Siko, J., & Barbour, M. K. (2014, March). Blended learning from the perspective of parents and students. A brief paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Jacksonville, FL.

1. Blended Learning from
the Perspective of
Parents and Students
Jason Siko
Assistant Professor of
Educational Technology
Grand Valley State
University
Michael Barbour
Director of Doctoral Studies
Assistant Professor of
Educational Leadership
Sacred Heart University

2. Student Perceptions
 Generally speaking, students have a positive
perception of blended instruction (Chandra &
Fisher, 2009; Geçer, 2013; Pratt & Trewern, 2011)
 While they enjoyed the experience, did desire more
face-to-face communication

3. Parent Perceptions
 Little research done on perceptions of parents
 Different role than with college-age online
students
 They are not the instructor, facilitator, or technical
support for the course; however, they often play all
of these roles at some point
 Parental support is important to the success of
virtual student (Black,2009), but they themselves
might be uncomfortable/unfamiliar with the
learning environment

4. Research Questions
1.What are the perceptions of
students in a blended learning
class?
2.What are the perceptions of
parents whose students are in a
blended learning class?

5. Setting
 AY2011-2012
 Large, suburban, Midwestern high school (~1800
students in grades 10-12)
 Culturally homogenous; however, diverse with
respect to SES
 Course: International Baccalaureate Biology –
Higher Level (IB Bio-HL)
 43 students, grade 10
 1st half of course – Face-to-face
 2nd half of course - blended

6. Methods
 Administered anonymous survey via Google
Forms to parents and students
 All students participated (n=47)
 Limited parent participation (n=14)
 Descriptive statistics for Likert and selected-
response questions
 Open-ended questions were analyzed for themes
using constant comparative method (Strauss &
Corbin, 1994)

12.  Liked the independence
 Although some struggled with the autonomy (~liked the
“pressure” of being in class)
 Many admitted to falling behind
 Various “favorites”/”dislikes”
 Some wanted more communication/had confusion

13. Parents

16. Parent comments
 Excited with a little apprehension
 Some frustration with communication (grades)
 Despite access to online grades
 “ABLE to get lazy…”
 Overall, most seemed glad their student had the
experience.

17. Implications
 Emphasize communication in teacher preparation
for blended instruction to both parents and
students
 Look for ways to mitigate organization and self-
regulation issues

18. Questions?

19. Thanks for coming!
Jason P. Siko
Assistant Professor of
Educational Technology
Grand Valley State
University
Grand Rapids, MI
sikojp@gmail.com
sikoj@gvsu.edu
http://jasonsiko.com
@jasonsiko
Michael K. Barbour
Director of Doctoral Studies, Isabelle
Farrington College of Education
Assistant Professor, Educational
Leadership
Sacred Heart University
Fairfield, CT
mkbarbour@gmail.com
http://michaelbarbour.com
http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com
@mkbshu