Systems of analysis of the involvement of families in early childhood distance education

Early childhood education is one of the stages that ensures the formation of future citizens for the good of society. For this reason, the present study describes and analyzes, based on the reports, the implications of mothers on the distance education of their children during the pandemic. A descriptive qualitative study was carried out with the participation of 11 families, the data was collected through an interview. Of the 4 subcategories, the involvement of mothers in terms of time and space, use of digital resources and internet connectivity was difficult. In conclusion, during the distance education of children in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, mothers showed greater commitment and accompaniment in learning activities, despite the difficulties in managing virtual resources, inadequate internet connectivity and little time for their daily tasks inside and outside the home. © 2022, Associacao Iberica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informacao. All rights reserved.

Using DEC-Recommended Practices to Support Virtual Classrooms and Remote Learning

The global pandemic has meant that some schools are back in session with new and changing rules, and others are providing remote learning. The U.S. Department of Education has addressed specialized instruction through remote learning for children with disabilities, including addressing misconceptions about service delivery for children with disabilities making clear that school districts and early intervention programs are mandated to continue providing meaningful educational opportunities for children with disabilities (United States Department of Education, 2020). Children with disabilities have a right to services that address their IEP goals during the pandemic, and teachers are being asked to be innovative and flexible and work with families to create equitable learning opportunities to support children's interactions with each other. During this unusual and difficult time, many families do not have access to email to answer questionnaires, limited capacity to answer phone calls, unreliable or no access to the internet, or no or inadequate devices to support instructional platforms. District and school leaders need to support teachers in identifying and addressing these challenges to provide equitable access to learning opportunities. In this article, the authors provide strategies for quality virtual instruction with an emphasis on family engagement.

Children's digital play as collective family resilience in the face of the pandemic

In this article we explore how digital play as conducted through various social media and online meeting platforms facilitated resiliency and confidence building in children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using day-in-the-life methodology and narrative inquiry, we disseminate and examine observations collected on children aged 2-10 during lockdown in a Newfoundland neighbourhood. Children utilized platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Zoom to embrace their agentic digital play in ways that repurposed the platforms to fulfil life milestones and social needs otherwise impacted and disrupted by pandemic restrictions. Through a series of vignettes and interviews, our research not only examines how such digital play benefits children and their healthy development, but how parents reacted to and assisted with their children's agentic digital platform manipulation and how this provided positive benefits and enriching experiences to the entire family. We additionally explore the conflicts and tensions both children and parents encountered in securely implementing free play via digital platforms, including fears of excess screen-time, digital dependency, and online threats, all of which risk limiting children's ability to independently explore their creativity and identities through digital play if not handled sensitively. Despite the hurdles to implementing digital play, this study exposes why it is essential for families to navigate this online terrain;this study ultimately poses that digital play and online platforms not only were beneficial to maintaining and building family resilience during the pandemic but will be vital assets in sustaining resiliency and positive mindsets moving forward with pandemic recovery. © The Author(s) 2023.

Family firm competitiveness and owner involvement

PurposeIn many countries, small and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs) are primarily responsible for wealth, economic growth, innovation and research and development. In this paper, the authors examine the impact of family ownership and owner involvement on the financial performance of unlisted Finnish SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThis is an empirical paper using a random sample of 1,137 non-listed Finnish SMEs. Through regression analyses and robustness tests, the authors examine the effects of family management, family and employee ownership and involvement.FindingsUsing profitability measures, the authors find family-owned and controlled SMEs perform significantly better than non-family firms. The number of family members actively involved in daily business operations bears a significant negative relation to firm performance. In contrast, non-family firms in which owners are actively involved, provide comparable returns to family firms, suggesting that in non-family firms active involvement contributes to performance. The authors find that employee ownership in SMEs does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance.Research limitations/implicationsSME employee ownership does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance.Practical implicationsIn the case of Finland, family ownership is an effective organisational structure. As the depth of the COVID pandemic remains uncertain, firms with committed ownership are key to the economic recovery.Originality/valueThe authors approach the family ownership and involvement issue from a different angle. Unlike earlier studies, the authors examine the impact of both family ownership and involvement on the financial performance of privately owned SMEs. This paper helps shed light on the role of family ownership and involvement as a possible explanatory factor of overall economic performance.

