2010

School-home communication,
Parent Involvement and Student
Achievement.

By
Eva Kerubo Nchogu
 Introduction

While presenting a paper at the 2009 Fourth Annual Gusii Educational & Advancement

Conference Dr. Tabitha Otieno listed maximized school-parents’ partnerships as one of the

characteristics documented in better performing schools within the Gusii region. According to

Callison (2004) solid home-school partnerships are based on effective two way communication.

Two-way communication is more than just dialogue; it is a dialogue that leads to mutual

understanding between the communicator and the audience for the good of all concerned parties.

This study intends to compare the school-home communication practices of six schools in

Nyamira district.

Background of the study

Data from the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) show that schools in Gusii

districts are underperforming in relation to schools in other districts in Nyanza. This worrying

trend has not always been the case. In the 1970s and 1980s some schools that are now plagued

with poor KCSE results were household names of academic excellence. Scholars from the region

have looked at various elements of secondary education in the area (Nyambega, 1996;

Onwong’a. 1996 & Otieno, 2009). Few of these scholars however have dissected any of the

proposed causes of poor performance in depth to allow the region to come up with action plans

and strategies that can help the area improve secondary education.

While presenting a paper at the 2009 Fourth Annual Gusii Educational & Advancement

Conference Dr. Tabitha Otieno listed maximized school-parents partnerships as one of the

characteristics witnessed in better performing schools within the region. The poor performing

schools on the other hand documented poor relations between teachers, parents and students.

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 Human relations cannot exist without communication but rather they are initiated, built

and managed by communication. This communication may be planned or unplanned depending

on the kind or relationships one wants to build. Professionals everywhere are finding their roles

redefined by the changes in the environment. For teachers their role has swelled to include public

relations (Davies, S. Darling-Hammond, L. LaPointe, M. and Meyerson, D. 2005). Parents form

key constituents of Kenyan secondary schools not only because of their role of providing the

students but also because they pay school fees that sustain schools.

The link between poor teacher-parents’ relations and poor performance is in line with

studies done as far back as 1986 (Gotts, E.E. & Purnell, R.F. 1986; Clark, R., 1983 &

Henderson, A. T. 1981). These studies underpin the importance of good school-home

relationships in boosting performance. Given the importance of these relationships it is

paramount therefore that schools come up with strategies to improve the relationships between

them and parents. The key to improving these relationships is communication.

According to Callison (2004) solid home-school partnerships are based on effective two

way communication. This stance is supported by Rubenstein, Patrikakou, Wessberg, Redding, &

Walberg (2007). They point out that school-home communication is the ‘catalyst of parent

involvement activities’ and that two-way school home communication ‘reflects the reciprocity

that a collaborative relationship must have in-order to be most effective’ (p.8).

One of the parent involvement models widely used by researchers and practitioners is

that of Joyce Epstein (1987, 1995). The model divides parent involvement into six typologies.

The first type of involvement is parenting. Here schools help parents to establish home

environments that are conducive to their children’s student life. The second type of involvement

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is communication. Schools are strongly encouraged to design and implement effective school-

home, home-school communication practices about school programs and children’s progress.

Third, parents can be recruited as volunteers in school activities. Epstein calls this type of

involvement volunteering. In addition, schools can ask parents to help their children with their

homework in parent involvement type four of learning at home. Fifth, schools should include

parents in schools decision making. Parent involvement type six is collaboration with the

community where schools identify and integrate community resources to strengthen school

programs, family practices and student learning and development.

The second typology-communication permeates other typologies like volunteering,

parent contribution in decision making and school collaboration with the community. Parents

cannot contribute to school’s decision making or incorporate community resources without

knowledge of existence of these resources or the presence of a choice to be made. Schools need

to make parents aware and welcome for them to be able to make that decision to be involved.

This awareness can only be created through communication. It is paramount therefore that

teachers and school managers invest in improving their communication skills and practices if

they hope to involve parents and inevitably improve performance.

This study intends to compare the school-home communication practices of selected

performing and non performing schools in Nyamira district. The impacts of these practices on

parents’ decisions to be involved in school and students’ activities will also be analysed with the

aim of coming up with recommendations for better communication strategies that encourage

parent involvement.

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 Two-Way Communication and Parent Involvement

According to Henderson & Mapp (2002) strong partnerships are built by school programs

whose focus is on building respectful relationships with the schools key constituents. Programs

based on respectful relationships are ‘effective in creating and sustaining family and community

relations with schools’ (p. 43). Every relationship is started, sustained or ended through

communication. Hiatt-Michael (2010) posits that the quality of communication determines the

nature of relationships built between schools and parents.

Research supports the positive outcomes of two way communications in getting parents

involved in school activities and student life. Callison (2004) states that, effective

communication between teacher and parents leads to solid relationships that are beneficial to the

efforts of parent involvement. He goes further to define effective home-school communications

as the ‘two-way sharing of information vital to students’ success.’

