Review by Douglas Pietersma, Ed.D.
Editor, Home School Researcher
Research Associate, National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)
Background
The researchers Chris Forlin and Dianne Chambers (2024) conducted a quantitative study to address a gap in literature related to the motivations of why parents chose to home educate, and the practices and procedures they use. The participants were limited to the state of Western Australia. The study utilized a newly developed instrument, the Parents Perception of Home-Schooling (PPHS) scale, to address research questions. The PPHS was utilized in two iterations of analysis to uncover both motivations and practices/processes of home education. Consistent with other research, motivations included faith-based reasons, reactionary responses to government schooling deficiencies, and special needs requirements of their students. However, the subject of this paper is the analysis of practices and processes for the participant home educating families.
Methodology
The researchers conducted a two-phase pilot study to confirm the content and construct validity of the instrument. Invitations to participate in the study were emailed to a distribution list of home educating families and posted on a homeschooling social media site. A total of 99 families completed the survey, but some questions were not completed by every participant, giving some results of less than 99 responses. The areas evaluated were 1) daily practice, 2) use of support, 3) satisfying government requirements, 4) support of the Government assigned moderator, and 5) personal feelings about homeschooling. Parents were asked to answer the question based on one child in one of the following descending prioritized categories: 1) child with disability, 2) child with “additional learning needs” (ALNs), and 3) the eldest child.
Summary Results
The following are summaries of notable results:
- The largest amount of time parents spent was in the actual administration of instruction, followed (in descending order) by researching resources, gathering resources, and preparing instruction.
- The use of support sources was found to be minimal and consisted primarily of online support resources.
- Excursions, or field trips, were not a substantial element of the participating family’s home education experiences.
- Meeting government requirement was seen as being easy, but the most challenging aspect was preparing for meetings with government-appointed moderators.
- Although parents were not particularly satisfied with the requirement for government-appointed moderators, they did have a positive perspective of how those moderators performed their role.
- The participant generally felt positive about the experience of home education, but the area that was rated lowest was the support of friends and family.
Findings
The researchers used SSPS and applied a one-way between subjects’ analysis of variance (ANOVA). The responses were analyzed in relation to seven independent variables: 1) geolocation (urban, rural), 2) gender (male, female), 3) school type (Catholic, government, independent), 4) identified child (disability, ALNs, eldest), 5) age of child when deciding to home-school (3–11, 12–14 years), 6) attendance when commencing home-schooling (mainstream, at home), and 7) current age of child (3–11, 12–17 years). Because of the low number of responses, not all items returned a valid score. For those that did, the following are the key findings:
- Parents who removed their children from institutional schooling, compared to those whose child was already home-schooled, had markedly less satisfaction with the process of home education and found the process of meeting government requirements more difficult. That is, if they were already homeschooling the child, things were going better for them.
- Similarly, families with a special needs child (called additional learning needs in this study) noted less satisfaction with the process of home educating and greater difficulty meeting government requirements.
- The age of the home educated child revealed some significant variances. Parents perceived it to be more difficult to meet government requirement if the child was younger; conversely, parental feelings about the process of home education were more positive with younger children.
Conclusion
Registration to home educate is compulsory in Australia, but there are some who do not comply, and the process varies from state to state. The state which was the focus of this study, Western Australia, has less stringent requirements than other states, such as Queensland, and there is the potential for requirements to change. Parents in this study seem content to allow the annual in-home visit of their government moderator, even though they might not prefer to have this intrusion because it leaves the door open to a potential revocation of their permission to home educate. It was suggested by some participants that substantial continuity with the same moderator might mitigate the negative impression of the government oversight process.
Expansion of available support resources and the encouragement for home educating families to use such resources might bolster parents’ positive perception of the home education process.
NHERI Comment
Considering the efforts towards school choice (i.e., tax funding and more state control of private institutional schooling and homeschooling) initiatives in the United States, the implication of greater government intrusion in the homes of homeschool families, as illustrated in this study, should be a warning. Perhaps the families in this state of Australia are somewhat amiable to these requirements because it is what enables them to homeschool. Nevertheless, for those under less restriction, it should be a cause to oppose potential government intrusion.
References
Chris Forlin, Chris & Chambers, Dianne. (2024). Implementation of home-schooling: parents’ practices and processes. Education Sciences. 14(5), pp. 1-12. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/5/450