Parents' views on out-of-school learning environments

Abstract

While there are many studies in the literature on out-of-school learning (OSL) environments, whose importance for learning is increasingly understood, studies involving parents and their views on these environments are rarely found. However, parents' contribution is extremely important and necessary for an efficient learning process. In this study, a survey was developed to determine parents' views on OSL environments. Thirty-seven parents were face-to-face interviewed regarding to their views on OSL environments. An item pool was formed based on these interviews. Then this pre-survey was administered to 702 voluntary parents. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have performed and a survey with 21 items has been obtained. The survey has three dimensions: contribution of OSL environments to children's cognitive development; contribution of OSL environments to skill development; and parents' concerns about out-of-school learning environments. According to the findings, a significant number of parents are aware of the contribution of out-of-school learning environments in terms of both cognitive and skill acquisition. Also, it is seen that the gender of the parents and the gender of their child do not make any significant difference in their views. Parents with a bachelor's degree believe that out-of-school learning environments will contribute more to their children's skill and cognitive development than parents with a primary and secondary school degree.