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Asian Journal of Distance Education Volume 16, Issue 1, 2021
156 Published by EdTechReview (ETR), New Delhi, India ISSN 1347-9008 http://www.asianjde.org This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license
Identifying Parents' Home-schooling Experience during Covid-19 Period
Funda Nayir, Tamer Sari Abstract: The Covid-19 outbreak continues to be a vital phenomenon that no human alive has ever experienced before and that affects all people globally in a similar way. Within the scope of Covid-19 measures, parents have played an important role after closing schools and starting home-schooling. In this study, home-schooling experiences of parents with children in primary school during the pandemic period were examined. A descriptive quantitative study was planned in order to determine the problems that parents / caregivers have encountered in the period since the beginning of Covid-19. The participants of the study were 366 parents with children in primary school between June and October 2020. Data analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics, frequency and percentage analysis. After the data analysis, four main themes emerged: curriculum, learning at home, staying connected and overall perspectives. It was determined that parents had difficulties, especially in curriculum, learning at home themes and sub-themes. In terms of research findings, parents/caregivers are expected to have as much knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy as a teacher, as well as technology knowledge as an expert to solve technological problems. Keywords: home-schooling, parents’ role, Covid-19, online learning, parent empowerment
Highlights
What is already known about this topic: • Although parents are one of the most important stakeholders of education, the change of
cultural, social and economic factors caused the change of educational roles of parents and consequently, this situation prevented parents from following the current developments of education.
• The Covid-19 outbreak caused unexpected consequences for different groups, especially human life and education.
What this paper contributes: • Although the Covid-19 outbreak is examined from the perspective of educators and students,
the number of studies to determine the experiences of parents is limited. This study will provide an understanding of the home learning process in terms of parents.
• This study represents the Turkish adapted version of the research conducted in Northern Ireland. In this respect, this study will contribute to the literature by enabling the comparison of two different countries from East and West.
Implications for theory, practice and/or policy: • The important problem is that parents / caregivers are expected to have as much knowledge of
curriculum and pedagogy as a teacher and technology skills as an expert to solve technological problems.
• Supporting the parents / caregivers, who are the main actors of home-schooling during the pandemic period, including this process and the post-pandemic period, may contribute to the academic and psychological development of students.
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Introduction
One of the stakeholders of the education, whose main purpose is to prepare students for life in terms of different skills is the parent / guardian group. Cultural and socialization roles, which were considered to be the educational roles of parents in the past, have now declined as schools expand their educational programs and a greater proportion of parents participate in business life. The educational roles of parents have been tried to be defined in different studies. Stoner, and Angell, (2006) stated the educational roles of parents as negotiators, monitors, supporters and advocate. Each parent negotiates for matters such as classroom selection, educational services, and individual assistance required for their children. As part of the monitoring role, parents constantly check the quality and content of the educational programs. In addition, as part of their supporting role, parents encourage and assist teachers or support them whenever they need it. Finally, as an advocacy role, parents can advocate not only for their own students but also for teachers when necessary. On the other hand, there have been studies emphasizing that effective communication of parents with their children has an effect on student success (Frome, & Eccles, 1998; Power, 2004; Hefner et al., 2019; Šimunović, & Babarović, 2020), and these studies highlighted the importance of parents' educational role. As stated by these studies, parents have undertaken the duties of providing a safe environment, support and communication as an educational role, until the closure of schools and home-schooling became a must because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Home-schooling, which started during the epidemic period, changed the educational roles of parents / guardians and caused them to face responsibilities they had not experienced before. Parents' educational roles were examined under three headings as care, control, and motivation (Kiral, 2020). According to Kiral (2020), the Care role covers tasks such as providing educational materials, gaining the skills and habit of studying and being a role model, the Control role consists of tasks such as ensuring school attendance, checking their homework, and questioning the education children received, and lastly, the Motivation role describes tasks such as encouraging the child to go to