ABSTRACT

AbstractToday many parents and preschool teachers communicate through social media. The purpose of this pilot study is to develop a tool that can reflect the new reality of parental involvement. The Parents' Involvement WhatsApp Inventory (PIWI) was developed through a questionnaire given to 324 preschool teachers in different areas in Israel. The questionnaire incorporated three perspectives: cognitive, attitudinal (emotional) and informative. Five categories were identified and validated by factor analysis representing 41 out of the 55 items: satisfaction, safety network, media usage, limitations, and decision making. The main implications of the research are the contribution of this new tool to understand contemporary parental involvement and to provide an up-to-date tool to measure this involvement. Further research is required to validate the tool in different educational frameworks.

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