Are Pre-Service Teachers Prepared for Family …...parent-teacher relationships, pre-service teachers 3 Introduction Every teacher will routinely work with parents, in some capacity,

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Are Pre-Service Teachers Prepared for Family-Teacher Relationships?

Andria Moon and Alan L. Neville

Northern State University

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Abstract This study explored the preparedness of pre-service teachers for collaboration with their future students’ families. Teachers must work closely with families to enhance students’ educations. Being prepared to effectively collaborate with families is an essential component of any teacher education program. The purpose of this study was to determine if pre-service teachers were prepared to engage families in their child’s education. Through quantitative research design, differences were found between current teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ levels of preparedness for family collaboration. Additionally, the researchers determined that a possible relationship exists between elementary and secondary education majors’ preparedness levels. Suggestions for possible improvements to teacher preparation programs were also analyzed in order to improve teachers’ readiness for incorporating family collaboration techniques.

Keywords: family-teacher collaboration, teacher preparation, teacher education, parent-teacher relationships, pre-service teachers

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Introduction Every teacher will routinely work with parents, in some capacity, on a number of

occasions throughout the school year. Whether it is meeting with a family for a parent- teacher conference, answering emails about grades, or taking phone calls about parents’ concerns for their children, a teacher should be prepared to handle the difficult issues and questions that come with parental communication. Teachers must learn to handle these concerns with eloquence in order to relieve parents’ worries, while also maintaining their own respectability as an educator. Despite the frequency of parental contact future teachers will no doubt face, teacher education programs are leaving pre- service teachers unprepared to work with families. Walker & Dotger (2012) emphasize this dearth of preparation noting, “Communicating with families is a central facet of the teaching profession, yet few teacher education institutions help candidates develop their knowledge, skills, and dispositions for family-school partnership” (p. 71). Moreover, new teachers were most likely to report that the biggest challenge they face is effectively communicating with and involving parents (Markow & Pieters, 2012).

Several studies point to some factors prior to the student teaching experience

that may explain why pre-service teachers are not ready to engage families in their student’s education. First, the way pre-service teachers were raised can influence their attitudes about students and parents (Flanigan, 2007). For example, whether they had positive or negative experiences witnessing parent-teacher relationships can greatly affect how they will approach similar situations as teachers. In addition, the acceptance standards of teacher education programs may also be to blame. Grade Point Average (GPA) is a widely used means of accepting students into teacher education programs

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because it is typically is a good indicator of one’s ability to succeed academically. But these same students may have little experience with adverse teacher-parent relations to draw upon, given their history of excelling. According to this practice, students with high GPAs in the teacher education program would be more likely to be better teachers (Casey & Child, 2011), but less likely to be prepared to engage parents in the process.

Despite the conclusions of these previous studies, Casey and Child’s (2011) research actually concluded that neither GPA nor admission profile significantly correlated with performance in student teaching. Just as having a high GPA in undergraduate studies does not necessarily correlate with one’s later success as a teacher, the same is true for the lack of correlation between GPA and the student teacher’s ability to effectively interact with parents. So the number and type of factors, as well as the degree to which they may play a role in why pre-service teachers are finding themselves unprepared to work with families, is still a topic of some speculation.

In addition to a lack of qualified teacher applicants, many teachers also have

negative, preconceived notions about parents and parental involvement in schools. When most teachers have to work with parents for the first time, they often feel unprepared, and therefore are tense, nervous, and frightened. While their comfort levels may improve over time, this initial contact leaves a lasting, negative impression (Katz & Bauch, 1999). Furthermore, the attitude of most pre-service teachers is that parents are not going to participate in their children’s education (Flanigan, 2007). Many pre-service teachers have a general bias that parents simply do not care about their children’s education and that this is the reason their children fail in school. Parents have even reported that schools and teachers send out subconscious messages that

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parents should “leave their children’s schooling to the experts,” which makes them feel intimidated and unwelcome to participate in their children’s education (Symeou, Roussounidou, & Michaelides, 2012). According to Ratcliff and Hunt (2009), the biggest challenge that this poses for teacher education programs is teaching their students to develop positive, yet realistic, dispositions toward working with families (Ratcliff & Hunt, 2009). Ridding pre-service teachers of negative assumptions about students’ families is a critical step in ensuring improvement of communication between home and school.

