The Challenges and Opportunities Experienced by Parent Supervisors in Primary School Distance Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47381/aijre.v23i2.659Keywords:
distance education, parent supervisors, learning environment, relationships, isolated childrenAbstract
For a number of very remote students in Australia, distance education is regarded as the most effective means of providing access to primary school education. For these students isolation is experienced not only in relation to distance from a physical school, but also from a professionally trained educator and the instructional benefits this provides. In bridging the gap between the teacher and student the parent supervisor is vital. However little is known about their role and the challenges and opportunities it affords them in educating their children by this means. This paper reports on a research project that examined the role of parent supervisors in primary school distance education with the aim of understanding how they experience their role. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with volunteer parent supervisors of New South Wales primary school distance education students to gain insight into their practices and the opportunities and challenges they face in their role. Interview transcripts were analysed using a three step data coding framework to explore the themes that emerged in their experiences. This revealed that while most parent supervisors do not have formal qualifications in education, they undertake many tasks akin to those of a teacher and experience similar challenges to new teachers. In particular, supervisors have a crucial role in implementing lessons, motivating and engaging their children in learning, preparing for the lessons, assisting with problems their children encounter and monitoring their children’s progress. One of the main challenges parent supervisors experience is uncertainty, with many doubting their effectiveness in relation to technicalities in key learning areas and managing multi-age groupings. Parent supervisors report that the challenges are outweighed by the opportunities their role provides, particularly their close involvement with their children’s learning and the sense of reward they gain from this. Through this research a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities parent supervisors encounter will enable planning for their role to be improved. It contributes to the broader understanding of rural education by bringing the experiences of an often overlooked cohort of educators into the research literature who are essential to education in rural Australia.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 Natalie Downes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to The Australian and Internation Journal of Rural Education agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license, allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, under the condition that appropriate credit is given, that a link to the license is provided, and that you indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to The Australian and Internation Journal of Rural Education.
Manuscripts submitted for publication should not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. It is the responsibility of authors to secure release of any copyright materials included in their manuscripts, and to provide written evidence of this to the editors.
Papers are accepted on the understanding that they are subject to editorial revision. The Editorial Committee cannot guarantee that all contributions will be published nor give definite dates of publication. However, contributors will be advised if their papers are not accepted or if there will be a long publication delay.