Literature Review
In education communication is essential. The school, the teachers, and the parents must communicate with one another to educate their students. When there is a lack of communication the students suffer. The modes of communication are evolving every day, because of the advances made in technology. School systems needs to transition into using some of these modern forms of communications to better reach the diverse population of parents present within a school. Connecting with parents using multiple methods could increase parent involvement as well as student achievement. Different styles of communication could be used for different reasons. It must also be taken into consideration that traditional types of communication such as newsletters, flyers, and newspaper articles still work from some families. School systems need to find a balance between modern and customary forms of communication to better serve the ever changing population of parents and students.
References
Barnes, J. K., Guin, A., Allen, K., & Jolly, C. (2016). Engaging Parents in Early Childhood Education: Perspectives of Childcare Providers. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, 44(4), 360-374.
The probabilities of having parents successfully engaged in the child’s life in early
childhood is usually very likely and has imperative implication for that child’s overall well
being. In this qualitative study, researchers analyze the ideals and theories of 14 North Carolina
childcare providers on the barriers to successfully communicating with parents and how
communication is today being transferred and after looking at results, what the providers could
possibly do differently to enhance communication and student achievement which is exactly
what I was looking for in a study. Plus, this gives me a viewpoint at looking at early childhood
when later I could look at the perspective of kids in the older grades.
Wang, Y. (2016). US State Education Agencies’ Use of Twitter. Sage Open, 6(1), 2158244015626492.
This study examines how Twitter was and is being utilized by all U.S. stated
education agencies in correlation to public engagement in education. This study draws on the
ecological model of communication, so it reviewed over 70,000 tweets from 40 SEA’s and
correlated the results to see if the amount of time spent on this social media platform had any
bearing by all U.S. state education agencies (SEAs) for public engagement in education. The
results were surprising and staggering showing that we are falling short in our methodologies
and transformation with the times to utilize the Internet to communicate with educators,
bearing on the results of the study, but utilizing this study in my research will enable me to look
at one particular aspect of the methods that schools are trying to utilize and to understand why
it may have not had the results they hoped for.
Fan, S., Reynolds, B., & Lu, J. (2015). EConnections: Demonstrating safe social media use in early
childhood education. In Third International Conference on Leadership in Pedagogies and
Learning (p. 5).
The utilization of abstract social media technologies have had an immense impact on how communication and collaboration has been accomplished in the past decade. The ideals that social and interactive media impacts and can lead to the possibility to create and establish active and sustainable community practices for the purpose of education remains a debate but this article delves into the concern of risks in correlation to confidentiality. This article examines how to safely explore the utilization of media adoption and practices to facilitate and continue the collaboration of connecting parents, teachers, and children into an integrated study to develop and an interactive website to regulate this communication. This would be a great study for me to utilize in my research because it actually entails the production of a project to facilitate this kind of communication so further research could be done to gage the level of student achievement later on.
Poore, M. (2015). Using social media in the classroom: A best practice guide. Sage.
This book is a great source of information. The book defines what social media is, how, why, and when it can be used in the classroom. Poore explains, “The term social media encompasses all those forms of digital technology that is used to communicate and share information or ‘content’ with each other using the internet” (Poore, 2015, p.3) This is a broad definition. This directly relates to my study, because I am focusing on integrating new forms of communication in to the educational setting which includes social media. This study explains that using social media makes education interactive. It opens the door for questions, answers, and suggestions. It is a way to communicate with parents and get them more involved. This is what my study is about! I want to find out how technology can improve communication and get parents involved while also continuing to use the more traditional methods of communication as well.
Thompson, B. C., Mazer, J. P., & Flood Grady, E. (2015). The changing nature of parent–teacher communication: Mode selection in the smartphone era. Communication Education, 64(2), 187-207.
The modality of parent-teacher communication is evolving day by day due to the availability of smartphones and other new emerging technologies. In this study, over 1300 parents were asked to complete the Parental Academic Support Scale which they utilized to assess the amount and pertinence of communication across different modalities. Luckily, in this study they found a positive fit and their theory of media richness was then applied to the parent’s qualitative and quantitative responses to better comprehend the communication modes that parent’s chose the most and there was an increase in a parent’s affinity to use email to reach out to their children’s teachers. It also showed that they would be interested in knowing and developing a program to try different modalities such as text-message and other social media platforms. This is a great fit for my research into this topic not only because of the positive outcomes but because of the balanced way in which they approached their research.