Another problem, in addition to pre-service teachers’ negative misconceptions

about parents, is the lack of initiative by both parents and teachers. Both parties agree that communication is very important in order to maintain a positive school-home partnership, but both tend to be quick to assume that it is the other’s responsibility to initiate the chain of communication (DeCastro-Ambrosetti & Cho, 2005). For example, over one-third of all elementary school parents feel that the only time the teacher ever contacts them is when their children are having problems in school (Ratcliff & Hunt, 2009). Even in these cases, the teacher will still only contact about half of their students’ families (DeCastro-Ambrosetti & Cho, 2005). This lack of consistent communication on the teacher’s part is often because of poor training in family and community involvement during his or her own education (Katz & Bauch, 1999). But the cycle continues, because more teachers are quicker to blame parents for poor home-school relationships than parents are to blame teachers (Ratcliff & Hunt, 2009). In order for healthy and productive parent-teacher communication to occur, the teacher needs to take the initiative in building reciprocal relationships where they may not yet exist, and then the parents need to keep the communication line open by being

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responsive in return (Ratcliff & Hunt, 2009). Even if the communication line is open between teachers and families, most pre-

service and new teachers still have unrealistic expectations about their jobs, according to principals and college of education deans (Markow, Moessner, & Horowitz, 2006). Many new teachers are oblivious to the demands being a teacher entails, particularly with regard to handling family-teacher relationships. Part of the reason for this may be because universities are preparing pre-service teachers to handle parents in one way, while experienced, mentor teachers are modeling a different way on how to work with families (Flanigan, 2007). In fact, in a survey of principals and college of education deans, 35% of principals, compared to only 9% of deans, reported that first-time educators were not prepared to engage families in supporting their children’s education (Markow, Moessner, & Horowitz, 2006). This implies that the little, if any, information being taught about how to work with parents in teacher education programs is often impractical and is not lining up with what principals expect in their new teachers.

Ensuring the practicality of information pre-service teachers learn is one

challenge, but many studies show that this information is not being taught at all in teacher education programs. In fact, in the benchmark study done on this topic in 1988, only 4% of the universities surveyed taught a complete course on teacher-parent involvement (Katz & Bauch, 1999). A follow-up study conducted 17 years later concluded that despite the importance of school-home partnerships, the subject is still rarely taught in teacher education programs (Graue, 2005). To make matters worse, the topic is not even being discussed in any formal or in-service training for current teachers (Katz & Bauch, 1999). It seems that both pre-service and current teachers are

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being forced to fend for themselves when it comes to learning to effectively work with the families of their students.

Summary

Our research examined the disconnect between pre-service teacher education and the realities that current teachers face in terms of working with the families of their students. Using surveys of pre-service teachers and current classroom teachers, this paper provides insight into how prepared pre-service and current teachers feel when it comes to working with their students’ families. Our research questions for the study were as follows:

1. Are pre-service teachers prepared to work with the families of their future students? 2. Were current teachers unprepared to engage families when they first began teaching? 3. Are elementary education majors more prepared to work with families than secondary education majors? 4. Do both pre-service and current teachers believe it is important to have a positive relationship with the families of their students? 5. How could teacher education programs be improved to better prepare pre-service teachers for working with families?

