Browsing by Subject "päällekkäiset vaikutusalueet"

In previous studies it has been found a connection between pupils' school success and the quality of home-school partnership. The aim of this study is to map perceptions of parents of school-age children about home-school partnership. Furthermore this study will canvass practices of partnership that are practical or need to be improved from parents' viewpoint. The theoretical framework of this study is made up of Epstein's (1987, 1992, 1994) model overlapping spheres of influence and the six major types of partnership activities. The data of this study is collected via web-survey, which purpose was to map pupils and their parents' viewpoints to support the improvement of basic education in the research city. The questionnaire was answered by 3859 parents and 1252 pupils. The survey consisted of background questions, structured questions and open-ended questions. This study is a mixed methods study which has both quantitative and qualitative part. At the quantitative part of the study the sum of the variables have been formed by factor analysis and then examined with different background variables using analysis of variance. Qualitative data is analyzed by deductive content analysis. Epstein's (1992, 1994) six major types of partnership activities is used as a framework for analysis. At the end quantitative and qualitative part will integrate as meta-inferences. In this study parents' perceptions of the interaction between home and school was positive. Also their knowledge about student welfare team was quite good. Parents' view of home-school interaction was statistically significant related to pupil's grade. The knowledge about student welfare team was statistically significant related to pupil's grade, mother's education and pupil's support level. Partnership activities that belong to the basic obligations of school communication, for example informing and personal meetings, gathered both most compliments and most developmental proposals. Parents view home-school partnership important and they hope investment for its improvement.