Rahmi, W. M., Othman, M. S., & Musa, M. A. (2014, March 26). The Improvement of Students’ Academic Performance by Using Social Media through Collaborative Learning in Malaysian Higher Education. Asian Social Science ASS, 10(8), 210-221. doi:10.5539/ass.v10n8p210
Social media has now infiltrated all aspects of technology in the 21st century as more
and more generations of users are logging on every day. This makes these tools as popular and
active means of communications, particularly among older students. Since this is true, schools
utilizing these methodologies as an active means of communication between faculty and
being carried out through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and through email.
Though these kinds of interactive communications were once thought to be a positive tool for
connecting students with their professors and so forth, questions began to arise about the
impact this was having on the student’s productivity and academic performance so a pilot
study was done and results were very promising for the utilization of these types of tools to
be used to affect collaboration among students and their peers, teachers, supervisors, as
well as giving educators a platform to reach parents. So, I think this study would be
imperative in my discussion of not only the utilization of these methodologies in our country
but globally as well.
Blackwell, C. K., Lauricella, A. R., & Wartella, E. (2014). Factors influencing digital technology use in early childhood education. Computers & Education, 77, 82-90.
This article relates to my issue because it discusses the use of technology in the early childhood classroom. The study explains the factors that influence whether or not a teacher uses technology. Teachers must value technology to use it in the classroom; whether to engage students, enhance learning, or communicate with parents. Teachers with more experience are less likely to use technology and new teachers are more likely to integrate it in to their classrooms. The study goes on to clarify that teachers need support and training on how to use technology. Blackwell, Lauricella, and Wartella (2014) state, “teachers have higher levels of confidence, more positive attitudes, and higher technology use compared to teachers without support” (p.90) In reference to my study, this means that I will need to further investigate professional development training in regards to using technology to communicate with parents. I have never been trained on how to communicate with parent. This is a skill that I have had to develop on my own from experience and allowing other teachers to help me. I think that all teachers could use some profession development on parent communication.
Carpenter, J. P., & Krutka, D. G. (2014). How and why educators use Twitter: A survey of the field. Journal of research on technology in education, 46(4), 414-434.
While the service platform for Twitter is as popular as ever among all individuals
including educators and parents alike, its connection in a formal way among the education
system has been very ambivalent up until now. However, society is changing towards
becoming more accepting and is longing to understand how Twitter can be integrated into a more important role in education, so this article is perfect for my research because it entails its own study by conducting surveys for educators this time instead of just parents to see how and why the platform is used and how it could be used to provide a better communication pathway between educators and parents and the effect it could have on the progress of their students.
Correa, T. (2014). Bottom‐Up Technology Transmission Within Families: Exploring How Youths Influence Their Parents' Digital Media Use with Dyadic Data. Journal of Communication, 64(1), 103-124.
This article investigates the process of bottom-up technology across the U.S. by
utilizing the integration of varied levels of technology. It also explores the influence that
children have on teaching their parents how to utilize new forms of technology which is a
unique aspect that could be used in my research as a different way of looking at who teaches
who about social media and then how is this relating this to what they call a “mixed-methods
design” which not only used surveys but also used interviews in combination to find the dyadic
data and discover that a children’s influence should not be overstated. Granted, this did take
place more among women and others from a lower socioeconomic status, but that does not
mean future studies cannot be done to see if it is the same in middle and upper class
households which is something I could explore more in my summation.
Doty, J., & Dworkin, J. (2014). Parents’ of adolescents use of social networking sites. Computers in Human Behavior, 33, 349-355.
As society grows, so does the use of social networking sites, and it increases to
grow extensively, especially among adolescents. This article did find that parents are more
likely to use social networking environments than other adults, there seemed to be a minimal
amount known about parents with children who exhibit negative adolescent behaviors in an
educational environment, so the article used their research to purpose a study to examine
these parents. They also wanted to see if these parents connected better with their children in
a positive manner. Analyses revealed that adults were less likely to participate in other online
social activities like instant messaging, chat rooms, or blogging and more likely to utilize the
Internet for communication with their children and other family members. The next purpose
was to see if these same parents were more likely to communicate with their student’s
educator’s and the effect it could have on a child’s behavior in the classroom. I find that
behavior can correlate directly with academics so this article would be another interesting
retrospect into the connection with behavior and a student’s achievement.
Cox, D., & McLeod, S. (2013). Social media strategies for school principals. NASSP Bulletin, 0192636513510596.
