Examining improvement of parental management of children’s educational information using technology-based information management solution

Abstract

Parents and caregivers need to process large volumes of information regarding their children's education. Effective parental management of this information is critical for parents to actively participate in their child's educational development. However, existing educational information management tools are designed from the perspective of the educator or student, not the parent.

This dissertation identifies how parents currently manage their children's educational information and areas where challenges are perceived and/or realized for parents managing information regarding their children's education through expert interviews and a survey. In order to address challenges that have been identified through the interviews and the survey, a MyStudentScope (MSS) Web Portal was designed with the integration of proposed solutions and recommendations from subject matter experts in education. In order to ensure that the system can fullymeet users’ needs, a user study was conducted investigating participants’ perceptions of MyStudentScope. Because parents tend to use paper-based methods to archive and retrieve information regarding theirchildren’s education, the task performance through the use of the MyStudentScope web portal was compared to the paper-based method. Situations parents/caregivers may encounter related to their children's education and extracurricular activities were simulated during the study. We present findings based on analysis of user responses and provide recommendations for improvement of the MyStudentScope design.

We proposed a framework that depicts a model of interaction between informed parents and proactive educators to provide improved outcomes in student educational development. A web portal, MyStudentScope, was designed with the integration of proposed solutions and recommendations from subject matter experts in education, needs and challenges expressed by parents and the Enhanced Parental Information Management Model. Study results indicate that MyStudentScope offered significant improvement in parents’ use of education information for their student in many areas. User responses show that further improvements in effectiveness and efficiency are anticipated as the user becomes more familiar with MyStudentScope.