school, setting goals for the child, ensuring that the child likes the school. And it was determined that parents were incapable of implementing these roles depending on their educational status and personality traits (Mazza et al., 2020). As one of the measures determined to prevent the spread of the pandemic, it has become important to minimize the contact between people and for this reason, it was decided to close schools and continue education through online education. Bozkurt et al. (2020) argued that the education initiated during the Covid-19 lockdowns was not exactly distance education, the terms used in different countries were derivatives of distance education, but did not cover the basic practices of distance education, and suggested that this process should be defined with the term Emergency Distance Education (ERE). This process made home-schooling inevitable and prevented students from spending time and sharing with their friends as a result of social distance rules. As home-schooling restricts teacher guidance, students' sources of support for their lessons have decreased and this has caused students to need the help of their parents. While 69% of the students who attend the lessons with online education at home get help from their mothers / caregivers for their homework, 50% of the mothers / caregivers have a low education level (Brossard et al., 2020). It can be predicted that this situation will negatively affect the learning outcomes of students in terms of home-schooling, especially during the pandemic period. In addition to the students who had to spend their time at home, parents / caregivers also had to do different jobs from home or lost their sources of income. Parents' problems encountered during the pandemic period have been discussed in different aspects in researches. Parental burnout during the pandemic period was examined, and it was found that parents who experienced burnout had a high probability of turning to child abuse and neglect (Griffith, 2020). It has also been concluded that the stressors associated with the COVID-19 outbreak have the potential to adversely affect parents' sleep quality and daily energy levels (Peltz, Daks, & Rogge, 2020). This situation may reduce the ability of parents to react flexibly and tolerantly to ordinary or partially challenging events they encounter during the day, on the contrary, it may lead to more aggressive and unusual behaviors of parents.
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In addition, the issues that should be evaluated in terms of inclusiveness should not be ignored. Among these issues, families with children with special needs, parents' health, families who lost their relatives or were quarantined because of the pandemic should also be examined and supportive solutions should be produced for these families. In studies covering these issues, attention has been drawn to the importance of families with children with autism to cooperate among themselves (Cahapay, 2020), and similarly, it was concluded that parents' stress levels (Mazza et al., 2020) cause children to experience behavioral and emotional difficulties. Sharing most of the time at home with parents, children spending more time on housework, and using technological devices with parents have led to psychological pressure (Yeasmin et al., 2020) and restrictions of children by their parents.
Parenthood during COVID-19
The Covid-19 outbreak caused unexpected consequences for different groups, especially human life. However, children have been covert victims of this epidemic process (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund [UNICEF], 2020). Following the closure of schools around the world to prevent the spread of COVID-19, governments and local authorities have taken action to offer online platforms, television, radio broadcasts and documents, and distance learning options to prepare packages that can make home-schooling possible. However, it has been realized that these possibilities are not equally available to everyone. Although efforts have been made to support teachers and parents/caregivers as well as increase access to the platforms, home-schooling has had unexpected consequences, especially for parents/caregivers. Although limited, studies have been conducted to identify the problems experienced by parents/caregivers during the epidemic period. The main problems identified in these studies; the balancing of work-life and student needs (Garbe et al., 2020; O'Connor et al., 2020b; Romero et al., 2020), student motivation (Garbe et al., 2020; Bhamani et al., 2020), access to resources (Garbe et al., 2020; Brossard et al., 2020), learning outcomes (Garbe et al., 2020; O'Connor et al, 2020b; Bhamani et al., 2020; Brossard et al., 2020), guilt about parents' own incompetence (O'Connor et al, 2020b), parents' inability to protect their own mental health (O'Connor et al., 2020b; Mazza et al., 2020; Peltz, Daks, & Rogge, 2020; Wu et al., 2020; Romero et al., 2020), anxiety about the poor social development of students (Bhamani et al., 2020), personally insufficient technology use skills of parents (Bhamani et al., 2020). In order to contribute to the findings obtained by using the literature with the findings of this study, it is necessary to determine whether the problems experienced by parents/caregivers during Covid-19 varied depending on the duration and what the possible consequences of the problems are. This article explores the homeschooling experiences of parents (including caregivers and foster parents) during the Covid-19 closure period.