This study focuses on the use of social media by school principals. School principals will lead the faculty on the new frontier of social media use. This is helpful to my study because, they will be the one that begin using it to test it. Then they will probably develop policies and guide lines for teacher use. This study finds that social media provides interaction between the principal and the stakeholders as well as aiding in making connections to the stakeholders, which leads to professional and personal growth. Cox explains, “Social media use is an expectation; it is no longer optional” (Cox, 2013, p.1). This shows that there is a need to communicate with social media and that it could have a positive impact on schools.
Morgan, H. (2014). Focus on Technology: Enhancing Instruction and Communication with Twitter: Hani Morgan. Childhood Education, 90(1), 75-76.
Many teachers and schools are now utilizing Twitter as a way to engage
also utilize it to allow their students to become more media savvy and more familiar with
utilizing online media platforms. So, this article studies how effective one can be utilizing this
particular tool and whether or not it is beneficial for the students, and then later how it can be
used to enhance teaching methods. Then to go even further, how it can be utilized not just
inside the classroom but outside as well to reach out to parents and guardians and make
new connections that will only further advance the possibility for more enriching goals and
achievement. I knew that this would be beneficial for my research because it contained all
of the possible questions I had and was looking to answer throughout my own research.
Duggan, M., & Brenner, J. (2013). The demographics of social media users, 2012 (Vol. 14). Washington, DC: Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
This study relates to my research because it focuses on the demographics of social media users. This is valuable information, because it can give school systems and educators an idea of who they will be able to communicate with via social media. It will allow teachers to know their audience. In 2012, 67% of internet users used social media (Duggan, 2012, p.3). That is a large population of people that a school system could potentially communicate with and get involved at their school.
Booth, A., & Dunn, J. F. (2013). Family-school links: How do they affect educational outcomes? Routledge.
This book is based on discuss from a national symposium on the connection and
links between family and school. It brought together policymaker, educators, sociologists, and
psychologists so that they could study the effects between that imperative correlation between
schools and their families as well as how these links affect student achievement which are key
factors in my research as well as the educational significance.
Faizi, R., El Afia, A., & Chiheb, R. (2013). Exploring the Potential Benefits of Using Social Media in Education. iJEP, 3(4), 50-53.
This was a crucial article to find for my research process because the objective of
this study was to investigate the benefits of utilizing social media in an education
environment. A large examination of a vast amount of online media platforms were studied in
their correlation to a student having educational advantages later on in their educational
journey. It was found that these applications can improve communication between teachers,
time between communications and engage students in a new and different way to enable
them with the tools to be self-evident later.
Hayakawa, M., Englund, M., Warner-Richter, M., & Reynolds, A. (2013). Early parent involvement and school achievement: a longitudinal path analysis. NHSA Dialog, 16(1).
This study, I knew, would be a great help in my research since it dealt with the
process whereby having early parent involvement in preschool is so pertinent for the child’s
growth academically from kindergarten all the way up to 6th grade. The parents studied were
mainly low income from the Chicago area. Their results and analysis showed an interactive link
between parental involvement, the child’s inner motivation, and their academic achievement.
This I had already hypothesized, so I knew this would be critical information for my research.
Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford University Press.
This study explains the history of social media. It explains where some of the first websites began and how they were used. Van Dijck explains that in the beginning developers want to make the internet more social rather than just informational. Once this happened social media exploded. The study also explain how social media continues to change and evolve. Van Dijck states, that social media has changed how we communicate and how we connect with others. Social media is not only being used by individuals, it is being used for marking for businesses, organizations, and celebrities. The importance of social media is being proven every day. One post can begin a social change or even a movement. This impacts my study, because if explains where social media began, where it is currently, and the potential of where it is going. This will help to explain the benefit of social media in my study.
Vanwynsberghe, H., & Verdegem, P. (2013). Integrating social media in education. ClCWeb-Comparative Literature and Culture, 15(3).
Within this article, is a proposed framework for successfully integrating social
media in education. This framework is built around the theory that this integration can
improve or enhance social media literacy within a classroom. What is particularly unique about
this article is that it focuses on how an educator can actually teach their own students how to
use these platforms in an educational sense so that they may go home and practice these ideals
instead of running home to play their favorite online game or sitting and chatting all day and
night. They are also taught how to utilize it as a source for information, while teaching them
how to also teaching them the appropriate way to do research on their own, how to take notes,
and build a better communication and interactive skill set to know how to speak and spell items
correctly which is an area that is sorely lacking in school’s today.
Aydin, S. (2012). A review of research on Facebook as an educational environment. Educational Technology research and development, 60(6), 1093-1106.