Method

We decided to use a survey method similar to what was used in MetLife’s Survey

of the American Teacher, (Markow, Moessner, & Horowitz, 2006), only on a smaller scale. We kept the data quantitative in an effort to avoid any subjectivity and make the data easier to report using surveys with close-ended questions that

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could be answered with a rating system to improve validity. Two anonymous surveys were developed-one for pre-service teachers and one for current teachers. The surveys questioned participants about their opinions on the level of importance family collaboration has in teaching, their preparedness to incorporate family collaboration in the classroom as a first-year teacher, and ideas as to how to improve teachers’ readiness for engaging the families of students. Pre-Service Teachers’ Survey

The pre-service teachers’ survey consisted of 12 closed-ended questions and a text box at the end in which participants could record further thoughts or comments on teacher-family collaboration. The population for the pre-service teachers’ survey consisted of sophomore through senior students who had been accepted into a teacher education program. The qualifications for being accepted into the teacher education program included passing all Praxis I/Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST) standardized assessments; receiving at least a “C”, in an “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, or “F”, scale, in educational psychology, Speech 101, and English 101; and having at least a 2.6 GPA on a 4.0 scale. The population sample included male and female students majoring in special education, elementary education, secondary education, or a combination of two or more of these majors. Additional demographic information collected included field experiences completed. These options included no field experiences yet completed, a sophomore field experience, a junior field experience of thirty or sixty hours, and a semester-long student teaching or yearlong student teaching experience.

After demographic information was collected, the survey asked for a comparison

of teaching skills. The first question in this section asked participants to indicate the

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level of importance they believed certain aspects of teaching had on student learning. Participants were also asked how often certain teaching aspects had been discussed in their classes and how often they had gotten to practice these aspects during field experiences. Participants were then asked questions specific to family collaboration and communication. These included their opinion of the level of importance of certain communication aspects, and how often they were exposed to and taught family communication techniques during their classes and field experiences. Finally, they were asked to indicate how prepared they felt to implement family collaboration techniques in their future classrooms and what they would like changed, if anything, in their teacher preparation program in order to improve readiness for family-teacher collaboration. Current Teachers’ Survey

Similar in design to the pre-service teachers’ survey, the current teachers’ survey contained 13 closed-ended questions and a text box at the end in which participants could record additional opinions and comments about family-teacher collaboration. The population for this survey consisted of teachers in a Midwest public school district. The teachers surveyed taught various classes at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, and held various education degrees. Both men and women were surveyed, and participants had been teaching anywhere from 1-20 or more years.

After collecting demographic information, the survey asked participants to

complete questions on comparisons of teaching skills. They were asked to rate the level of importance they believed certain aspects of teaching had on student learning; indicate how often they do certain teaching tasks in their current classrooms; and

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indicate how often those same teaching aspects were taught in their initial teacher preparation programs. Then, like the pre-service teachers’ survey, participants were asked to answer several questions specific to family-teacher collaboration in schools. Questions ranged from rating the level of importance they thought specific areas of collaboration played in student learning, to reflecting on the number of opportunities they had during their teacher preparation programs to partake in family-teacher collaboration experiences. The survey also asked them to rate their level of preparedness for family-teacher collaboration upon receiving their degree. Finally, teachers were asked to suggest further strategies, if any, they would recommend teacher preparation programs implement in order to improve pre-service teachers’ readiness for family collaboration.

Data Analysis

As we began organizing the data collected, we examined the data in terms of three major components that corresponded to the research questions and hypotheses: importance, preparedness, and improvements regarding family collaboration. For some answers to the research questions, we used descriptive statistics and graphs to make comparisons among the data and draw conclusions. For other answers, we used inferential statistics, whereby we compared the pre-service teachers’ survey data against the current teachers’ survey data using a Chi-Square test in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). For the Chi-Square, we manually sorted the survey results to only contain complete sets of data in the analysis. We excluded all survey results in which a respondent skipped any questions. Our new sample size for the valid data to be entered in SPSS then resulted in N=48 for pre-service teachers, and N=98

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for current teachers. Level of Importance