Scope and significance
Although there were many studies examining the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on education in terms of educators (Supriyanto et al., 2020; König et al., 2020; Kidd, & Murray, 2020) and students (Adnan & Anwar, 2020; Dhawan, 2020; Chen, Kaczmarek, & Ohyama, 2020), the number of studies aimed at determining the experiences of parents / caregivers in home education is limited. This study represents the Turkish adapted version of the primary school parents/caregivers section of O'Connor et al., (2020b) research entitled Experiences of Supporting Children’s Home Learning during COVID-19. In this respect, this study will contribute to the literature by enabling the comparison of two different countries in terms of culture and economy.
Materials and Methods
In the study, survey research, which is a descriptive survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. Descriptive research is defined as research that aims to describe the phenomena that existed in the past or present in terms of research. The survey research model is the research that
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is applied to a sample chosen from the population in order to make a general judgment about the population (Karasar, 2006; McMillan, & Schumacher, 2014). In this study, it was tried to describe the homeschooling experiences of parents during the Covid-19 process through a group of parents.
Respondents
Snowball sampling was used to identify eligible respondents through social media and personal networks. This method is useful for sampling a population that is difficult to access, either because of a sensitive issue or some unexpected risk (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007). The respondents of the study were 366 parents with children in primary school. The respondents consist of 84% mother, 9.5% father, 1.4% foster parent, 0.2% nuclear family, 0.2% grandmother, 0.2% sister, 0.2% family and 0.2% grandparents and 3.3% participants did not answer this question. Participants have one child 76.8%, two children 18.8%, and three children 1.4% attending primary school. The grade level of the children of the respondents was given in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Grade level of participants' children As seen in Figure 1, distribution of the children attending primary school of the participants, 79 of the first children of the families are first grade, 90 are second grade, 80 are third grade and 78 are fourth grade. Of the second children of the participants who attend primary school, 25 are first grade, 18 are second grade, 12 are third grade and 14 are fourth grade. Of the third children of the participants who are attending primary school, 9 are first grade, 3 second grade, 2 third grade and one fourth grade. Information on the special education needs of the children of the participants is given in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Information regarding the special education needs of the children of the Participants
According to Figure 2, 16 of the first children, 8 of the second children and 3 of the fourth children of the participants need special education. Participants were asked what kind of special education their
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children need. Accordingly, it was determined that children who need special education need special education because of issues such as distractibility, learning difficulties, mild intellectual disability, physical therapy, hearing and speech loss, down syndrome, and dyslexia. Information on the work status of the participants in the pandemic process is given in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Working status of the participants during the pandemic period
As shown in Figure 3, 34.2% of the participants temporarily continue their work from home, 31.6% do not work, 14.1% are unemployed before Covid, 14.1% do not work as result of Covid, and 5% 9 of them are medical staff.
Data collection tool
The data of the research were collected through a questionnaire developed by O'Connor, Bates, and Finlay, (2020a). The questionnaire was translated into Turkish by field experts and expert opinion was taken in terms of the conformity of the expressions to Turkish. The questionnaire consists of 48 items and five sections: background information, curriculum, learning at home, staying connected and overall perspectives. In the Turkish translation of the questionnaire, three items were removed that were not related to implementation in the Turkish education system, and 45 items were included in the Turkish form. The data collection tool consists of multiple choice and Likert type questions. The data were collected and recorded with the help of Google Docs. The time required by the parents to answer the questions is predicted as 15 minutes.
Procedure
In order to collect the data of the study, permission was first obtained from the researchers who developed the questionnaire and then the questionnaire was translated into Turkish. A decision was taken by the Ethics Committee to collect data with the Turkish form. The form was sent to the participants online via Google forms and they were asked to answer. The data of the research were collected between June and October 2020.
Data analyses
Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) were used in the analysis of the research data. The obtained answers were transferred to the Microsoft Excel program and graphs were created using the frequency and percentage of the research data.