The Rising Tide That Lifts All Boats: Investing Stimulus Dollars with an Equity Focus

The recent federal American Rescue Plan (ARP), passed into law by Congress, provides an unprecedented investment in education, giving schools and districts access to funds to address the needs of students more holistically. "The Rising Tide that Lifts All Boats: Investing Stimulus Dollars with an Equity Focus," provides several specific strategies that districts, schools, and educators should consider to optimize the positive impact of stimulus dollars on students, especially those with disabilities. This resource encourages decision-makers to be mindful of the need to pace the allocation of resources over the entire authorized period to optimize the impact of all efforts in a comprehensive way.

Education for the Disabled in Accordance with the Quality of Inclusive Education in the Distance Education Process

The aim of this research is to evaluate the disabled education in accordance with the quality of inclusive education in the distance education process in line with the opinions of special education teachers. The research was conducted with 10 special education teachers who were teaching special education and general education in schools with special needs students in Kazakhstan and who agreed to participate in the research voluntarily. The research was designed in accordance with the case study, one of the qualitative research designs. Research data were collected with a semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers. As a result of the research, it was revealed that the teachers used online lessons, video sharing, homework control, online activities and mobile applications in the teaching of the lessons in the distance education process, they preferred formal education to distance education, and they found distance education insufficient to meet the individual needs of students in learning. In addition, teachers stated that they found family participation in distance education and teacher-student peer interaction insufficient. The results obtained from the research revealed the necessity of eliminating the obstacles in the education of the disabled in accordance with the quality of inclusive education.

Unveiling the Direct Effects of Family Firm Heterogeneity on Environmental Performance

By combining agency theory and the resource- and capabilities-based view, this paper aims to unveil the influence of family firm heterogeneity on environmental performance. Previous results are inconsistent about how the specific features of this type of business contribute to better environmental protection performance. We analyse a number of variables related to the management, ownership and corporate governance characteristics of the family business and their individual influence on environmental performance. We test our hypotheses using a database of 748 family firms in the Spanish tourism sector. This economic sector, which is mostly composed of family businesses, puts great pressure on the environment. As such, family firms must take an active role in the resolution of the environmental problems that afflict society. We find that the effects of a family-controlled ownership and management structure on environmental performance are negative. Family-founder firms with a high degree of family control also are shown to have a negative relationship with environmental performance. However, the existence of a formal management mechanism, such as a management committee, emerges as the most powerful structural factor in facilitating the achievement of environmental objectives. The conclusions drawn from this study allow us to outline future lines of research as well as recommendations for practitioners. Our study responds to the call made in the literature to delve deeper into the heterogeneity of the family business, and specifically to determine which of its characteristic features allow this type of business to achieve better environmental performance.

HOMEWORK AND DEALING WITH DIVERSITY: AN EMPIRICAL REVIEW

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the importance of homework, despite the negative perceptions some have of it, with many parents and students believing it to be excessive. We specifically focus on family and teacher involvement in homework, including students with different learning styles, capacities, and personal characteristics who would be covered by “Dealing with Diversity.” We present a variety of theoretical models and studies that explain the influence of personal and contextual variables and their relationships with homework and academic performance. Subsequently, we look at the differences between family and teacher involvement in homework;the former being defined as homebased involvement, while the latter focuses on setting and marking homework. These relationships may change when we include students who are addressed as part of “Dealing with Diversity.” Throughout the chapter, the benefits of homework are discussed, as well as the need to tailor it to students’ personal characteristics, and to set quality homework adapted to online education resulting from COVID-19. © 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Family firm competitiveness and owner involvement

