Assisting Parents Assisting

Students:
Relationship between parents’ technology skills and K-12
students’ academic achievements

Marghalani, Asma
ETR 540
Summer 2016
Northern Illinois University

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 Purpose of Study and Research Questions
• To examine whether parents’ technology skills are related to academic achievement among K-12 students in
Dekalb, IL.

• RQ1: To what extent do parents’ technology skills in Dekalb, IL support K-12 students’ academic
achievement?
• predicting the probability of K-12 parents using technology, gender, and family SES as predictors

• predicting the probability of college success using SAT scores, gender, and family SES as predictors

• Whether or not predict use technology for your child homework effect by gender,

• RQ2: Is there a relationship between parents’ technology skills in Dekalb, IL and K-12 students' academic
achievement?
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Web Link to Survey

https://goo.gl/r9AZdB

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Primary Variables: Alignment to Survey Items
Primary variables Associated survey items
Parents’ technology skills 5-item Likert scale (see subsequent slide)

Child’s academic Single item: “Overall, what your child grade like?” (drop
achievement down menu with grade A=90-100, B=80-89, C=70-79,
D=60-69 and F= less than 60)

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 Parents Technology Skills Scale

Item responses coded

1=SD to 5=SA

There is no Composite score

negatively computed as the sum
worded items. of the item scores
Not needed to
Reverse-coded

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Auxiliary Variables: Alignment to Survey Items
Auxiliary Associated survey items
variables
Gender Single item: “What is your gender?” (2 options: female, male)
Ethnicity Single item: “Please indicate category best describes your ethnicity?” (drop-down
menu with ethnicity)
Highest degree Single item: “Please indicate the highest educational degree that you’ve
in education earned?”( drop-down menu with educational degrees)
Age Single item: “Please indicate your current age range” (drop-down menu with ages in
5-year increments)
Children’s grade Multiple choice item: “My child is the following grade level” (Multiple chicer item K-
12 grades)
Technology Single item: “What the three technology tools would you most like to see used by the
tools would school?” (Open-Response Item )
most like to use

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Sample Page Illustrating Survey Layout

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Sample
• Parents from K-12 school in the Dekalb, IL.

• Convenience sampling was used

• Students were currently enrolled in a survey research methods course
• N = 26 students responded

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Demographic Characteristics of Sample
1- Gender 2- Ethnicity

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Demographic Characteristics of Sample
3- Highest educational degree 4- Age

Mean = 3.05
Sid.Div.= 1.22
N= 22

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Demographic Characteristics of Sample
5- Child’s level grade

7-9
(7%)

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Results from Coding of Open-Response Item:
“What the three technology tools would you most like to see used by the school?”

Attribute Percent of respondents

Chromebook 10%
Sharing file (Google drive, Dropbox, Microsoft 5%
SkyDrive..etc)
Email 7%
iPad 15%
EdBlogs 5%
Research databases 5%
Creating Presentation online (Prezi, SlideShare..etc 7%
Video editor such as Movie Maker 10%

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Reliability Information for Parents Technology Skills Scale
Reliability Statistics
Cronbach's Alpha N of Items
.670 5

Item-Total Statistics
  Scale Scale Corrected Cronbach's
Mean if Variance if Item-Total Alpha if
Item Item Correlation Item
Deleted Deleted Deleted
I assist my child in using a computer for school 17.11 7.516 .149 .725
projects.
I have good computer skills. 16.89 4.693 .643 .496
I have good overall knowledge of technology. 16.94 5.585 .592 .540
My child frequently uses technology for homework. 17.00 6.941 .449 .621
I'm comfortable to communicate with teachers via 16.94 6.056 .359 .653
technology tools (email, school web page, cell phone)

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Distributions of Primary Variables in Survey
Parents technology skills

Parents’ technology skills (Composite score) 14

Distributions of Primary Variables in Survey
 Students’ academic achievement

Mean = 1.55
Sid.Div. = 0.72
N=22

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Analysis Plan
• RQ1: To what extent do parents’ technology skills in Dekalb, IL support
K-12 students’ academic achievement?
Analysis: Two-sample t-test to compare mean K-12 students’ academic
achievement for parents who have technology skills vs. parents who don’t have
technology skills.

• RQ2: Is there a relationship between parents’ technology skills in

Dekalb, IL and K-12 students' academic achievement?
• Analysis: Linear regression to K-12 students’ academic achievement to parents’
technology skills.

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Thank You

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