Performing Department
Human Sciences
Non Technical Summary
The focus of this proposal is to understand the ways in which family-professional collaborations affect and improve positive outcomes for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in response to diverse platforms for collaboration. The termeducatoris inclusive of professionals working in early care and education settings, Head Start, general education teachers, early interventionists, and early childhood special educators. Fiveprojects are proposed, spanning a four-year period. The first project is a national survey to explore the practices, beliefs, and experiences of providing early childhood education in virtual formats, specificallyeducator training needs regarding practices to support families and young children in virtual learning. The second is a qualitative study to understand how COVID-19 has and will impact family-professional collaborations and developmental/academic growth, and what supports are needed to address the impact and improve outcomes. The third year will focus on a systematic review of empirical and qualitative studies evaluating preservice and/or inservice training in providing early childhood education in virtual formats. The fourth year will involve designing and testing preservice and inservice educator training projects, curricula, and/or programs with the aim of increasing educator confidence and competence to support family-professional collaboration and support positive child outcomes in virtual formats.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
50%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has required early learning, intervention services, meetings, methods of communication, and family life to drastically and rapidly adapt. Family-professional collaboration must be occurring virtually since this shift, but currently, data regarding virtual family-professional collaboration since this shift do not exist but are crucial to understand in order to develop effective training. This is particularly important, as this shift in services will likely continue to occur for the foreseeable future. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring what educators are currently doing to support family-professional partnerships, how family-professional partnerships can be supported in virtual formats, and how training programs can increase the use of supportive practices. This goal will be achieved by accomplishing the following objectives:Goal 1 (Years 1-2): To collect descriptive and qualitative data on the reported beliefs, training needs, practices, challenges, and experiences of early childhood educators regarding virtual family-professional collaboration.Objective1.1: Conduct national survey research to understand educators' beliefs, training needs, challenges, and virtual collaboration experiences of educators regarding virtual family-professional collaboration during coaching, instruction, home visits, and meetings (e.g., Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) meetings, parent-teacher conferences, informal conversations).Objective 1.2: Conduct a qualitative study using semistructuredinterviews withfamilies and educators to understand their experiences with virtual collaborative practices, including parent-teacher conferences, IFSP, orIEP meetings, assessment practices, and planning/providing virtual instruction.Objective 1.3: Conduct a review of the available literature regarding preservice and inservice training onv irtual family-professional collaboration to understand characteristics of effective training on virtual family-professional collaboration.Goal 2 (Years 3-4): To develop and measure the impact of preservice curricula and inservice training (e.g., early career mentorship, professional development) focused on practices used to collaborate virtually with families.Objective 2.1: Conduct an intervention study using a pre/post design that evaluates the effects of a family interview project on the confidence and competence of preservice undergraduate students to engage in collaborative interactions with families virtually.Objective 2.2: Based on the results from the survey andqualitative studiesas well as theliterature reviewoutlined inGoal 1, develop and test the effectiveness of a virtualinservice training program using a randomized controlled trial to determine whether the training increases professionals' knowledge of skills, practices, confidence, and competence regarding collaboration with families in virtual formats.
