School-Parent Communication: ls There an Association between Grade Levels and Parental Receipt of Information?

Abstract The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover if an association exists between grade-level and the type of avenues through which parents wish to receive information from their child’s school. Participants were a sample of one hundred and fifty parents of seventh and eighth grade students at an urban public junior high school in Northwest Arkansas. Participants completed an eleven question causal-comparative survey that asked parents to identify the various ways in which they prefer to receive information from the school including looking the information up on their own or having the information sent to them. In addition, the survey sought to ascertain exactly which means of modern communication parents prefer. An analysis of the results revealed that parents overwhelmingly prefer contact from the school and that the contact be through modern forms of communication such as email, text messaging, the school website, and/or Remind. Further, the analysis of the data collected revealed that parents of seventh grade students and eighth grade students each prefer contact from the school via modern avenues of communication and therefore grade-level made no distinct difference