Education is an interactive process. This interaction basically takes place between the school administrators, teachers, students and parents. Among these stakeholders, the role of parents is particularly important. Parents are at the forefront of the child's physical, social and cognitive development from the moment he is born. Studies (Bempechat, 1992; Duman, Aydin, & Ozfidan, 2018) have revealed that parents' behaviours have affected the development of children as a whole. On the other hand, a pandemic process has been going on in the world, which has profoundly affected all humanity since 2019. In this regard, countries have had to take certain measures in areas such as economy, health, social life and education. The COVID-19 pandemic, which was found to be transmitted through close contact, has especially deeply affected the field of education (Balci, 2020). In this context, some strict measures related to the education process in the world and Turkey are required to take. Since March 12, 2020 Turkey has kept schools closed. With the increase in the number of cases, distance education was started (Yılmaz et al, 2020). With the transition to distance education, students have continued their learning at home via computers. It is thought that the roles and responsibilities of parents have also changed in this process. This study will make a significant contribution to the field, by revealing the changing roles they undertake.

Parents' encouragement and support for home-schooling activities and their participation in the school process are very important for the education of children. Studies (Pomerantz, Kim, & Cheung, 2012; Kiral, 2019; trinity.catholic.edu) have shown that interacting between parents and schools to support children's learning leads to improved learning outcomes. Children learn everything from their parents until they start school. In addition, the responsibilities of parents continue to increase after the children start school. In this process, parents have many responsibilities like supporting their home learning (Kiral, 2019), encouraging active learning (Bempechat, 1990). However, this pandemic has affected parenting behaviours both negatively and positively (Janssen et al., 2020). Additionally, the roles and responsibilities of the parents have increased as the daily routines of children have changed and restricted significantly. Children, who stay away from school or their friends, need more love, attention and support in this period (UNICEF, 2020). This has given more responsibility to the parents regarding both the psycho-social and education of children.

With the pandemic, countries have taken different measures regarding the education process. All exams have been cancelled in Scotland, England, Ireland or postponed in some countries including Turkey. Apart from this, distance education is seen as a good alternative to ensure the continuity of education around the world. However, with the pandemic, the unplanned and unprepared distance education process has been challenging for school administrators, teachers, students and parents. First of all, this process negatively affected students' learning. Students were suddenly away from the social interactions. In addition, the uncertainty of this process is an important source of stress for them. All these factors reduce students' motivation to learn (Di Pietro et al, 2020). What’s more, students' learning was affected by issues such as internet, computer access, and distance education competence of teachers. On the other hand, teachers have had difficulties in managing the distance education process, worried about providing adequate support to students (Yılmaz et al, 2020). Parents have also been involved in the distance education process with their children at home. It is possible to say that this has caused a change in conventional parenting roles. In this context based on the experiences of parents, this study aims to reveal the roles of parents in distance education during pandemic.

In this study, the qualitative research method and phenomenology design are used. In this direction, a common meaning is tried to be reached based on the experiences of many people about the related phenomenon. In this design, it is aimed to understand the true nature of the related phenomenon or concept by reducing individual experiences to a universal explanation. (Creswell, 2015, 77). In this study, the experiences of parents, having children at the age of 7 to 13 years old, in distance education during pandemic are regarded as a phenomenon. This qualitative study investigated the roles of parents in distance education during pandemic. The study group consists of 30 participants including parents having children studying at primary school. Qualitative research is conducted with a small number of participants selected purposively. In this context, the criterion sampling method is used for this study (Patton, 2014, 230-235). The predetermined criterion for this research is that parents who have children at the age of 7 to 13 years old and studying at public or private school The data of this research is collected in 2020-2021 education term from parents living in different cities (Ankara, Eskişehir, Edirne, Kırklareli etc.) of Turkey. In order to collect the data, a semi-structured interview form is developed by the researcher. The prepared form was submitted to eight subject experts for their opinion on its content validity. This semi-structured interview technique affords opportunity for elaboration on critical points. Open-ended questions also enable researcher to take more detailed responses and get a clearer understanding of the perspectives being put forward. All participants are completely informed about the aim and interview questions, and all are voluntary. The interviews are held online and also open-ended questionnaires are sent to some participants. The qualitative data are analysed with thematic analysis technique. To analyse the data, Nvivo qualitative data analysis program is used. During this process, data acquired from the interviews were first transferred to the computer. In order to check the data, the transferred files were listened repeatedly. Afterwards, they were transferred to the analysis program and the views were coded. The coded views were combined under common themes. The trustworthiness of the study will be checked by using different methods such as obtaining expert opinion, peer assessment, quoting, and explaining the data collection-analysis process and participants in detail.

