What is the motivation for the study?

In recent years, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore has implemented several assessment-related policies to change the long-standing exam-oriented culture, with the aim of promoting formative assessment for learning and fostering students' creativity and critical thinking (L. Lim, 2013; MOE, 2009, 2019). 

By studying parental involvement in their children's assessments, we aim to produce insights on how to guide parents to better understand the purposes of assessments and how to effectively use the results. Our findings can also guide teachers to better communicate with parents.

Why does the study focus on parental engagement?

In Singapore, primary school culminates in the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE). The results are used to allocate students to their secondary schools, in conjunction with school choice. Given the high-stakes nature of the exam, parents in Singapore tend to exhibit deep concern about their children's performance on various primary school assessments, as a way to monitor their children's preparation for the PSLE. 

The depth and breadth of parental engagement has not been well-understood, despite the significance of parents' role in their children's education. There have been few systematic studies on whether and how parents make use of assessment results, how much stress they experience, what they expect from teachers, or how their personal experience influence their engagement. We hope to address some of the gaps in this baseline study.

What do you mean by "parental engagement"?

We use this term to refer to two main categories of behavior: family-led activities and family-school partnership. Family-led activities include at home activities like helping children with homework and studying, and outside activities like tuition and enrichment. Family-school partnerships include parent-teacher communications and networking with other parents to share resources and experiences. Moreover, there are interactions between the two, such as parent-teacher communications informing parenting activities at home. 

What are the variables of interest in this study?

We are interested in determining the relationships between different drivers of parental engagement. One variable is parental beliefs, including values, goals, knowledge, and attitudes towards assessments. A large scale survey of Singaporean parents' perception of primary education found that a majority of parents reported stress or anxiety from having to help their children with exams (Mathews et al., 2017) and many parents believe that obtaining high scores are necessary for securing good jobs. 

Another variable is parents' own experiences. Some parents prefer traditional forms of assessments because they are familiar with them, leading to resistance to new or innovative assessments, at least initially. Parent who have personally experienced successful performance on traditional forms of assessments may prefer to maintain the status quo as the safe option for their children to achieve the same level of social status.

A third variable is parents' assessment literacy, which refers to knowledge that parents have about basic educational measurement practices--including understanding the tools used to assess their children's academic knowledge and how to interpret and respond to the results. Schools may not be aware of parents' limited knowledge and could better educate parents in accurately interpreting assessment data and drawing valid conclusions.

A fourth variable is parental stress. For instance, when mid-year exams were eliminated to reduce workload and stress on children and teachers, some parents expressed concerns that without the mid-years, they have less information about how their children are doing. Others believed that eliminating mid-year exams increased stakes for the year-end exams, causing more anxiety.

Clearer descriptions and modeling of the interactions among the variables can inform the design and implementation of assessment policies, such as shifting away from an exam-oriented mindset towards a more holistic approach to assessment.

How is the study designed?

The study adopts a "mixed research design", which refers to combining both a qualitative study in Phase 1 and a quantitative study in Phase 2. A qualitative study allows us to gather detailed information on parental activities, generate insights about the context, and explore the intricate relationships in an inductive manner. The results from Phase 1 will inform the development of the survey in Phase 2, which uses statistical modelling to explore patterns and relationships among the variables, and increases generalisability.

Who are the study participants and how will they be recruited?

In Phase 1, we aim to recruit parents and teachers from 30 primary schools, which represents approximately 17% of primary schools in Singapore.

Our goal is to recruit 60 parents with children in grades 2 to 6. We plan to organize them into groups of five for 60-90 minute group discussions. We will also recruit 30 teachers for 45 min to 1 hour individual interviews.

In Phase 2, we plan to form two survey samples across five to eight primary schools, ensuring diversity among government and government-aided: a pilot sample of 50 parents and a main study sample of 300 to 500 participants.

We plan to seek the help of school administrators to post recruitment announcements via Parent Gateway. We also plan to advertise through informal parents' networks. In addition, we will pursue partnerships with units in MOE and community groups that support parents.

What is the timeline for participating in the study?

Recruitment is ongoing as we conduct interviews with teachers and parents during the first half of 2025. We plan to complete interviews by the end of July 2025. 

How are participants' privacy/data protected?

We have several procedures in place to keep participants' data and privacy secure and protected. First, we have approval and oversight from the NTU Institutional Review Board (IRB), which protects human subjects involved in research studies by maintaining the highest levels of research ethics and integrity. We also comply with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).

Participants' involvement will be kept confidential. Identifying information (e.g., name, phone number, e-mail address) will be asked to ensure the accuracy of our records and for contacting participants. Identifying information is removed and replaced with a numeric ID and/or pseudonym to ensure anonymity before it is transferred to our research team for analysis. Survey responses will be combined and reported as aggregates.

The findings may be reported in scientific publications, presentations, and reports. When sharing our findings, besides excluding identifying information described above, we will do our best to remove other traces that can risk identifying you, including school names and other details. 

Who is funding and conducting this study?

The study is funded by the Ministry of Education, Singapore and conducted by researchers at the Centre for Research of Pedagogy and Practice, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.