Developing a scale to measure the diversity of motivations and practices of home-schooling
Publication Details
Forlin, C.,
Chambers, D.,
&
Banks, J.
(2023).
Developing a scale to measure the diversity of motivations and practices of home-schooling.
Educational Review,.
Abstract
nternationally, there has been a dramatic evolution in the numbers of parents choosing to home-school their children for some, or all, of their schooling. Research to date has mainly focussed on the characteristics and motivations of parents who home-school. Little is known about the practice and implementation of home-schooling, especially for learners with disability or additional learning needs. Where research exists, it is generally qualitative, location specific, and small in scale. To address this gap, this paper investigates research regarding previously identified reactive and proactive motivations, legal requirements, and implementation processes within home-schooling family demographics. These are then utilised to develop the Parents’ Perceptions of Home-Schooling scale (PPHS), which seeks to clarify both motivations as well as implementation and practical issues associated with choosing to home-school. Discussion focuses on the design of the PPHS scale and an initial study with 21 home-schooling parents. Being created for distribution across geolocational, distinct, and international and national contexts, the PPHS will provide scope to gather large-scale quantitative data with a view to improving the supports available to home-schooling families and enhancing learner outcomes.
Keywords
Home-schooling, Reactive and proactive motivations, Disability, Diversity, Parental perception of home-schooling
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