The pandemic has deeply affected every area of social life. Especially, it is very challenging for education stakeholders. In this study, the changing roles of parents as a primary education stakeholder are tried to be revealed. According to the preliminary findings of this research, parents have stated that they have difficulties in the distance education process. First of all, parents have to organize their whole life at home according to the distance education process of their children. In addition, parents have underlined that children have low motivation to learn alone at home. They also think that the distance education is not as effective as face-to-face education at school. Parents try to help their children achieve their learning outcomes by themselves or by getting external support. On the other hand, parents feel like a teacher in this process at home, because they usually say to children “start your online course, listen to your teacher, pay attention, don’t care about anything” and this harms the relation between parents and children. In this process, it is seen that parents also undertake such roles as motivating their children, supervising the education, reinforcing, behaviour management and providing discipline in the distance education at home. On the other hand, especially children at primary school may have technical difficulties in attending online courses, and some parents can easily handle technical problems, others may receive external support or the children may miss the course. In order to overcome this process in a healthier way, parents should behave calmly and proactively. UNICEF(2020) has made some suggestions for parents to manage this process more easily. A program that shows children when to play and study will make them feel more comfortable. Working parents, on the other hand, should organize the best program for their children in collaboration with their caregivers.

Balcı, A. (2020). COVID-19 özelinde salgınların eğitime etkileri. Uluslararası Liderlik Çalışmaları Dergisi: Kuram ve Uygulama, 3(3), 75-85. Bempechat, J. (1990). The Role of Parent Involvement in Children's Academic Achievement: A Review of the Literature. Trends and Issues, 14, 1-16. Bempechat, J. (1992). The role of parent involvement in children’s academic achievement. The school community journal, 2(2), 31-41. Creswell, J. W. (2015). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2nd Edition). (M Bütün, S. B. Demir, Trans. Edt.). Anı Yayıncılık. Dewi, R. F., & Tlonaen, Z. A. (2017, 4-5 April). The involvement of parents role and habitus toward children literacy. Proceedings presented at International Conference on Language, Literature and Teaching. University of Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia. Di Pietro, G., Biagi, F., Costa P., Karpiński Z., Mazza, J. (2020). The likely impact of COVID-19 on education: Reflections based on the existing literature and recent international datasets. Technical report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union Duman, J., Aydin, H., & Ozfidan, B. (2018). Parents' Involvement in their Children's Education: The Value of Parental Perceptions in Public Education. The Qualitative Report, 23(8), 1836-1860 Janssen, L. H., Kullberg, M. L. J., Verkuil, B., van Zwieten, N., Wever, M. C., van Houtum, L. A., ... & Elzinga, B. M. (2020). Does the COVID-19 pandemic impact parents’ and adolescents’ well-being? An EMA-study on daily affect and parenting. PloS one, 15(10), 1-21. e0240962. Kiral, B. (2019). The Rights and Responsibilities of Parents According to the Views of Teachers. Asian Journal of Education and Training, 5(1), 121-133. Patton, M. Q. (2014). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. (M. Bütün & S. B. Demir, Trans.). Pegem Akademi. Pomerantz, E. M., Kim, E. M., & Cheung, C. S. (2012). Parents’ involvement in children’s learning. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, T. Urdan, S. Graham, J. M. Royer, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), APA handbooks in psychology®. APA educational psychology handbook, Vol. 2. Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (p. 417–440). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13274-017 UNICEF. (2020). 6 ways parents can support their kids through the COVID-19 outbreak. Retrieved December 26, 2020 from https://www.unicef.org/coronavirus/6-ways-parents-can-support-their-kids-through-coronavirus-covid-19?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=coronavirus&fbclid=IwAR2eogm26sMq59ykQdutmxpCjkidT7mduwGZq5A2Iw_8jy5i6TOOjdIwKFU Yılmaz, E., Güner, B., Mutlu, H., Doğanay, G. ve Yılmaz, D. (2020). Veli algısına göre pandemi dönemi uzaktan eğitim sürecinin niteliği. Araştırma Raporu. Konya: Palet Yayınları https://www.trinity.catholic.edu.au/a-parents-role-in-their-childs-education/