14%
14%
34%6%
32%
Unemployed before Covid-19
Temporarily not working because of Covid-19 (dismissal, self-employed, for self-isolation)
Working at home temporarily
Medical staff
Unemployed for other reasons
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Ethical Consideration
The ethical values of the research were followed throughout the study. The participants were informed and a confirmation message was presented on the social media platform and they were asked to be willing to work, understanding all withdrawal and rejection rights. No data that could directly identify the participants, such as names, telephone numbers, addresses, regions or identification numbers, were collected. Ethical approval (Document Number: 68282350/2018/G04-Dated on 03.06.2020) was obtained from Pamukkale University Social and Humanities Research and Publication Ethics Committee.
Results
Curriculum
The answers given by the participants to the question of how familiar you are with the Primary School Curriculum of National Education are given in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Familiarity of Participants with the National Education Primary School Curriculum As seen in Figure 4, 15% of the participants stated that they were completely familiar with the National Education Primary School Curriculum, 26.4% were familiar, and 38.9% were partially familiar. While 13.1% of the participants stated that they were not very familiar, 6.7% stated that they had no idea about the curriculum. The answers of the participants regarding whether they find themselves competent in controlling their children's learning or not are given in Figure 5.
Figure 5. The situation of participants finding themselves competent in controlling their children's learning.
According to the information given in Figure 5, 21.7% of the participants consider themselves fully sufficient in controlling their children's learning, while 42.1% consider themselves sufficient and 28% partly sufficient. While 6.1% of the participants describe themselves as not quite adequate, 1.7% of them do not consider themselves sufficient. Participants were also asked to indicate in which lessons they
15%
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39%
13%
7% Very familiar
Familiar
Somewhat familiar
Not at all familiar
Unsure
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42%
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6%
2%
Very confident
Confident
Somewhat confident
Not at all confident
I think I am inadequate
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believe they are competent in controlling their children's learning. According to the answers received, the participants consider themselves sufficient in Turkish and Civics Education (n = 279), Mathematics (n = 205), while the courses they consider themselves least sufficient are Foreign Language (n = 124), Information Technologies and Software (n = 110), Guidance (n = 125).
Learning at Home
Participants were asked if they had any difficulties as a parent during the home-schooling process and it was observed that 58.9% of them had difficulties. Thereupon, they were asked what difficulties their children faced with learning at home and the answers are given in Figure 6.
Figure 6. Difficulties experienced by participants with home-learning period
When Figure 6 was examined, it was determined that the participants had the most difficulty (78.1%) in concentrating their children on the lessons. Other difficulties encountered are inability to complete the lessons in a reasonable time (33.3%), ensuring that lessons are conducted while dealing with other children (28.3%), lack of internet or poor connection (25.6%), the child's inability to understand the lessons (24.7%) and stick to a timetable (23.3%). Participants were asked whether there is a regular time at home for school lessons every day, and it was observed that 266 (75.8%) answered yes, while 85 (24.2%) responded no. Thereupon, it was asked how long their children spent on average for their home lessons during this period, and 166 participants stated that they spent more than 1 hour, 104 participants 2 hours, 47 participants 3 hours, 12 participants 4 hours and 15 participants 4 hours. The answers of the participants regarding the resources they use to support their children's learning at home are given in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Resources used by participants to support their children's learning at home
As indicated in Figure 7, the participants mostly use the resources (74.9%) provided by the school to support their children's learning at home. Television programs (65.6%), online video and activities, web pages (48.2%), other printable activities and resources (27.9%), online resources provided by institutions, (videos and activities; such as libraries and museums) (%) 26.5) and EBA (Ministry of
120
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Apps
Online printable activities/worksheets
Online resources provided by local organisations
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Tv Programes provided by educational organisations
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Completing the subject content in reasonable time
Getting school work done while caring for other children
I have not understood the subject
Keeping my child(ren)'s attention
Lack of resources
My child has not understood the subject
No or poor internet access
Sticking to a timetable/routine
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National Education's digital education platform) (0.6%). Lastly, 2.5% of the participants stated that they do not use any resources.
