Fostering Becoming Teachers’ Parent Communication Competence

Efficacy of a Brief Intervention

Abstract

Despite communicating with parents being an important professional task, the respective competencies are often not part of teacher education curricula. Some existing training programs with positive evidence for their efficacy are quite time-consuming and are not thoroughly documented – which makes it difficult to transfer them between different teacher education curricula. Hence, we have developed a didactically innovative and concise instructional module about communication with parents. It has been designed to be easily transferred between different curricula. In this empirical study, we research the efficacy of the instructional module which comprises two lessons in person and two video-based reflection-exercises as homework. As an assessment of communication competence, we used simulated conversations with trained actors. In an experimental study, students who had worked on the instructional module (intervention group) were compared with untrained students (wait list control group). As covariates of our dependent variable, conversation competence, we took the semesters studied and the counselling-related self-concept into account. The videotaped conversations were judged by trained raters with high reliability. Our analyses showed a statistically relevant, but moderate effect of the trained compared to the untrained students, which is an indicator for the effectiveness of the instructional module. The effect remained stable when taking the counselling-related self-concept and the semesters studied into account. The self-concept, however, showed to be relevant for the performance in the simulated conversations. Our results amend existing research because they illustrate that by means of a rather brief didactic module, tangible effects regarding communication competence can be achieved.