Parents’ Beliefs and Attitudes on Their Children’s Distance Education Performance during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Greek Preschool Settings

Abstract

Background: Current research and the bibliography suggest that both synchronous and asynchronous distance education in the early years of education is a new era to explore the teaching of young children.
 Aims: The aim of this study was to assess the extent of use of online classroom platforms in early years, both in the private and public sector, and to correlate parents' attitudes towards children’s behavioral changes during the pandemic lockdown in Greece.
 Methodology: The participants were 216 parents with preschool-aged children (between 2:6 to 4:0 years) in Greek pre-school settings in two cities of North and West Greece. A questionnaire on the use of ICT during the pandemic Covid -19 and its’ outcomes was distributed online to all parents. The parents' perception was generally negative and was not preferred to frontal teaching, while they were not satisfied with the results.
 Results: A remarkable percentage of children did not participate in online education due to their parents' attitude on the appropriateness of their age to participate in online education. However, the deterrent attitude of parents was not related to their level of education and willingness to help their children. The parents' perception was generally negative and was not preferred to frontal teaching, while they were not satisfied with the results. As far as the implementation of distance education is concerned, private broadcasters have introduced more synchronous distance education compared to public ones. Finally, there were positive correlations between asynchronous distance learning of 1-3 hours per day and children's irritability, as well as feelings of stress and anxiety and asynchronous distance learning of more than 6 hours per day. The correlation between children's distraction and asynchronous distance learning for 1-3 hours per day was negative.
 Conclusion: Further discussions for policy makers and teachers are planned.

Distance education and parents’ mental health: the role of resilience, parent-child communication and relationships

“…Many scholars have studied parents' perceptions of their roles and responsibilities in remote education during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Abuhammad, 2020;Daniela et al, 2021;Karavida & Tympa, 2021). These studies investigated the barriers parents faced in remote education, including a lack of training and support, insufficient technical expertise, a lack of trained personnel (like teachers) to assist them, insufficient communication with teachers and professionals, and a lack of qualifications.…”

“…Nevertheless, some parents saw opportunities in remote education, recognizing that digital devices could help children acquire valuable technical skills that will become increasingly important in the future; they were also keen on teaching children how to leverage these resources to improve academic development and future employment prospects (Karavida & Tympa, 2021). While these studies described the varying perceptions of parents regarding remote education, they paid less attention to how parents coped with these changes and its impact on family relationships and their mental health.…”

+Exploring the Effectiveness of Kindergarten Students’ Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…46% of parents of children in the USA were dissatisfied with online learning (Stites et al, 2021). In a quantitative survey of 216 parents of pre-school children, parents were not satisfied with the quality of online teaching (Karavida & Tympa, 2021). A qualitative study involving 50 kindergarten students found that 45 were dissatisfied with online learning and preferred to return to face-to-face learning (Khales, 2022).…”