Staying connected
In order to determine the school / teacher-parent communication during the pandemic period, the participants were asked whether they have regular communication opportunities with their teachers who teach their children. While 91.4% of the participants stated that they regularly communicate with their teachers, 7.5% of them stated that they could not communicate with their teachers regularly. Participants who communicate regularly stated that this communication is generally about homework information and control, course schedule and sharing information about the student via phone or WhatsApp. Participants' perceptions of the importance of communicating with their teachers are given in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Participants' perceptions of the importance of communicating with their teachers
When the expressions in Figure 8 are examined, 85.8% of the participants stated that communicating with the teachers of their children is very important, while 12.2% stated that it is important and 1.7% said that it is partially important. In addition, the participants were asked questions about the social media use of the schools in order to provide information sharing between school and parents. 82.9% of the participants stated that their children's school had a social media page, however, 6.1% stated that the school did not have any social media page and 11% stated that they had no idea.
Overall perspectives
Participants' opinions were asked to evaluate the home learning period in general. The opinions of the participants regarding their roles in the pandemic process are given in Table 1. Table 1. Opinions of the participants regarding their role in the pandemic period
Opinions n %
I think my role is to support my children by doing my best whatever they need. 333 90.1
I think my role is to help my child in this process as much as possible. 299 81.2
In this process, independent / self-controlled learning is more important than learning at
school.
153 41.8
Taking care of my child's education during this process is not a priority for me. 69 18.8
Children are responsible for their own learning, they don't need my support. 52 14.2
When Table 1 is examined, it is noteworthy that 90.1% of the parents adopt the view " I think my role is to support my children by doing my best whatever they need". Similarly, 81.2% of the parents stated that "I think my role is to help my child in this process as much as possible". 41.8% of them gave importance to the view that " In this process, independent / self-controlled learning is more important
86%
12%
2%
Very important
Important
Partially important
Not considered important
Not important
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than learning at school". However, it is seen that 18.8% agree with the statement " Taking care of my child's education during this process is not a priority for me" and 14.2% agree with the statement " Children are responsible for their own learning, they don't need my support". Participants were asked for their opinions about whether the home-schooling process is beneficial or not, and their views were given in Figure 9.
Figure 9. The views of the participants that they found this period beneficial
As seen in Figure 9, 234 (63.9%) of the participants think that this period is very beneficial for talking with their children and listening to them, while 92 (25.1%) think it is beneficial and 10 (2.7%) think it is partially beneficial. When examined in terms of activities, 216 of the participants (59.0%) think that this period is very beneficial because they have the opportunity to do new activities with their children, 84 (22.9%) think it is beneficial and 25 (6.8%) think it is partially beneficial. In terms of learning activity, 205 (56.0%) of the participants think that this period is very beneficial for learning with their children, while 95 (25.9%) think that it is beneficial and 22 (6.0%) think that it is partially beneficial. In terms of children's educational development and skills, 197 (53.8%) of the participants thought that this period was very beneficial for discovering new things about their child, while 89 (24.3%) thought it was beneficial and 26 (7.1%) thought it was partially beneficial. Finally, 205 (56.0) of the participants thought this period was very beneficial to see how their child adapted to new situations, while 94 (25.6%) were beneficial, 17 (4.6%) were partially beneficial, on the other hand, 3 (%. 8) of the participants thought this period had no benefit.
