Existing research emphasizes that parental involvement positively influences children’s development (e.g., Clarke et al., 2017). Concepts of parental involvement highlight the importance of outreach to families as an important aspect of preschool teachers’ professional roles (Hornby & Lafaele, 2011). Moreover, a few studies have shown that parents are more likely to be involved in their child’s education when the teachers make a stronger effort to engage them (e.g., Cutshaw et al., 2020). In Germany, preschools offer mostly a standard repertoire of partnership activities consisting of daily communication, helping at events, and attending parent meetings (e.g., Cohen & Anders, 2020). However, a lack of time, different interests, or language barriers often prevent the successful implementation of these partnership activities. As families continue to grow in diversity, it is necessary for preschool teachers to develop an awareness of diverse family dynamics, which call for the implementation of various activities to support families in different ways (Gándara, 2011). The use of digital media offers flexibility and increased accessibility for families, and thus the opportunity to overcome existing barriers and establish new approaches to parental involvement (e.g. Hall & Biermann, 2015). Despite the enormous potential of technology to improve reach and impact of preschool efforts to engage parents, previous research indicates that the use of digital media in cooperating with parents has not yet become common practice (e.g., Knauf, 2020; McFadden & Thomas, 2016). However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers faced challenges in finding new ways to cooperate with parents without face-to-face contact, and the use of digital tools has played an important role in this regard (e.g., Cohen et al., 2021). Accordingly, it is critical to examine teachers’ partnership practices in detail to gain insight into the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on preschool efforts to engage parents.

The current study therefore investigates (a) the frequency and intensity of teachers’ partnership practices in Germany, (b) and the role of digital media in partnership practices. Due to the use of quantitative diaries, this study makes a unique contribution to the body of existing research in describing processes of partnership practices on a daily level. In the second part, (c) the study also investigates what structural characteristics (e.g., teacher-child ratio) are related to aspects of partnership practices. The structural characteristics of preschools are thought to form the foundations for the kinds of processes that can take place within preschools (Pianta et al., 2005). Whereas the evidence on relations between structural features and children’s experiences has been well-established (see for an overview Slot, 2018), it remains unclear how these characteristics relate to parent-teacher interactions. The implications of our findings will be discussed in the light of the theoretical background as well as the results of previous studies in this context.

Data collection for the present study took place between April 2022 and June 2022. All data were obtained as part of the evaluation of a German governmental preschool initiative that was set up to support preschools in implementing language education and effective partnerships between preschool teachers and parents. For the analyses, we used diary-style data from 197 teachers of 88 preschools. Each teacher completed five diaries, resulting in a total of data from 985 diaries. On a daily base, we measured four aspects of teachers’ partnership practices, namely the implementation of partnership practices (1 = yes, 0 = no), the intensity of partnership practices (the amount of time teachers spent on partnership practices), the use of digital media (1 = yes, 0 = no), and the type of digital tools used in partnership practices (e.g., smartphone, tablet). In addition, each day the structural characteristics of the pedagogical work were rated in the diaries. Based on previous research (e.g., Cohen & Anders, 2020; Cutshaw et al., 2020), we include the following characteristics: teacher-child ratio, group size, ethnic composition (percentage of children not speaking German at home), and teachers’ working hours (number of hours per day). To investigate the patterns of partnership practices and the relation between aspects of partnership practices and structural characteristics, descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted using the SPSS statistical package version 28.

The results of the present study highlight that partnership activities are not part of preschool teachers’ daily work: In a total of one-fifth of all diaries (20.0%), teachers reported being involved in partnership practices. On average, teachers were involved in partnership practices on one day over the five days of the survey (M = 0.99; SD = 1.22). However, almost half of the teachers (46.7%) were not involved in partnership activities on any of the five days. There are hardly teachers who deal with partnership practices on a daily basis (1.5%). On average, professionals spent 44 minutes (SD = 40.30) per day cooperating with families. Digital media were used on 16.5% of all days when teachers were involved in partnership activities. Multifunctional media such as tablets (in 33.3% of the situations), smartphones (26.7%) or laptops (23.3%) are used most frequently. Digital cameras are used in about one in five situations (20.0%). Video projectors (3.3%) and desktop computers (6.7%) are used much less frequently. Overall, teachers used an average of one device per day (M = 1.30; SD = 0.60). However, there are also professionals who use up to three different media in one day (Max = 3). With regard to the structural characteristics of pedagogical work, the higher the percentage of children not speaking German at home, the more digital media were used in partnership practices (r = .16; p = .035). The relation between the teacher-child ratio and the implementation of digital media in partnership practices were negative (r = -.16; p = .041). The more children a teacher cares for, the less they use digital media in their partnership practices. Further regression analyses investigate relations between structural characteristics and patterns of partnership practices in more detail.

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