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Parent perceptions of teacher communications
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to describe parents' perceptions of their children's teachers' communications. A detailed literature review traced compensatory education focusing on disadvantaged families (low-SES), Task Specific Self Efficacy (TSSE), and external influences upon parent perceptions. The locale of this study was a public school in a mid-western metropolitan city. A purposeful sample of eight parents were interviewed and observed to describe the extent that teacher communications influenced parent perceptions. Parents' views and experiences were collected, during a four month study, through a recursive process of constant comparative semi-structured interviews. The use of an on-going constant comparative study design enabled the researcher to identify themes and issues relating to parent perceptions of teacher directed communiqués and parent initiated communiqués. Ten parent perception themes were drawn from the analyzed and synthesized data. The ten themes drawn from research data (listed alphabetically) were (a) busy teachers, (b) child opinions, (c) no news is good news, (d) opinions and issues, (e) parent roles, (f) passive or aggressive, (g) reputation and rumors, (h) student-led conferences, (i) student responsibility, and (j) trust. Parent perception data revealed evidence supporting the grounded substantive theory that parents were interested in relating to their child's teacher in a role of mutual responsibility. Parent participants communicated an overall dissatisfaction with teachers who used their children as messengers. Parents indicated that they attributed less importance to student delivered communications than teacher initiated communications. Parent perceptions of no direct communiqués from their child's teacher led to the conclusion that no news was good news. Recognition to the importance of teacher's fostering positive parent-teacher mutuality with implications for future research involving parent perceptions are discussed.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching|Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Stattelman, William Jay, "Parent perceptions of teacher communications" (1999). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9929233.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9929233