Peer-reviewed article
Time in online education predicted parental involvement in their children's education during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson RM, Du H, Little CW, Hart SA ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how the amount of time children spent in online education during the COVID-19 pandemic affected parental involvement in their learning. Using data from 833 US parents with children in kindergarten through 12th grade during the 2020-2021 school year, researchers found that parents whose children spent more time in online education showed greater agency and confidence in their involvement with school. The relationship between online education time and parental involvement varied depending on children's age groups and parents' education levels.
Key points
- Parents of children in more online education demonstrated more agency in their children's education
- Time spent in online education was associated with parents' school partnership confidence
- Parents' education level and children's grade level also predicted parental involvement
- The association between online education and parent involvement differed by age group
- This is the first empirical study to support that online education time predicted parental involvement during the pandemic
Limitations
The study does not clarify whether increased parental involvement was beneficial or detrimental to children's educational outcomes or well-being. The findings are specific to the 2020-2021 school year during COVID-19 lockdowns and may not generalise to other contexts or time periods.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-reaching, global impacts on families that continue to be felt, particularly in education. Past research has documented changes in parents' involvement in their children's education during, as compared to before, the COVID-19 pandemic. It is often assumed that these changes are due to the increased burden placed on parents due to education being moved online in an effort to prevent disease spread. Despite this widely accepted assertion, the present study is the first to empirically investigate and support that the amount of time children were in online education predicted parents' involvement in their children's learning during the pandemic. This was done in the present preregistered study with data on 833 parents from across the United States with twin children in kindergarten through 12th grade during the 2020-2021 school year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that parents of children who spent a higher percentage of the school year in online education demonstrated more agency in education than parents of children who spent less of the school year in online education. In addition, time spent in online education was associated with parents' school partnership confidence. These results held when controlling for parents' education level and children's grade level, each of which also predicted parental involvement. However, the association between online education and parent involvement differed by age group. We conclude that time spent in online education predicted parents' involvement in their children's education during the COVID-19 pandemic, but this differed by various factors of parental involvement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Online education (children attending school online rather than in-person during COVID-19)
- Population
- 833 parents from across the United States with twin children in kindergarten through 12th grade during the 2020-2021 school year
Key finding
Parents of children who spent a higher percentage of the school year in online education demonstrated more agency in education