The issue of parental involvement has been studied in the field of education since 1970s. Scholars assert that parental involvement affects students' achievement and performance; however, there is minimal research on the influence of parental involvement in physical education (PE). Parents and teachers provide the main environmental contexts where a child is developed; as such, the child's development can be enhanced with positive collaboration between parents and teachers. In order to promote best practices for students with disabilities in inclusive PE setting, it is essential for these parties to work together such as sharing their knowledge and supporting one another and the child. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the meaning of parental involvement in PE, particularly focused on the experiences of parents of children with disabilities and their relationships with PE teachers.
Method
The study, a phenomenological qualitative inquiry, was situated in the theoretical framework of ecological system (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) to explore the experiences of eight parents of school age children (8-17 years old) with developmental disabilities. The data sources were a series of semi-structural interviews, visual artifacts, documents, and researcher's journals. Participants were recruited from a Midwestern suburban area of U.S.
Analysis/Results
To identify the common structures of parents' experiences, a thematic analysis was utilized (van Manen, 1997). The data were sorted by highlighting, coding, and categorizing according to their similarities and organized into themes. Four themes were revealed: (a) being an advocate and supporter, (b) creating opportunities to participate, (c) communication is a key, and (d) I am a part of team. All participants were actively involved in their children's education, including home, school, and community. Parental involvement was understood to be aware of the educational programs and to support both teachers and their children. However, they were less involved in PE than with other school subjects. Nonetheless the parents sensed that the allotted time in PE was too short for their children, as such they were highly involved in their children's extracurricular sport programs in school and community. The parents believe it is important to collaborate with teachers for maximizing skill development, but mostly they communicated with the special education or adapted physical education teachers and cited limited opportunity to interact with the regular PE teacher.
Conclusions
This study recommended the needs of collaboration between PE teacher and parents of children with disabilities, PE teachers' IEP involvement, and re-structuring school PE time augmenting children's development.
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