Parental Involvement in Distance Learning of their Children

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought sudden and abrupt changes to schools especially on the learning setup of its learners. These changes have compromised different areas of learning, and one crucial is the absence of physical classrooms that have traditionally been the landscape of teaching and learning activities. This paper determined the extent of involvement of parents in the distance learning activities of their children. It identified the profile of parent-respondents in terms of gender, age, number of children, occupation and educational attainment. It determined the assistance parents give in the different learning activities their children have in the modular learning setup, and the extent of involvement of parents to the distant learning activities of their children along with pick-up and retrieval of modules, instruction on the modules, completion of modules and assessment of the modules. These data, it established the significant relationship between the profile of parents to the extent of their involvement in the distance learning activities of their children. It further acknowledged the challenges are faced by the parents in this new learning setup. It utilized descriptive survey methods of research with parents of the pupils through a random sampling method. Researcher-made questionnaires and interviews were used as data gathering tools. Frequency count, percentage, rank, mean and Chi-Square test were the statistical treatments used. The result showed that there were more male parent-respondents than female respondents; most of them belonged to middle age individuals; they have three to five children in the family; most of them are housewives and labourers, and most of them did not finish their high school studies. Parents revealed that most of the assistance they give to their children is to pick up and return the modules of their children. Along with the extent of involvement of parents in the distance learning, parents were found to be involved along pick up and retrieving modules, instruction on the modules, completion of modules, and assessment of the modules. The age of the respondents was found to be a significant factor that influence the extent of their involvement in the distance learning of their children. While along with completion of modules, education attainment and age showed to be of a significant relationship. Parents faced challenges in extending their assistance in the distance learning of their children such as lack of knowledge about the lesson to be taught to their children, misbehaviour of their children when answering the modules, multitasking of working parents and vulnerability to distraction such as TV shows, games and cellphones.