Project Methods
Five studies are proposed to address the objectives. The first and second studies will use exploratory research designs (specifically survey and qualitative designs) to address the first objective. The third study will involve conducting a literature review. The fourth study will involve the developing and evaluating of preservice training to address the second objective. The fourth study will involve developing and evaluating the effectiveness of inservice training. These studies will be completed in four phases spanning four-years. This section provides a brief summary of each phase (see the timetable for a more detailed overview of each phase).Phase 1: Exploratory Research (Objective 1)Survey Research (Year 1).The first phase will involve conducting survey and qualitative research designs to explore the training needs, challenges, and virtual collaboration experiences of educators. This study is expected to take approximately one year and will involve editing a survey that was previously developed by the researcher, obtaining IRB approval, piloting the survey, recruiting participants, and analyzing the data. Participants will be recruited for the survey through publicly available emails listed on state educational and lead agency websites and social media (Twitter and Facebook). Educators from school districts will be randomly selected using the National Center for Education Statistics school district database, while educators from early childhood education settings (e.g., Head Start, community-based childcare under State Departments of Health) will be recruited using listservs from state-level directors.Data analysis will involve descriptive statistics and logistic regression for the survey results. A power analysis will be calculated to determine an adequate sample size once the number of survey items are finalized.Literature Review (Year 1).A systematic review of available literature regarding preservice and inservice training on virtual family-professional collaboration will be conducted. In particular, characteristics of effective training on virtual family-professional collaboration will be the focus of the review to inform future research and develop preservice/inservice training.Qualitative Research (Year 1-2).Qualitative research will involve interviewing educators and families to understand their experiences with virtual collaborative practices, including parent-teacher conferences, Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) meetings, assessment practices, and planning/providing virtual instruction. This phase will involve obtaining IRB approval, piloting the interview protocol using focus groups, recruiting participants, recording interviews with families and educators to explore their perceptions of virtual collaboration, and analyzing the data. Example interview questions include, "In what ways was the remote IEP meeting similar to in-person IEP meetings you have attended," and "In what ways was the remote IEP meeting different to in-person IEP meetings you have attended?" This study is expected to take two to three years to complete. Participants will be recruited using emails to school districts, state parent training and advocacy centers, and social media. The goal is to recruit 12 family/professional dyads who have had remote IFSP or IEP meetings, or until saturation of findings is established. Participants will be recruited through the 73 Parent Training and Information Centers across the United States to identify families and professionals who meet the inclusion criteria.Phase 2: Preservice Training Research (Objectives 2-3)The second phase will involve developing and evaluating the effectiveness of preservice and inservice training programs to support virtual family-professional collaboration.Preservice Training Study (Year 2).A pre-post study will be conducted to evaluate the effects of a family interview project on the confidence and competence of preservice undergraduate students to engage in collaborative interactions with families virtually. The independent variable will involve a preservice project that requires undergraduate students enrolled in an interdisciplinary course at Mississippi State University on an early childhood education/special education track to interview families to understand the challenges, protective factors, and resilience of families as they support their child's development through virtual collaborations with educators. The final project of the course will involve students producing a deliverable (e.g., a poster submitted to a conference, an infographic, a letter to the editor, etc.) to share the interview findings discussed with families during the interview and provide information to bolster resilience and address challenges to increase family-professional collaboration. Social validity, pre/post assessments, and outreach data will be collected. Enrollment for the course is capped at 40 students per semester, for a total of 80 students eligible to participate.Inservice Training Development (Year 3).The inservice training program will be developed during Phase 2. The training will be developed based on Adult Learning Principles (Dunst & Trivette, 2009; specifically using the Participatory Adult Learning Strategy (PALS) framework), the literature review, and results from the survey and qualitative research in Phase 1. Inservice training IRB approval will also be obtained in Phase 2.Phase 3: Inservice Training Research (Objective 4)Inservice Training Study (Year 4).A virtual inservice training program will be developed and implemented with early childhood educators based on findings from the exploratory research and available literature obtained in Phase 1. The aim of the training is to increase educators' knowledge of practices that can increase family-professional collaboration in virtual formats. Data collected will include the following researcher-developed measures: social validity, pre/post self-report of professionals' confidence/competence, educator fidelity, parent satisfaction, and demographic data to analyze equity (e.g., does the inservice training provided increase educators' knowledge, use of practices, and beliefs about virtual family-professional collaboration, regardless of program type or the family's access to technology or demographics?). Child outcomes in the form of pre- and post-assessments will also be conducted using the upcoming edition of the Assessment, Evaluation, and Programming System for Infants and Children Third Edition (AEPS-3; Bricker, 2021). To increase generalizability of the findings, a minimum of 20 educator/family dyads will be randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The final task in Phase 3 will involve disseminating the results in peer-reviewed journal publications and as presentations at national conferences that serve early childhood educators.