Two-way communication demands that communicators (in this case teachers and school

managers) go out of their way to find out what publics (parents) feel, need and expect of

involvement programs. If the parent involvement programs are anchored in this knowledge then

the chances of the program’s success are increased. The concept of two-way communication

between an organisation and its stakeholders gained popularity in the 1980s with Grunig and

Hunt’s (1984) proposition of four models for relating with publics. They propose that there are

four roles or models that can be employed in relating to publics. These four modes are:

1. Press agentry/publicity: activities designed to achieve favourable

media attention.

2. Public information: The one-way distribution of objective

information about an organisation to a public. This model has
frequently been linked with the concept of public relations as
propaganda.

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 3. Two-way asymmetric: a system that allows an organisation to put
out its information and to receive feedback from its publics about that
information. However, the organisation does not necessarily respond
to that feedback in the way the public has requested. Under this
model, an organisation would not change a decision as a result of
feedback, but might instead concentrate on putting across its preferred
option to publics in a more favourable and effective way.
4. Two-way symmetric: a model that advocates free and equal
information flow between an organisation and its publics, leading to
mutual understanding and responsiveness. This may result in either
the organisation or its publics being persuaded to change their
position. But the model is regarded as equally effective if neither
group changes, “as long as both communicate well enough to
understand the position of the other” (Grunig & Hunt 1984, p. 23).

Out of the four models the two-way symmetrical model has received more debate and

criticisms (Yarbrough,Cameron,Sallot & Mcwilliams 1998). This debate accelerated with the

inclusion of the model in the propositions of the excellence theory of public relations to be

discussed later in this study. The theorists define excellence as the continual profitability of an

organization. Not all profits are in monetary terms; this is especially true for most service

providing organizations. Indicators for this profit in the Kenyan secondary schools include the

number of students the school is able to send to institutions of higher learning. This is a feat only

realized by having students meet the cut off mark pre-set by the Joint Admissions Board (JAB).

According to Grunig & Grunig (2008) excellence in public relations “build(s) quality,

long-term relationships with strategic constituencies”. As seen earlier in this discussion, parent

involvement is heavily dependent on good long- term relationships between schools and parents.

Parents are strategic constituencies of all Kenyan secondary schools because they pay school

fees, which sustain life in the schools. Without parents’ support, secondary schools are doomed

to fail not only academically but in many other aspects as well. The sustenance of the school

system therefore largely depends on parents support. The two-way symmetric model of

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communications and the theory of excellence have a lot to offer to school managers and teachers

in their quest to effectively communicate and build relationships with their strategic constituents.

This section has highlighted the positive impacts of parent involvement in student

achievement. It has also explored the role of two-way communications in building and

maintaining home-school partnerships essential for parent involvement. In addition, the two-way

symmetrical model of communication and the excellence theory of public relations have been

mentioned with regard to their possible contributions to establishing and maintaining good shool-

home relationships.

Some points beg emphasis; maximized school-parent partnership has been listed as a

component of successful schools in Gusii (Otieno, 2009). These relations can be improved

through trust and open two-way communications between schools and parents (Callison 2004;

Patrikakou, Wessberg, Redding & Walberg, 2007; Henderson & Mapp, 2002 and Hiatt-Michael,

2010). It is with this mindset that this research compares the communication practices of the

selected schools in Nyamira district and their impact on parent involvement.

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 Statement of the problem

Schools in Gusii districts are underperforming in relation to other Nyanza districts. Poor

school-home relations has been cited (Otieno, 2009) as one of the causes of this

underperformance. Nyamira district is among the worst hit by poor KCSE performance. In the

2009 KCSE results only 40 students out of the 4, 700 candidates who sat for the examination in

the district scored B+ and above, the minimum grade for direct entry to public universities. 326

students scored C+ and above. This dismal performance is an improvement from the 2008 KCSE

exam results when only 24 candidates scored B+ and above (Nation team, 2010).

It is noteworthy that even in these seemingly poor performing districts some schools have

managed to record high numbers of university probables than their counterparts with the same

facilities within the same districts. These schools- Nyambaia Boys high school and Sironga girls

usually share the bulk of the university probables with the rest having one or two students

managing a grade that can earn them entry into public university.

The performing schools and non-performing schools practice home-school

communications to inform parents of their children’s progress. This exchange of information

between schools and homes is a type two parent involvement process. This study seeks to find

out whether the communication practices employed by the perfoming and non-perfoming

schools differ and whether these differences impact on parent involvement.

Purpose of the Study

This study intends to identify and compare the home-school communication practices of

performing and non-performing schools of Nyamira district with the aim of establishing whether

the differences (if any) in communication impact parent involvement.

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 Rationale for the Study

Scholars have researched on the causes of the severe underperformance of Nyamira and

the larger Gusii the region relative to other parts of Nyanza (Nyambega, A.R. 1996; Onwong’a

G.M. (1996; Nyakundi, G.M. & Otieno, T. 2009). Few of these scholars however have gone

back to dissect the specific issues that they found to have caused poor performance. In issue

management it is not enough that one just identifies an issue. More important than identification

of an issue is its understanding and the people affected by the issue. This understanding helps

stakeholders to come up with plans, strategies and mitigation measures for the identified issue.

