A phenomenological study: Parental involvement at the high school level.

摘要

Purpose. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and systematically describe the essence of the experience of parents who volunteer where their children attend high school.;Methodology. In this study, a qualitative design was best suited to capture the lived experiences of parents who were school site volunteers. The researcher interviewed ten (N=10) individuals who had served as volunteers in their children's high schools. Data were collected using purposeful sampling. Reliability and validity were established using Patton's (2002) approaches of epoche, phenomenological reduction, bracketing, textual portrayal, and structural synthesis.;Findings. Transcripts were read and reviewed several times to formulate meanings from significant statements and report themes that described the essence of the experience of parent involvement at the high school level. The five themes were explained and supported by the significant statements gathered from the interviews.;Conclusions. The results of the study support and add to the body of work that currently exists with respect to parental involvement. The key themes include: making a difference in students' lives, spending time with their own children, starting volunteerism early, effective teacher communication, and importance of being valued and appreciated as parent volunteers.;Recommendations. Further studies could involve more participants, random sampling, or other qualitative and quantitative methods to get results that may be more generalizable to a larger population. Studies involving students should be conducted in which their perspectives on parent involvement are explored. Future phenomenological research could be conducted with parents who served as volunteers, but no longer do so. Also, more research can help schools understand what resources teachers need to be able to stay in direct, and frequent contact with their students' parents and maintain volunteering efforts. Additional research can be done to understand the barriers to involvement at the high school level. Future studies could focus on different types of involvement at the high school level relative to specific student outcomes. Finally, the researcher recommends that a mixed methods or a quantitative study be done to further explore how to increase the number of parent volunteers at the high school level.