Exploring Parents’ Access, Beliefs, and Use of Educational Technology across a Community-Wide Broadband Initiative

AbstractIn the aftermath of COVID-19 school closures, parents, educational technology, and other home factors have played an increasing role in student support and success. As part of a larger evaluation study on the equity and impacts of the nation’s largest community broadband initiative, this paper investigates the relationship between access, beliefs, and parents’ use of educational technology over two years. Surveying a random sample of 400+ households in addition to in-depth longitudinal interviews with eleven families, results show most parents actively engaged and positively valued several aspects of technology applied to support their child’s learning. Moreover, initial results indicate provision of broadband access also had a statistically significant relationship with parent uses of technology.Keywords: Parentshousehold surveydigital equitycommunity broadbandeducational technology AcknowledgementsThis independent research and evaluation study was generously supported by The Enterprise Center, Anonymous Broadband Provider, and Anonymous County Schools.Disclosure statementThe authors report there are no competing interests to declare.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the Enterprise Center under Grant number 5111961.