Time in Online Education Predicted Parental Involvement in their Children’s Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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 assertation, the current 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 twelfth 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 learning were more involved in providing schoolwork help to their children than parents of children who spent less of the school year in online education. Additionally, time spent in online education was associated with parents having less positive feelings towards their children’s school and teachers. These results held when controlling for parents’ education level and children’s grade level, each of which also predicted parental involvement. Thus, it appears 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.