First, we examined the respondents’ ratings of how important it was to have positive relationships with students’ families. Particularly, we examined question five on the pre-service teachers’ survey and question four on the current teachers’ survey. The question stated, “Use the scale provided [Very Important, Important, Somewhat Important, Not at all Important] to indicate the level of importance you believe each of the following have for student learning.” From this, we examined only the responses in the section marked “Collaborate with Students’ Families.” Using N=146 for comparing pre-service teachers’ to current teachers’ responses, we then ran a Chi-Square test. As reported in Table 1, the results showed a statistically significant difference at the .05 level for pre-service teachers’ and current teachers’ ratings for the level of importance they placed on collaborating with students’ families. This result showed that considerably more current teachers than pre-service teachers thought that collaborating with students’ families was important for student learning. Table 1 Chi-Square Tests for Current Teachers and Pre-service Teachers: Level of Importance

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 15.070a 2 .001

Likelihood Ratio 15.524 2 .000

N of Valid Cases 146

Based on this result, we were curious as to which subgroup of current teachers were “pulling the weight” in giving this result. In other words, we wanted to find out if it

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were more experienced or less experienced current teachers that thought collaborating with students’ families was important. We then ran the same test using a filtered group of current teachers—only those who had taught for 20 or more years. Comparing the 48 pre-service teachers and the now 42 current teachers with 20 or more years’ experience, we re-ran the Chi-Square with N=90. The results again proved statistically significant at the .05 level. These results, shown in Table 2, lead to the conclusion that more experienced teachers tend to place more value on collaborating with students’ families. In fact, this data supports a strong correlation that the more experience a teacher has, the more important he or she feels collaborating with students’ families is for student learning. Table 2 Chi-Square Tests for Pre-service Teachers and “20 Years or More” Current Teachers: Level of Importance




N of Valid Cases 90

Pre-Service Teachers’ Preparedness

Next, we examined respondents’ levels of preparedness for collaborating with students’ families. First, we examined responses to question 14 on the pre-service teachers’ survey, which asked respondents how prepared they felt to incorporate various aspects of family collaboration, based on their coursework and field experiences completed so far, into their future classrooms. Fifty-three pre-service teachers

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responded to this five-part question, and Table 3 below breaks this information down into the percentages of pre-service teachers who responded either “Very Prepared or Prepared”, or “Somewhat Prepared”, or “Not at all Prepared” for each of the five parts. Table 3 Descriptive Statistics for Pre-service Teachers’ Level of Preparedness for Collaborating with Students’ Families

For three of the five components of family collaboration, the majority of respondents answered that they were either only “Somewhat Prepared” or “Not at all Prepared.” It seems that the main areas they are least prepared in are developing activities to engage families in student learning activities and communicating in ways that are appropriate to families’ cultural norms. As a whole, large percentages of education majors reported feeling unprepared in all areas involved in effective family collaboration. Current Teachers’ Preparedness

In order to examine current teachers’ levels of preparedness for collaborating

Survey Statements Very Prepared or

Prepared

Somewhat Prepared or

Not Prepared

Provide information to families about the instructional program

Provide information to families about students' individual progress

Develop activities to engage families in student learning activities

Ensure two-way communication between teacher and families

Communicate in ways that are appropriate to families' cultural norm

45.2%

58.5%

35.8%

52.8 %

37.7%

54.7%

41.5%

64.1%

47.2 %

62.%

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with students’ families upon entering the teaching profession, question 12 on the current teachers’ survey was examined. This question asked participants to indicate how prepared they were as a first year teacher to carry out five components involved with family collaboration. These five areas are identical to the five areas the pre-service teachers were asked to rate themselves on in terms of preparedness. One hundred eleven participants responded to this five-part question, and the information is broken down into the percentages of teachers who responded either “Very Prepared or Prepared”, or “Somewhat Prepared”, or “Not at all Prepared”, for each of the five parts. This information is represented in Table 4. Table 4 Chi-Square Tests for Provide Information to Families About Individual Students’ Progress





