Parental involvement in children’s education is usually defined as participation of parents in activities related to children’s education that are expected to promote their academic and socio-emotional well-being (Park & Holloway, 2018). Parental involvement includes a variety of specific practices, ranging from communication with the school and school-based activities to at-home activities, such as talking about school experiences, communicating values and expectations, providing direct assistance in learning, monitoring children’s activities, providing stimulating experiences and resources etc. Over the last few decades, research examining parental involvement in children’s education has gained considerable attention because of the growing recognition that fostering constructive parental involvement in education might have a beneficial effect on pupils’ academic motivation, learning and achievement. Numerous studies have confirmed that parental involvement is positively related to various indicators of academic performance, including school achievement, motivation, graduation rates and class attendance (Fan & Chen, 2001; Patall, Cooper & Robinson, 2008; Hill & Tyson, 2009; Jeynes, 2012). Parental involvement has also been linked to children’s well-being and other indicators of social and emotional functioning (e.g. Wang & Sheikh-Khalil, 2014).

Research on parental involvement in children’s education is becoming especially relevant during COVID-19 pandemic. In response to pandemic crisis, most educational systems introduced some form of emergency remote teaching and learning in an aim to ensure continuation of the educational process. This represents a unique situation in which pupils of all educational levels experienced non-classroom teaching and learning for an extended period of time. Evidence from growing number of studies conducted recently in different contexts suggest that the rapid and unprepared shift to remote teaching and learning placed more responsibility for learning on parents and required their higher involvement on a daily basis (Carpenter & Dunn, 2020; Garbe et al, 2020; Misirli & Ergulec, 2021; Knopik et al, 2021; Yang et al, 2021). These studies also suggested that this shift resulting in profound changes of teaching and learning processes, in disruption of daily routines, and in social isolation could have detrimental immediate and long-term effects on educational outcomes and psychological and emotional wellbeing of pupils, and parents as well. Some studies also suggested that families coming from socially disadvantaged contexts or having children with disabilities appear to be particularly at risk of being adversely affected (Averett, 2021; Dressen et al, 2020).

The aim of the present study was to examine the changes in parental involvement in children’s education due to COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the Croatian lower secondary education. The study applied a mixed model design to explore the perspectives of pupils and their parents on parental support in schooling during COVID-19 pandemic.  By using nationally representative samples of pupils in grades 6 and 8, the quantitative research phase aimed at examining the levels of parental at-home involvement during school year that was characterised by the mix of classroom and remote models of teaching and learning, and exploring the differences in frequencies and types of parental involvement depending on pupils’ gender, grade, school achievement and mother’s educational level.

Adding to this, the qualitative research phase focused on the exploration of perspectives of children and parents who were potentially more vulnerable during pandemic than others, that is families with children with disabilities/learning difficulties and socially disadvantaged families. This qualitative research phase explored how these parents construct their roles for involvement during pandemic and portrayed their subjective experiences of home-based involvement and involvement with school in the time of crisis. By including pupils’ perspectives also, it allowed for triangulation and examination of the complexities and variations of participants’ beliefs, experiences and practices of involvement.   

The study employed a sequential mixed model design. The quantitative research phase consisted of questionnaire administration with a nationally representative sample of pupils in 6th and 8th grades of elementary schools in the Republic of Croatia. This research phase was conducted face-to-face in 80 schools at the end of school year 2020/21. The schools were selected randomly within strata defined by location. The number of schools in the sample within each stratum was proportionate to its size in the total population. In each participating school, all pupils in 6th and 8th grade pupils were invited to participate. In total, 3297 pupils in 6th grade and 2791 pupils in 8th grade participated. Only those with parental informed consent were able to participate. The questionnaire was developed specifically for the purposes of the study. Perception of parental support in learning scale was an adaptation of the scale developed for Jokić et al., 2019. The scale has 9 items measuring the frequency of parental actions during current school year. On 5-pont scale ranging from almost never to almost always, pupils estimated how often one or both of his/her parents did the following: asks what you’ve learnt at school, assists you in making learning plans, explains some new topic to you etc. A principal axis factor analysis was conducted with varimax rotation and resulted in a two-factor solution with a simple structure explaining a total of 57.04% of the variance for the entire set of variables. Factors were named “Assistance with homework” and “Monitoring of learning and achievement”. The data about pupil’s gender, educational achievement and parents’ educational status were also collected. The qualitative research phase consists of semi-structured interviews with participant dyads of parents and pupils from two groups: pupils with disabilities and learning difficulties and pupils from disadvantaged SES background. 20 schools (the subsample of the sample used in quantitative research phase that was purposively selected in order to maximise differences of the contexts in which they operate) were invited to participate. Qualitative data will be collected in February 2022. Criterion sampling of pupils was carried out with regard to pupil’s SES (pupils entitled to free school meals or free digital device/Internet for remote teaching during pandemic), disability status (having IEP) and gender. In each school, two participant dyads will participate. Interview protocols covered the following themes: role construction for involvement, involvement practices, changes due to pandemic, self-efficacy, satisfaction with parental involvement.

The results provided evidence of high levels of parental support and home involvement at lower secondary education level during COVID-19 pandemic. MANOVA was applied to analyse data from quantitative research phase. Two dependent variables were two factors of parental involvement: “Assistance with homework” and “Monitoring of learning and achievement”. Independent variables were: grade (6th or 8th), gender, school achievement (GPA, 4 categories), mother’s educational level (3 categories). Results of multivariate tests showed that there was a statistically significant differences between all groups when considered jointly on the variable assistance with homework and monitoring of learning and achievement. A separate ANOVAs were conducted for each dependent variables. These analyses identified statistically significant differences between all groups on assistance with homework, in the direction of higher levels of involvement for boys, younger pupils, pupils of lower GPA and mothers with university-level education. As regards monitoring of learning and achievement, statistically significant differences were found in respect of grade, school achievement and mother’s educational level, but there was no statistically significant difference between boys and girls on this indicator of parental at-home involvement. Data from qualitative research phase will be organised by NVivo. Thematic analysis of interview data will be conducted as an iterative explorative process of noting patterns and themes, clustering and making contrasts based on participants’ groups. Some codes will be pre-determined based on the project’s conceptual framework and interview protocols, while other codes will be established in response to the collected data itself. By giving voice to children and parents from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and families with children with disabilities and learning difficulties, the study will provide in-depth insights into unique experiences, diverse involvement efforts, self-appraisals and struggles of these at-risk groups in the era of pandemic crisis.

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