluation was employed to further refine the Design Principles.

The findings of the Design Experiments suggest that activities designed in line with the Design Principles developed in this research have the potential to increase parental engagement with and confidence in PI in CS Education, thereby addressing some of the issues identified in the analysis of the literature. In addition the survey instrument developed has potential both as a tool for gathering data to discern the level and form of assistance parents require in order to better support their children in their CS Education and as an evaluation tool of such supports.