This delves the communication element of school-home partnerships In addition; no home-

school communication research based on data from Kenya exists. This study will contribute to

the existing knowledge of communication and education.

Significance of the Study

This study will be significant in promoting the instruction of teachers on school-home

communications and by extension better performance of students and motivation of teachers.

This study will also be beneficial to teachers, school managers and all educational stakeholders

at large when choosing when, how and what to communicate to parents to encourage their

involvement. By understanding the informational needs of the parents and benefits of school-

home partnerships and the role communication plays in these partnerships both performing and

nonperforming schools will be one more step towards excellence. Moreover, findings from this

research and others that it may trigger can be used to lobby for the inclusion of specific home-

school communication modules in teacher training syllabuses.

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 Last, this study will be helpful to the education and communication professionals in

Kenya by informing them in the area of school-home communication management and school-

home stakeholder management and strategies. It will also serve as a future reference for

researchers on the subject of school-home communications, corporate communications and

stakeholder management for secondary schools. Most importantly, this research can form the

basis for the crafting of a home-school communications strategy for the individual schools

understudy or the whole of Nyamira district under the auspices of the District Educational

Offices.

Limitations and Delimitations of the Study

This study is delimited to six schools in Nyamira District. This delimitation is put in

place to allow for the indepth study and understanding of home-school communication practices

within the district. These schools will be randomly selected to decrease biasness and increase

validity of the findings.

Second, the study focuses on home-school communication as an element of home-school

partnerships. Home-school partnership is one among the many factors that influence the

performance of students. This choice is based on the researcher’s academic and professional

experience.

Student performance is a theoretical construct that is difficult to define. Different scholars

define performance differently and these definitions focus on different aspects. This study will be

limited to the definition of student performance based on aggregate scores in the Kenya

Certificate of Secondary Education examination.

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 Some qualitative method will be utilised in this study therefore the findings will be

limited to any ambiguities. These ambiguities will be recognised in the reporting and analysis of

the data collected.

Another limitation is external validity. The findings cannot be generalised to all

secondary schools in Nyamira or even all performing and performing cases in the schools

studied. In addition, the results will be limited to the honesty of the participants and their non-

biased participation.

Assumptions of the study

This study is based on the following assumptions:-

1. That there exists communications between the selected schools and their key constituents

(parents).

2. Given the fronting of two-way communications as the better method of organizational

communication and home-school communication, this study assumes that two-way

home-school communication is the most effective means of engaging parents in the

selected schools.

3. The study is also based on the assumption that participants will be willing to participate

in the study and will respond to the questions honestly and in a manner that does not bias

the study results. This assumption is based on the importance of this study to its

stakeholders.

4. This study assumes that the study will be relevant to stakeholders because

communication is the basis of relationships and school-home partnerships which have

been associated with positive outcomes for students.

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 Definition of terms

The following terms used in the study have been defined as follows:

Parent involvement

The definitions of parent involvement are often deconstructed to reflect Epstein’s six

typologies of parent involvement (Henderson & Mapp 2002). This study defines parent

involvement as those programs and practices initiated by teachers and school managers to

encourage families’ active input in school and student activities.

Achievement

The definition of student achievement is complex and may be based on numerous aspects

of achievement. This study limits its bases its definition of student achievement on the

performance of schools and individual students in the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education.

The decision of this base for the definition is made due the measurability of this aspect of

achievement in relation to other aspects that are hard to measure and require observation of the

individual for long periods of time.

This limitation however does not take away from the fact that the purpose of education is

to better an individual intellectually with the hope that with this intellectual improvement the

individual will also improve their life and those around them. The educational purpose therefore

is not geared towards the mind as much as it is towards the production of a well rounded

productive individual fit for the work place and the society he/she lives in.

Communication

For the purposes of this study, communication refers to the strategic transfer of meaning

from one party to another. The key words in this definition are ‘strategic’ and ‘meaning’. For

communication to have taken place therefore, that the intended meaning has to be identical to the

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actual meaning perceived. This transfer of meaning has also got to be intended to aid in the

achievement of a school’s academic goals.

School-home communication

School-home communication is communication initiated by a school to the homes of the

school’s student body.

Excellence

In defining excellence Grunig & Grunig (2008) discuss a definition put forth by Peters

and Waterman (1982) who define excellence (in organizations) as ‘having been continuously

profitable’(p.277). Grunig and Grunig’s definition of organizational effectiveness goes beyond

profits to look at how these profits were reached at. They define organizational effectiveness as

achievement of organizational goals that are set in partnership with the organizations key

constituents. These goals are not only to be set participatorily but they must cover both the

organizations needs and interests but also those of their strategic constituencies.

For the purposes of this study excellence is defined as having been continuously in a top

ten position in KCSE results in Nyamira district. The most excellent school would have achieved

this with the involvement of parents in setting a school’s academic targets and pass marks for

moving from one class to the next.

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