The purpose of this study is to present an overall review of Facebook in terms of
being a positive educational environment, since research on this subject is fairly new. This
study is very organized and helpful because the research is categorized into six sections which
gives me as someone looking for overall aspects of a site’s effect on the educational culture
in general and how it is either enabling it to progress or hinder our students so that we know
whether or not it is worth the risk as an effective tool in engaging parents, the community,
educators, and students so that I can decide for myself as a researcher whether or not I feel it is
a valid supplement to education or just another gimmick to get students interested in
something.
Chairatchatakul, A., Jantaburom, P., & Kanarkard, W. (2012, August). Using Social Media to I
Improve a Parent-School Relationship. IJIET International Journal of Information and
Education Technology, 2(4), 378-381. doi:10.7763/ijiet.2012.v2.157
Throughout a child’s life, two imperative key elements that will build the foundation
of which they learn upon are family and school. This journal article could play a key role in
correlating with the subject I am researching because besides describing the importance of
two factors that play a key part in a student’s learning process can lead to why it is so pertinent
provide a platform for effective communication and play a crucial role in enhancing their overall
development in their journey through education. The use of these tools such as Facebook are
discussed to benefit the students, the schools, and building better connections between the
parent-teacher relationship.
Friesen, N., & Lowe, S. (2012). The questionable promise of social media for education:
Connective learning and the commercial imperative. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,
28(3), 183-194.
Social media sites like Facebook are being hailed as being the deliverers of a new
and innovative way to create new socially engaging environments for students who are
self-directed or in undergraduate programs. This article provides a thorough theoretical and
historical analysis of these type of media which helps to solidify their promise. There is still a
debate as to whether or not this new fostering of learning is satisfying the crucial needs of
because we often forget about students who are in alternative types of environments, but
their achievement is just as imperative as a student attending public school so all factors should
be addressed.
Gordon, D. (2012, June 19). How Districts Create Community Connections with Social Media.
Transforming Education Through Technology, 2(1), 1-6. Retrieved August 19, 2016, from
https://thejournal.com/Articles/2012/06/19/how-social-media-creates-connections-for-
In society today, you would find it difficult to identify any public school district anywhere in America that has not made social media and technology an imperative part of their daily strategies to advance comprehension with students in the classroom. However, when it comes to utilizing this same method to communicate with parents, not just students, there is still a lacking in making this effective. This article would be important to what I am studying because as more districts realize that we are in an era correlating to a recession with constraints on budgets, utilizing the tools we do have already available may just be the answer to combatting this issue. The expense of sending out countless newsletters and reminders to parents are hindering the budgets of many schools in low-income districts, but with almost every home having some sort of PC or smartphone related devices, this could be the break they are looking for in reaching parents where they truly live in society today, online. It also focuses on how this can have a direct effect on student achievement and utilizes research to test out these theories within the article. This can give me the statistical data plus the narrative informational data that I need to give my research a more in-depth look at this issue and the positive outcomes that could arise from utilizing these tools.
Junco, R. (2012). The relationship between frequency of Facebook use, participation in
Facebook activities, and student engagement. Computers & Education, 58(1), 162-171.
Educators and researchers today are focused on the effects of social media
among college students, with significant focuses on the most popular media platforms such as
Facebook. Even though there have been research studies done in the past between the
relationship of Facebook utilization and whether or not this has a positive effect or negative
effect on college student’s academic outcomes, these studies were limited by how they
measured the usage of the site. The great thing about this research article is that it closes in
the gaps between what was lacking in the previous studies allowing me the chance to utilize the
most up to date information when doing my own research.
Yardi, S., & Bruckman, A. (2012, May). Income, race, and class: exploring socioeconomic differences in family technology use. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3041-3050). ACM.
In today’s society, minorities are the most progressive demographic in the U.S.
and lower income families make up the majority of households in the U.S. This research article
is pertinent to my research because it did its interviews by spanning the whole realm of lower,
middle, and upper class Americans from every culture and background to comprehend how
socioeconomic aspects and diversities both reflected upon and reinforced the use of
technology.
Ahn, J. (2011, April 26). The effect of social network sites on adolescents' social and academic development: Current theories and controversies. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(8), 1435-1445. doi:10.1002/asi.21540
Teenagers, today, are among the most popular groups identified today as users of social
network sites and new, emerging studies find that a considerable portion is now not only spent
online by their own use but by their parents as well. Since, this true, an immense amount of
their parent’s interaction is spent through the use of social media so this article would be an
imperative one because it outlines how online media can be utilized by schools to reach out to
parents and how this can affect their student’s achievement in the long run. It also outlines the
possibilities for future research in this theoretical framework and how it can be used in a
positive manner.