Discussion
Within the scope of Covid-19 measures, parents, who are one of the important stakeholders of education, have played an important role after closing schools and starting home-schooling. In this study, home-schooling experiences of parents with children in primary school during the pandemic period were examined. The findings of the research were discussed under the headings of curriculum, learning at home, staying connected and overall perspectives. Accordingly, for the curriculum dimension, the majority of the participants stated that they were completely or partially familiar with the primary school curriculum, while some stated that they were not familiar with the curriculum and had no idea. Although research findings conducted before and at the beginning of the pandemic show that parents’/caregivers' knowledge of the curriculum is insufficient (Brossard et al., 2020; Mazza et al., 2020; O'Connor et al, 2020b), It is striking that the current research findings found that most of the parents/caregivers find themselves fully or partially competent in the
234 216
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92 84 95 89 94
10 25 22 26 17
3 0
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Communicating with my child
Finding oppotunities to do new activities
with my child
Learning with my child
Discovering new things about my child
Recognizing how my child adapts to new
situations
Very beneficial Beneficial Partially beneficial Not very beneficial Not at all beneficial
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curriculum. As the reasons for the situation, as a result of the closure of schools because of Covid-19, parents / caregivers were informed by teachers, as well as parents / caregivers with the awareness of their new roles may have tended to acquire information about the curriculum. Similarly, unlike the literature (Garbe et al., 2020; O'Connor et al., 2020b; Bhamani et al., 2020; Brossard et al., 2020), the majority of the participants find themselves competent in controlling their children's learning. The findings of the study support the findings in the literature (O'Connor et al, 2020b) that the participants feel particularly inadequate in some school subjects. The subjects that the participants consider themselves inadequate are foreign language, guidance, information technologies and software. The fact that the subjects such as foreign language and information technologies are based on a certain basic knowledge and skills may prevent the parents / caregivers from developing the sufficient skills in a relatively short time. The problems encountered in the process of supporting students by parents in skill- based courses have been observed in previous studies (O'Connor et al, 2020b) and music, art and drama were given as examples of these students. When the answers of the participants regarding the learning at home dimension were examined, more than half of the parents reported that they had difficulties in this process. Striking among these difficulties are the children's focusing problem, inability to understand the lessons, inability to complete the lessons in reasonable time, and problems with internet connection. The majority of the participants spend a certain amount of time at home for school lessons and this time is mostly in the range of 1-2 hours. As a course resource, the participants generally use the resources provided by the school and television programs to support their children's learning at home. An interesting finding that emerges here is that very few of the participants use EBA television as a source. EBA is less preferred because it is television broadcasting and students prefer interactive programs such as tablets and computers rather than television, or because television is a common tool used by families, and EBA may not be yet sufficient in terms of content. In the staying connected dimension, it is seen that most of the participants regularly communicate with their teachers and use phone and WhatsApp for this communication. This communication process is generally structured as homework and lesson control and sharing information about the student. Findings of pandemic communication topics in the literature include clarifying learning tasks, asking for advice on appropriate reading materials, sending examples of the student's work, informing teachers about children, questions about the use of online resources, and general teaching advice (O'Connor et al. al, 2020b; Mazza et al., 2020; Peltz, Daks, & Rogge, 2020; Wu et al., 2020; Romero et al., 2020; Bhamani et al., 2020). Among the findings of the current study, the reason for obtaining limited communication issues may be the use of one-way communication from teacher to parent. The reason for this one-way communication can be shown, especially in WhatsApp parents’ group, that only teachers and guidance services have the authority to share information. Platforms with collaborative features and push notifications to ensure staying connected can be the solution, not only increasing interaction between students but also providing parents with more insight into learning activities (Bond, 2020). Parents needed more guidance on how to use new technologies, as well as on their children's course content and pedagogy. In the overall perspectives dimension, the roles of the participants in the home-schooling process were examined and it was revealed that parents perceived their role as supporting and helping their children as much as possible. In this process, among other important problems that cause parents to worry about their students; lack of motivation, self-discipline and self-need (Aristovnik, et al., 2020. However, the participants believed that self-regulation learning was the most important one. An interesting finding is that the participants, although they are small group, did not consider taking care of their child's education as a priority and thought that children were responsible for their learning, therefore, children were not supposed to need family support. Although the number of parents with this opinion is small, this situation is striking and it is important in terms of showing that the new responsibilities that parents are supposed to take on learning at home during the pandemic have not yet been realized and these findings diverge from previous studies (Garbe et al., 2020; O'Connor et al., 2020b; Romero et al., 2020; Bhamani et al.,
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2020). Most of the participants think that learning from home is beneficial in terms of talking to and listening to their children, finding the opportunity to do new activities, learning together and seeing how their child adapts to new situations. The home-schooling period can be important for parents to be involved in their student's learning processes not only as a parent, but also in their supporting role. In this way, parents who have more information about their students can be more realistic in terms of their expectations and planning about the education of their students after the pandemic.
