The Ohio State University's College of Education and Human Ecology and the Ohio Statewide Family Engagement Center are inviting schools to participate in a potential future research project titled "Using Technology to Promote Parent Engagement Across the Middle School Transition." If we receive funding for this project, it is projected to start in fall of 2021 and continue through the 2023/2024 school year. In this project, we will run a series of short-term studies in order to examine the efficacy of several short-term interventions designed to encourage parental involvement during the year prior to the transition from elementary school into middle school. We are proposing this study because the transition from elementary school into middle school is often a difficult time for students, and many students who did well in elementary school start to get poorer grades in middle school. Our goal is to provide parents with helpful strategies that they can easily implement at home to support students’ achievement and motivation. We will focus in particular on helping parents to promote (a) effective study-skills and academic self-regulatory strategies, and (b) effective emotion-regulation strategies. We hope to recruit schools and districts to participate from a mix of urban, rural, and suburban locations, primarily across the state of Ohio. If these interventions are effective (which we believe they will be, based on prior research), your students’ achievement, motivation, and engagement are likely to improve. In addition, all participating schools will receive a small financial stipend, serving as a “thank you” for participating (we do not know the amount yet; this will depend on the funding). The interventions will be delivered during the year prior to the transition. We will administer some brief surveys to students to see if the interventions are making a difference. Involvement will require only minimal effort from school personnel – our team will handle the data collection, and we will work with school/district technology staff to coordinate the communication of these strategies to parents. All participating schools will receive the program, but at different time points during the course of the project. During any periods when your school is not actively receiving the program, we will still collect comparison data from your school. This will help both you and us to assess the effectiveness of the program for your students. Are you interested in having your school district participate? If so, please click the link below to tell us a bit about your school/district. |
Founded in 1901, Ohio PTA is the oldest and largest volunteer organization in the State of Ohio focusing on the health, welfare, safety, and education of children and youth.