Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Gina Peyton

Committee Member

Linda Gaughan

Keywords

efficacy, parental involvement, and social position

Abstract

The researcher used a generic qualitative approach to learn of the experiences, knowledge, and interactions of teachers and parents regarding student achievement. The target population was teachers and parents of high school students in Grades 9 to 12 who attended high school in a Florida city. The study sample was eight teachers and eight parents or guardians. The participants engaged, via Zoom, in individual interviews consisting of semi-structured questions.

Thematic analysis was used to uncover major themes presented by the eight teachers and eight parents/guardians interviewed. For research question 1, themes were that teachers need more parental involvement with high school aged students. The second was that students can benefit from teachers’ education and college experiences. For research question 2, themes were that (a) that students perform better academically when parents are involved, (b) parents are kept informed through various communication methods, and (c) parent-teacher conferences are effective. For research question 3, themes were that teachers are not always clearly involved and need to be, and parents’ levels of education matter. Themes for research question 4 were that teachers impact student achievement and that parent-teacher conferences are important.

Recommendations for future research are for this future generic qualitative study be conducted with a larger sample size of teachers and parents. A single study with eight participants from each of these groups does not give a full overall perspective of the high schools represented within a Florida city. Expanding the research to explore the experiences of teacher and parent involvement of more schools with similar demographics would present more data to analyze. Additionally, a quantitative study examining the measures of involvement by grade level in high school would be advantageous to the study.

Download
To access this thesis/dissertation you must have a valid nova.edu OR mynsu.nova.edu email address and create an account for NSUWorks.

Free My Thesis

If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the Free My Thesis button.

Share

COinS