Parental Involvement in Children's Mathematics Learning Before and During the Period of the COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to sudden and unexpected circumstances in education for all the involved people (pupils, teachers, education policymakers, parents). International organizations have paid attention to their responses in crises by using alternative modes of teaching. The typical teaching methods had to be replaced by e-learning processes and all the participants needed to adjust themselves and adapt innovative methods. Most studies concentrated on teachers' and students' difficulties, barriers and new challenges. However, a different role was given to parents as well, especially in the case of primary and the first grades of secondary education, as they were asked to facilitate their children to use the e-learning processes and support them during the learning process. The present study examined the change of parental involvement during the pandemic in comparison to the previous situation in the case of mathematical subject. A questionnaire was constructed and administered to parents from Cyprus at the first days of the school year 2019-2020 in order to examine their beliefs and self-efficacy beliefs about their parental role and involvement during homework at their children's mathematical understanding and the development of their children's perseverance strategies during mathematical problem solving. The same questionnaire was administered to them at the end of the e-learning teaching processes in May 2020, after they had alternative experiences in order to identify any differences at their respective beliefs. Only the sample of parents who took part at both phases of the study was used for the comparative analyses. Results indicated that parents, especially in primary education, had the willingness to support their children's learning under the different teaching and learning processes; however they needed training in order to develop appropriate knowledge, relevant experiences, positive beliefs and self-efficacy beliefs.

Does school shutdown increase inequality in academic performance? Evidence from COVID-19 pandemic in China

“…Second, parents are likely to spend more time staying with their children during the lockdown. As a result, parents who are more highly educated than others can improve the quality of homeschooling for their children ( Brom et al, 2020 ; Brossard et al, 2020 ; Gimenez-Nadal & Molina, 2013 ; Kumar, Kroon, & Lalloo, 2014 ; Panaoura, 2020 ).…”

Play based activities for mathematical thinking at infancy: Nursery teachers’ and parents’ beliefs

“…Undoubtedly the present study has plenty of limitations which can be the main guide for the development of future studies on the same domain: (a) The sample of the nursery teachers was not representative as we had used social media for sharing the questionnaire, (b) We had examined their beliefs which had to be examined in relation to their real actions at the school environment, (c) The sample of the parents was not representative. Especially the group of parents who had accepted to share their activities with us, they were probably parents with an extra interest in the domain, who had the time to organize many activities for their infants and who had been guided "unconsciously" by knowing the aim of the study to present activities which were related with the development of mathematical thinking (Panaoura, 2021). A future study could examine nursery teachers' knowledge, skills and practices to introduce mathematical concepts of a different domain at the age of infancy.…”

Perspectives of Parents of Children with Special Educational Needs: Self-Efficacy and School Supports During COVID-19

“…Given the key role of parents in their child's learning during school closures, their self-efficacy in supporting their child in completing school work and engaging in school-provided learning opportunities is of particular importance. While parent self-efficacy for learning has been explored in a small number of studies throughout the pandemic (e.g., de Jong et al, 2021;Panaoura, 2020), very few have been published that relate specifically to students with special education needs.…”