Results

Compared to the pre-service teachers’ answers to the same questions, a considerably larger amount of current teachers reported feeling unprepared to engage students’ families in all five aspects of collaboration. This could be due to several factors. Perhaps the current teachers have better insight into family collaboration while experiencing it firsthand and that the pre-service teachers do not yet realize they are more unprepared than they answered on the survey. These results could also be due to an improvement in teacher preparation programs between when the

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current teachers attended college and now. This could account for some of the differences in responses, but based on the pre-service teachers’ high percentages of unpreparedness in many areas, much improvement could be made with regard to family collaboration strategies in teacher education programs.

Preparedness by Major

Finally, preparedness was also examined in terms of academic major. All survey responses from both the pre-service and current teachers’ surveys were combined and sorted into two groups: elementary education majors or other majors. The elementary education majors group included any participants that listed elementary education as one of their majors, and the “other” group contained any respondent who did not list elementary education as one of their majors. In this case, they all happened to be secondary education majors. Using N=146, a new Chi-Square test was run to check for significant differences between major and each of the five areas of preparedness for family collaboration.

The results, reported in Tables 5-7, demonstrated that two of the five areas were

statistically significant at the .05 level: (a) providing information to families about the instructional program; and (b) developing activities to engage families in student learning activities. Participants with an elementary education major were significantly more prepared in these two areas than were their secondary education peers. The reason only two of these areas came back statistically significant may simply be because of the nature of the data sample, or else it may be signifying elementary education majors are receiving different levels of instruction in these areas than are secondary education majors. Either way, it is evident that there is some kind

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of difference that is leaving elementary education majors slightly more prepared for family collaboration.

Table 5

Chi-Square Tests for Providing Information to Families about the Instructional Program





Table 6

Chi-Square Tests for Ensure Two Way Communication Between Teacher and Families





Table 7

Chi-Square Tests for Communicate in Ways that are appropriate to Families’ Cultural Norms





Improvement of Family Collaboration

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Finally, we examined participants’ responses on how to improve teacher preparation courses with regard to preparing future teachers for collaborating with students’ families. To do this, question 12 on the pre-service teachers’ survey and question 13 on the current teachers’ survey were analyzed. These questions asked respondents what learning strategies would best support pre-service teachers in learning how to engage families in students’ educations. Seven options were listed, and participants could select any number of answer choices they felt were applicable.

As reported in Tables 8 and 9, participants overwhelmingly agreed that additional

family collaboration strategies needed to be implemented in pre-service teacher education and only 3.7% of pre-service teachers and 5.5% of current teachers responded that no additional strategies were needed. The majority of both groups responded that integrating the topics throughout coursework and adding required field- based experiences like observing a family-teacher conference would benefit future teachers the most. As one pre-service teacher noted in the comments section of the survey, “Students need to be face to face with parents. I don’t believe there is any other substitute.” Allowing pre-service teachers opportunities to work with students’ families in person is the best way to start them on the path to developing positive relationships with their students’ families.

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Table 8

Descriptive Statistics for Strategies to Support Pre-service Teachers with Family Collaboration (Pre-service Teachers responses)

Table 9

Descriptive Statistics for Strategies to Support Pre-service Teachers with Family Collaboration (Current Teachers responses)

Discussion Based on the gathered data, pre-service teachers overall are generally only

Answer Options (choose all that apply) Response % Response Count

No additional strategies are needed

Add a full course

Integrate topics throughout course

Add required field-base experience

Include topics in seminars

Other professional development

N = 54 responses

3.7 %

22.2%

79.6%

75.9%

59.3 %

33.3%

2

12

43

41

32

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Answer Options (choose all that apply) Response % Response Count

No additional strategies are needed

Add a full course

Integrate topics throughout course

Add required field-base experience

Include topics in seminars

Other professional development

N = 109 responses

5.5 %

11.9%

78.9%

60.6%

55 %

33.9%

6

13

86

66

60

37

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somewhat prepared to work with the families of their future students. A considerably larger amount of current teachers, however, reported feeling unprepared in these areas during their first year of teaching. Additionally, it seems elementary education majors are slightly better prepared in family collaboration techniques than are secondary education majors. In terms of the importance of family collaboration, current teachers placed significantly more importance on this aspect of teaching than did pre-service teachers. Finally, both groups agreed that the best ways to improve teacher preparedness in family engagement techniques would be to incorporate more family collaboration discussions into existing courses, as well as require additional field-based experiences that involve interactions with families.