Purpose: In many countries, small and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs) are primarily responsible for wealth, economic growth, innovation and research and development. In this paper, the authors examine the impact of family ownership and owner involvement on the financial performance of unlisted Finnish SMEs. Design/methodology/approach: This is an empirical paper using a random sample of 1,137 non-listed Finnish SMEs. Through regression analyses and robustness tests, the authors examine the effects of family management, family and employee ownership and involvement. Findings: Using profitability measures, the authors find family-owned and controlled SMEs perform significantly better than non-family firms. The number of family members actively involved in daily business operations bears a significant negative relation to firm performance. In contrast, non-family firms in which owners are actively involved, provide comparable returns to family firms, suggesting that in non-family firms active involvement contributes to performance. The authors find that employee ownership in SMEs does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance. Research limitations/implications: SME employee ownership does not provide an efficient way to compensate employees since more dispersed ownership does not lead to higher performance. Practical implications: In the case of Finland, family ownership is an effective organisational structure. As the depth of the COVID pandemic remains uncertain, firms with committed ownership are key to the economic recovery. Originality/value: The authors approach the family ownership and involvement issue from a different angle. Unlike earlier studies, the authors examine the impact of both family ownership and involvement on the financial performance of privately owned SMEs. This paper helps shed light on the role of family ownership and involvement as a possible explanatory factor of overall economic performance. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

The relationship between summer experiences and family involvement and fourth-graders' reading achievement: A secondary data analysis

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many students had their educational experiences disrupted as schools became shuttered and for some students virtual schooling began. When school facilities closed and online began, families had increased responsibilities for their children's education. Subsequently, there is an increase in attention to understanding how families support the academic development of their school-aged children.Informed by Bronfenbrenner's ecological and bioecological models, as well as, cultural capital theory, I used the READS for Summer Learning longitudinal dataset and conducted various statistical analyses-univariate, bivariate, and regression (logistic, ordinal, and multiple)-to explain the nature of family involvement in promoting learning during the summer for rising fourth graders, and examine the relationship between family involvement and learning experiences of rising fourth-graders during the summer and later reading achievement. I also examined to what extent summer activities varied by gender, race/ethnicity, free and reduced lunch status, and previous reading abilities.The findings showed that gender, previous reading achievement, and FRL status explain variations in fall reading achievement scores. Of particular importance was the lack of difference in summer activities across different racial/ethnic groups. Drawing on the findings, I make recommendations related to teaching phonics, scaffolding summertime learning experiences based on children's needs for family involvement to support reading achievement, and using better measures to predict reading achievement were outlined. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Distance Learning During the First Lockdown: Impact on the Family and Its Effect on Students' Engagement.

This contribute investigates how Emergency Remote Education (ERE) impacted families during the spring 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, and in particular, the extent to which the impact of ERE on families, measured in terms of space and equipment sharing, moderates the effect of student and family characteristics on students' engagement. The study derived from the administration of an online survey to 19,527 families with children attending schools, from nursery to upper secondary grade. The total number of student records collected amounted to 31,805, since parents had to provide data for each school-age child in the family. The survey contains 58 questions, divided into three sections, with the first two sections designed to get a reading at family level and the third section to gather data for each school-age child in the family. After verifying the validity of the engagement construct through confirmatory factor analysis, two structural equation models were used to analyze the students' engagement. The main findings reveal how the impact of the ERE on the families has had a significant role in predicting students' level of engagement observed by parents with respect to different predictor variables. Finally, we argue that it is necessary to follow a holistic approach to observe the challenges imposed by the switch of the process of deferring teaching from presence to distance, imposed by the pandemic emergency on families. In fact, a holistic approach can promote student engagement and prevent the onset of cognitive-behavioral and affective problems linked to disengagement in ERE.

Barriers and benefits of primary caregivers' involvement in children's education during COVID-19 school closures.

School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many children around the world to spend unprecedented amounts of time at home, and the responsibility for educating children, especially young ones, has largely fallen to parents and caregivers. Using a sample of 764 households with preschool children in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic started, this study examined the impact of the pandemic on primary caregivers' involvement in their children's education at home, and the barriers and benefits of such involvement for preschool children's learning and well-being. The results showed that primary caregivers were generally less involved in their children's education at home during the pandemic than they were prior to it. Having younger children, a lower socioeconomic status (i.e., parents' lower levels of education and less prestigious occupations), poorer physical health, and higher levels of household chaos were associated with lower frequencies of home-based involvement exhibited by caregivers. Finally, caregivers' home-based involvement during the pandemic was beneficial to preschool children's learning behavior and emotional health. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the barriers and benefits of caregivers' home-based involvement for designing interventions and policies to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on children and their families.

