Remote Diary Methods to Understand How Families Navigate COVID-19-Driven Schooling at Home

• In Event: Remote Research Methods to Understand How Families and Educators Are Navigating Youth Learning During the Pandemic

Abstract

When schools closed in mid-March 2020, families across the country were faced with children learning at home. Support and expectations varied wildly from school-to-school, sometimes even in the same district. In this remote diary study, we used a smartphone-enabled data collection platform (dscout) to reach families across the country to learn more about: (1) What resources schools provided and how parents navigated and extended these resources; (2) What troubles families encountered and solutions they generated; and (3) What social, material and psychological conditions support resilience and sustained learning.

Methods and data
109 parent participants were randomly selected from the dscout pool, equally distributed by household income brackets ($50K, $50-99K, and over $100K). Participants were from 28 states, 55% identified as white, 16% black, 15% Hispanic/Latinx, 9% Asian, and 4% Middle Eastern/North African. Each selected one child in grades K-5 to focus on (53% were K-2).

Data collection included survey and open-ended prompts over the course of two weeks, including a 6-day diary study, to document parent accounts of learning moments, resources, challenges, positive outcomes, feelings of self-efficacy and perceptions adaptation to remote schooling. Entries included video responses, image uploads, text entries, and multiple choice/rating type questions. Our analytic approach is to: (1) Code across cases to capture variation in themes using grounded theory and deductive approaches; (2) Create quantitative indices reflecting breadth of challenges, diversity and source of resources, and perceived learning outcomes. (3) Develop case portraits to help theorize parent-identified examples of learning collected in the diary entries.

Preliminary results
In this session, we will present aggregate data patterns with located case studies to illustrate themes in more detail. Preliminary observations include:

Extension of resources provided by schools. While 84% of families reported video-based class time, there was a desire for additional feedback on work and progress. Novel adaptations include creating hands-on activities to complement paper-based worksheets and new forms of intergenerational learning. Sixty percent reported collaborating on projects with their children.

Family challenges and solutions. Many parents were juggling work with caring for children and other relatives, and experiencing significant stress from these factors in addition to supporting their children’s learning. Many worry about their children falling behind. Children are anxious about completing work, have difficulty focusing, miss friends, exhibit new forms of shyness related to video conferencing, and anxiety related to the pandemic. Parent-child dynamics are complicated as parents take on new and sometimes unwelcome roles.

Sources of resilience. Parents report benefits ranging from more family time (94%) to closer teacher/parent relationships (41%), and many gained insights about their child’s learning (79%). Parents expressed greater understanding about academic needs and strengths.

Significance
There is a national need for new family school partnership models. Our research will document and theorize how families and teachers develop new learning practices as pedagogical ensembles. It will help establish a broader research agenda to specify the conditions under which socio-technical systems productively augment a families’ collective capacity to innovate and learn when traditional co-located school settings disappear.

Authors

• Brigid J.S. Barron, Stanford University

• Caitlin Kennedy Martin, CK Martin Consulting

• Cindy Kim-Ngan Lam, Stanford University

• Rose K. Pozos, Stanford University

• Judy Nguyen, Stanford University