Interestingly, pre-service teachers placed significantly less importance on

collaborating with students’ families than current teachers. Additional surveys and research could be done in order to pinpoint the exact reasons why this might be the case. One possibility is that current teachers simply have more experience in the area of family collaboration, and value it more compared to pre-service teachers. Along these lines, another researcher could examine the correlation between number of years taught and teachers’ increased ratings on the importance of family-teacher collaboration. Our research suggests that this correlation exists, but with additional research, this idea could be further tested and likely confirmed.

Recommendations for Further Study This research primarily focused on quantitative research methods, but further

studies of this topic could possibly focus more on qualitative research. Particularly, more in-depth surveys, interviews, or focus groups could be used to further improve the

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teaching of family-teacher collaboration in teacher preparation programs. Perhaps interviewing additional populations, such as university professors, may help shed some light into improving this crucial element of pre-service teachers’ education. Through using these additional research forms, one could even go as far as proposing the addition of a new education class or more diversified field experiences dealing with family collaboration to a university’s teacher preparation program.

Conclusion

In conclusion, developing and maintaining positive family-teacher relationships is a critical part of any teacher’s job. As important as it is, though, many pre-service teachers do not recognize its importance until they have had many years of classroom experience after graduation. Both pre-service teachers and current teachers felt relatively unprepared for incorporating family engagement techniques into their curriculum as a first-year teacher, but current teachers reported feeling more unprepared for this aspect than pre-service teachers. Both groups agreed that integrating these topics throughout existing teacher preparation coursework and requiring further field-based experiences regarding family engagement strategies would best reverse teachers’ unpreparedness in this area. Further investigations of family-teacher collaboration may provide more answers into understanding pre-service teachers’ and current teachers’ opinions of its importance, their preparedness to incorporate family collaboration strategies as first- year teachers, as well as additional ideas for the improvement of teacher preparation programs overall.

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References Casey, C. & Childs, R. (2011). Teacher education admission criteria as measure of

preparedness for teaching. Canadian Journal of Education, 34(2) 3-20. DeCastro-Ambrosetti, D. & Cho, G.. (2005). Do parents value education?

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Flanigan, C. B. (2007). Preparing preservice teachers to partner with parents and

communities: An analysis of college of education faculty focus groups. The School Community Journal, 17(2), 89-110.

Graue, E. (2005). Theorizing and describing preservice teachers’ images of families

and schooling. Teachers College Record, 107(1), 157-185. Katz, L. & Bauch, J. P. (1999). The peabody family involvement initiative:

Preparing preservice teachers for family/school collaboration. School Community Journal, 9(1), 185-205.

Markow, D., Moessner, C., & Horowitz, H. (2006). Expectations and experiences. The

MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. Markow, D. & Pieters, A. (2012). Teachers, parents, and the economy. The MetLife

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Ratcliff, N. & Hunt, G. (2009). Building teacher-family partnerships: The role of

teacher preparation programs. Education, 129(3), 495-505. Symeou, L., Roussounidou, E. & Michaelides, M. (2012). “I feel much more confident

now to talk with parents”: An evaluation of in-service training on teacher- parent communication.” School Community Journal, 22(1), 655-87.

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Documents

Are Pre-Service Teachers Prepared for Family …...parent-teacher relationships, pre-service teachers 3 Introduction Every teacher will routinely work with parents, in some capacity,