Urban Parents at the Portal: Family Use of Web-Based Information on Student Course Grades

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Supporting Student Engagement: Technologies, Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS), and Student Perceptions

Abstract

This paper examines variation in how families in one urban district use web-based portals to monitor students’ course performance during the critical first year of high school. Using automatically generated longitudinal data, this study found more logins occurred on weekdays than weekends and “spikes” in access occurred near the end of each quarter. Parents of minority students, special education students and those with home languages other than English were less likely to log in than other parents. Although this study cannot test causal inferences, analyses did show a significant relationship between parents logging into the portal and a reduced probability of their ninth graders failing a course, even after controlling for prior failure and other predictors.

Authors

• Martha Abele Mac Iver, Johns Hopkins University

• Kellie Wills, University of Washington

• Emily Clark

• Douglas J. Mac Iver, Johns Hopkins University