Parent Beliefs about Technology: A Comparison of Homeschool and Formal Education Families

The purpose of this study was to gain information about how technology is used by parents to assist school learning as well as their opinions and beliefs about the role of technology in the learning process. Specifically, using homeschool and educational networks as well as social media for distribution of a digital questionnaire, this study sought to gauge parents’ experience with, as well as responses to, attitudes, and values towards the use of technology in homeschool and classroom education. Sixty-five parents of children who are studying at the elementary grade levels participated in this study. Twenty of these were parents of children enrolled in formal education settings, e.g., public/ private schools, and forty-five were parents of children being homeschooled. Demographic information was used to segment the data into homeschool and formal schooling groups. The study found that although homeschooled children do receive more exposure to technology than formal schooled children, homeschooled children are much less likely to be encouraged to use technology than formal schooled children. PARENT BELIEFS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY 3 Parent Beliefs about Technology: A Comparison of Homeschool and Formal Education Families Education is seen as essential for learning how to learn so young people have life-long tools to explore established knowledge and to question new knowledge. The process and setting of education have evolved with societal attitudes. Two prevalent modes of 21 century education are 1) homeschooling where parents decide what, when, and where their children will learn and 2) formal schooling where children participate in set school hours and routines to learn through defined curricula (Scribner & Cole, 1973). There has been a significant and growing shift over the last several decades with parents deciding to homeschool their children (Noel, Stark, & Redford, 2013). At the same time, there has also been a shift in homework responsibility to parents by teachers and administrators of formal school settings (Solomon, Warin, & Lewis, 2002). Therefore, regardless of educational setting, parents in today’s world take active roles in their children’s learning. Over this same period of time, uses of technology have become widespread in both homes and schools. Technological advances in computer technology, digital learning tools, and internet connectivity are now available for home-based education as well as school-based classrooms. This allows parents who homeschool to personalize their children’s learning process and environment while at the same time, match academic content to formal schooling grade levels (Martin-Chang, Gould, & Meuse, 2011). It also allows formal school teachers to expose their students to the world from within school classrooms (Perez & O’Neil, 2003). Such changes are not appealing to all parents regardless of their educational setting choices, in part because evidence about how to use technology for learning is still emerging and in part because of personal attitudes, beliefs, and values about technology. PARENT BELIEFS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY 4 Research has suggested that teachers’ attitudes towards change and time commitment combined with the amount of technology training that the teacher has received is a predictor of the amount of technology that the teacher will use and use effectively in the classroom (Hu, Clark, & Ma, 2003). Similar research is not yet available for parents who are, in today’s US society, key players in their children’s education through homeschooling or as homework mentors. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain information about how technology is used by parents to assist school learning as well as their opinions and beliefs about the role of technology in the learning process. Specifically, using homeschool and educational networks as well as social media, this study seeks to gauge parents’ experience with, and responses to, attitudes and values towards the use of technology in homeschool and classroom education. Review of the Literature This review of the literature will define and provide an overview of homeschooling and the role of parents in the education of children enrolled in formal school settings, e.g., public/private schools. Uses of and beliefs and values toward technology in education will be explored. Trends in the use of technology for learning in classrooms and at home will be examined. This will be followed by the specific questions of the study. Homeschooling Homeschooling is becoming an increasingly popular school choice for children with more and more parents choosing to educate their children in this way (Hu, Clark, & Ma, 2003). In 1999, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) released the first report on the number of homeschooled students in the PARENT BELIEFS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY 5 United States (Bielick, Chandler, & Broughman, 2001). According to that report, there were approximately 850,000 homeschooled students in the United States. That number has grown to approximately 1,770,000 in just 13 years according to a 2012 report from the NCES (Noel, Stark, & Redford, 2013). A major contributing factor to this growth is the advances that have been made in technology. In a recent longitudinal study, Linda Hanna investigated questionnaire data collected from 1998 to 2008 from 250 homeschool families with a total of 693 homeschooled children (Hanna, 2012). She found that of the 250 families surveyed in 1998, not a single family reported using online programs or materials from the internet to supplement their teaching material. However, in 2008, nearly 70% of those same families were using online programs and materials from the internet while teaching. This dramatic shift in the use of technology by homeschoolers is in contrast to formal school settings. While homeschooled families are using the advances in technology to aid the learning process, formal school systems tend to shy away from the use of technology in the classrooms. In support of that claim, a study of two separate high schools found that even when there was access to technology, the technology was seldom used to assist in teaching (Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001). These data reflect a widening gap in technology use and attitudes about its usefulness for enhancing student learning. This is not to suggest that all parents who decide to homeschool their children embrace technology. There is literature, however, that suggests that homeschooling families may be embracing the advances in technology that allow them to teach their children more efficiently, while formal school teachers tend to resist using technology because it introduces another variable into classroom management. PARENT BELIEFS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY 6 Formal School Education The role and impact of technology when used in classrooms has been a topic of interest among researchers over the last twenty years. Perez and O’Neil (2003) use Thornburg’s position on technology to frame their discussion: First, how technology is used in education, e.g., the classroom, by educators is more important than the technology itself. Second, because technology has the potential to transform education, our thinking about education should be transformed as well if our investment in technology is to be realized. (p. xiv) This suggests that technology, when used as a learning tool, can have a positive impact on the educational experience of the learner. Joseph (2012) based her research with teacher-student dyads on this premise to conduct a desk research study that surveyed the available literature. She found that the use of technology increased overall access to information, increased communication, and helped the learners to work independently. Joseph indicated in her discussion of these findings that technology can enhance the teacher-student experience, but that technology cannot replace the teacher-student dyad because technology does not possess the human and social elements that are crucial for learning in the earlier stages of a child’s school years (Joseph, 2012). These findings and conclusions support the position outlined by Thornburg (as cited in Perez & O’Neil, 2003). Hu, et al. (2003) took their research on technology in public schools in a different direction as they were interested in discovering whether the variety of technology, the amount of technology, or both contributes to implementation by teachers. They used responses from more than 130 teachers who were attending a four-week training program on Microsoft PowerPoint. Hu et al. (2003) surveyed the teachers throughout the four PARENT BELIEFS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY 7 weeks, charting the change in their responses to technology usage in their classrooms. The results of their study showed a significant influence of perceived usefulness of technology on technology usage in the classroom. One interesting, yet counterintuitive finding was that teachers worldwide tend to resist the implementation of technology in public schools (Hu, Clark, & Ma, 2003). This may in part be explained by the research of Vannatta and Fordham (2004). They found that teacher attitudes towards change and time commitment combined with the amount of technology training the teacher has received were a predictor of classroom technology use. Vannatta and Fordham also reported that a teacher’s opinion of technology corresponds with how relevant technology is to his or her job. It would appear that technology use in the classroom and in other environments may significantly enhance a learner’s experience, but that technology adoption in the classroom is a variable that goes beyond just having access to technology. Educational Technology at Home and in School Technology in schools has changed dramatically in the past twenty years, and technology continues to evolve at an astounding rate. When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak first introduced their Apple computer in 1976, they begin a co