The role of family communication patterns in students' academic engagement in online classes

Abstract

Background and Aim: Academic engagement is one of the key factors affecting student success and one of the most important indicators of the quality and progress of education. With the spread of virtual education, the quality of family performance has been considered as an important element in the academic engagement of students. Based on this, the aim of this research is to determine the role of family communication patterns in the academic engagement of students in online classes. Methods: This research is descriptive research of the post-event type. The statistical population of the research included all second-grade high school students in Tehran in 2020-21, and 400 of them were selected using available sampling method. Then, in order to obtain research data, the questionnaires of family communication patterns of Fitzpatrick and Ritchie (1997) and academic involvement of Reeve and Tseng (2011) were used. Data analysis was done using one-way and multivariate analysis of variance with the help of SPSS.26 software. Results: The findings confirmed the role of family communication patterns in the academic engagement of students in online classes. The level of academic conflict in students from families with consensual and pluralistic communication patterns was higher than the level of academic conflict among students from families with protective and unrestricted communication patterns (P<0.001). The average scores of students' academic engagement in families with agreeable and pluralistic communication patterns did not have a significant difference from each other. Also, there was no significant difference between students in families with unrestricted and protective communication patterns in terms of academic engagement. Conclusion: It can be concluded that family communication patterns are effective in increasing the academic engagement of students in online classes and it is possible to improve the academic engagement of students by modifying the communication patterns of families.