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Motivating parents through class websites.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Research shows that the effectiveness of two-way family-school communications positively relates to the amount and quality of parental involvement, which in turn is associated with better student performance. Frustrated with the inconvenience or one-directionality of traditional forms of family-school communications, more teachers are designing and using class websites both for instruction and to establish two-way communications with families. The author recently completed a study that revealed that a teacher's intuition alone cannot always make those websites motivating to parents; motivational theories may shed a better light on the motivational mechanisms of teachers' websites. The purpose of this paper is to fill gaps in the literature by extending the self-determination theory of motivation to the above domains, and to advise teachers about the kinds of website content and functionality that have the capacity to motivate parents.

Introduction

When the prototype of the Internet was first created in the late 1960s, no one could imagine that someday the use of the Internet would be so widespread. The Information Superhighway, with its capacity to support reciprocal communication, brings many advantages not only to commerce, but also to education (Selwyn, 1999). In fact, some Internet experts estimate that of all the information posted on the Internet, 20% serves the purposes of education (cited in Chandler, 1998). Nowadays, the Internet is widely used by school and university instructors to supplement traditional face-to-face instruction, or for Internet-based instructions.

Moreover, the Internet supports two-way communications between families and schools. This communication starts at the classroom level and involves teachers and parents exchanging information through e-mails and other forms of electronic communications, such as chat rooms, electronic boards, discussion groups, et cetera. (Bauch, 2000). School or class websites that use these forms of electronic communication may inform parents and students about instruction, student performance and extra-curricular activities, as well as about teachers' instructional philosophies or the school history and its traditions (Carr, 1998; Ivers & Barron, 1999). Websites have the potential to remove classroom boundaries by introducing parents to curricula and teachers' expectations, and by demonstrating to parents what their children learn and achieve (Flores & Karr-Kidwell, 2001). As the cost of computers and Internet connections continues to drop, an increasing number of families have access to class websites from home. The capacity of reaching out to a large number of students' parents and motivating their involvement in education is the distinctive attribute of website technology that this paper discusses. This paper raises two major questions: why should parents be motivated to be involved in their children's education? what components and content of those websites have the greater potential to be attractive to parents and motivate their parental involvement? These questions are answered from the angle...

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