The Perceptions of Nurses and Nursing Students Regarding Family Involvement in the Care of Hospitalized Adult Patients.

Over the past few decades, there have been concerns regarding the humanization of healthcare and the involvement of family members in patients' hospital care. The attitudes of hospitals toward welcoming families in this respect have improved. In Arab culture, the main core of society is considered to be the family, not the individual. The objective behind involving family in patient care is to meet patients' support needs. Consequently, this involvement affects nurses and their attitudes toward the importance of family involvement in patient care. OBJECTIVES: To describe nurses' and nursing students' perceptions of family involvement in the care of hospitalized adult patients in Saudi Arabia. DESIGN: This study used a quantitative descriptive cross-sectional design. The data were collected using a convenience sampling survey via social media. RESULTS: A total of 270 participants (staff and students) took part in this study, including 232 (85.9%) females and 38 (14.1%) males. Moreover, a high percentage of participants (78.8%) acknowledged that family presence strongly affected the improvement of the patient's condition. However, 69.3% of participants thought that involving family members during special care processes or cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) would be traumatizing for these individuals. Moreover, there was a significant diffidence between the attitudes of the nurses and nursing students toward family involvement and the number of years of employment (F = 3.60, p < 0.05). On the contrary, there were insignificant differences between the attitudes of the nurses and nursing students toward family involvement and their gender, nationality, age, education level, and years of work experience in Saudi Arabia (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the regression analysis showed a significant negative correlation between nurses' years of employment and their support of family involvement in patient care (ß = -0.20, SE = 0.08, t = -2.70, p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Nurses with more experience showed no support for family involvement in patient care. We have to consider the clinical barriers that affect nurses' support for family involvement in patient-centered care, such as hospital polices, guidelines, and the model used for family-centered care integration in the hospital system to facilitate the interaction between healthcare providers and family members.

Strict isolation requires a different approach to the family of hospitalised patients with COVID-19: A rapid qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic influenced family-centred care dramatically due to restricting visiting policies. In this new situation, nurses were challenged to develop new approaches to involve family members in patient care. A better understanding of these changes and the experiences of nurses is essential to make an adaptation of procedures, and to secure a family-centred approach in care as much as possible. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate how family involvement had taken place, and to explore the experiences of nurses with family involvement during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, we aimed to formulate recommendations for the involvement of family. METHODS: We conducted a qualitative study using patient record review and focus-group interviews between April and July 2020. We reviewed records of patients with confirmed COVID-19, who were admitted to the COVID-19 wards at two affiliated university hospitals in the Netherlands. All records were searched for notations referring to family involvement. In two focus-groups, nurses who worked at the COVID-19 wards were invited to share their experiences. The Rigorous and Accelerated Data Reduction (RADaR) method was used to collect, reduce and analyse the data. RESULTS: In total, 189 patient records were reviewed and nine nurses participated in the focus-group meetings. Patient records revealed infrequent and often unstructured communication with focus on physical condition. Nurses confirmed that communication with family was far less than before and that the physical condition of the patient was predominant. The involvement of family in care was limited to practicalities, although more involvement was described in end-of-life situations. Nurses experienced moral distress due to the visiting restrictions, though some acknowledged that they had experienced the direct patient care so intense and burdensome, that family contact simply felt too much. CONCLUSION: The communication with and involvement of family in hospital care changed enormously during the COVID-19 outbreak. Based on the identified themes, we formulated recommendations that may be helpful for family-centered care in hospitals during periods of restricted visiting policy.

Youth OUD treatment during and after COVID: Increasing family involvement across the services continuum.

Telehealth innovations in substance use treatment necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic present a generational opportunity to increase family involvement in medication for opioid use disorders (MOUD) among youth. This commentary describes a conceptual framework for engaging and retaining youth and families across four stages of MOUD services: Preparation, Initiation, Stabilization, Remission & Recovery. Case vignettes illustrate provider-delivered and direct-to-family tele-interventions for augmenting family involvement in each MOUD stage: Family Outreach, Family Engagement, Family Training, Family Recovery Maintenance.