Conclusions
The Covid-19 outbreak continues to be a vital phenomenon that no human alive today has ever experienced before and that affects all people globally in a similar way. Social and economic problems that emerged during this process, in which people had to change their social standards and lifestyles, required various measures to be taken for some occupational groups. One of the results of these measures, home schooling, has reduced teachers' educational effectiveness, and there is no hope yet for the safe resumption of education in schools. However, the problems experienced by parents who assume the responsibility and burden of home-schooling could not be predicted. Parents who are worried about the future of their children have not been given adequate support in dealing with these problems. The Curriculum findings showed that parents were alienated from the curriculum of their children, especially at primary school level, due to the changing parent roles and the thought that education and training activities were only a task that schools and teachers should do. Parents had problems in having their children do homework, planning and controlling the lesson activities at home. This situation can be interpreted as the fact that mothers and fathers in developing countries have to work due to economic reasons and therefore they cannot spare enough time for the education of their children. In terms of learning at home, it can be accepted that parents' pedagogical knowledge and skills are the main reason why they have problems in motivating children to the lesson. It should be evaluated that this situation is inevitable in geographies where traditional education methods are used in families and family-school cooperation is not sufficient. Admittedly, no parent ignores the development of their own child, but not knowing what to do will affect the parents' anxiety and consequently their communication preferences, and will lead to a stressful climate in the family. During the homeschooling period, the parents paid great attention to the matter of staying connected and needed an official to guide them. Under the general perspectives theme, parents' determination of doing whatever they can for the health and education of their children as their primary role shows that they are willing to cooperate if they are supported by schools and teachers. Even if the Covid-19 process is overcome relatively soon and schools reopen, the homeschooling roles of parents should be strengthened. Because in the context of inclusion, students will need to be educated at home again in case of illness, accident or injury that may be experienced individually. Parent problems arising from homeschooling should be re-evaluated in order for parents to be effective when needed again in the future. In terms of research findings, parents/caregivers are expected to have as much knowledge of curriculum and pedagogy as a teacher, as well as technology knowledge as an expert to solve technological problems. However, as understood from the findings, although parents / caregivers see themselves inadequate in these matters, they could only receive support from their own children and relatives. Within the scope of this research, it was tried to determine the problems parents/caregivers encounter in home education and to draw attention to these problems. As a result, supporting the parents / caregivers, who are the main actors of home-schooling during the pandemic period, including this process and the post- pandemic period, may contribute to the academic and psychological development of students.
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Limitations
This study covers homeschooling experiences of parents with primary school children. This is a limitation in terms of parents' homeschooling experiences. Parents with more than one child were asked to mark the situations they had experienced, but it was not determined which age group this experience was related to. Another limitation is related to the period covered by the research, the research was collected between June and October 2020.
Identified Gap and Future Research
The support that parents need during the home education process can be examined in more detail. In terms of Curriculum Only 15% of stated that they were completely familiar with the National Education Primary School Curriculum. Curriculum support needs can be investigated. In terms of staying connected, the expectations of families from educators about home education support can be examined. In terms of overall perspectives, a similar study can be repeated in different countries within the scope of parent empowerment and the results can be evaluated according to comparative findings. A similar research can be conducted to determine the home education experiences of parents with children at secondary, high school and university level.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their sincerest gratitude to Dr Una O’Connor Bones and her team for allowing the use of the research scale and for their contribution to this study and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şakir Çinkir who contributed to the data collection phase of the study and encouraged us to carry out the study.
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Notes
An earlier version of this study was presented in VIIth International Eurasian Educational Research Congress (EJERCongress 2020), Eskisehir, Turkey.
About the Author(s)
• Funda Nayir; fnayir@pau.edu.tr; Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey; https://orcid.org/0000- 0002-9313-4942
• Tamer Sari; (Corresponding author); tamersari@pau.edu.tr; Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3752-9277
Suggested citation: Nayir, F., & Sari, T. (2021). Identifying parents' home-schooling experience during Covid-19 period. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 16(1), 156-170. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4888516