Evaluation of School-Home Communication Strategies.

Although increased communication between school personnel and parents is now widely held to be beneficial, present knowledge is based principally on nonsystematic studies at the preschool and primary levels that are of questionable validity at the secondary level. To make up for the lack of emphasis in previous research on establishing specific objectives and assessing measurable outcomes with regard to the goal of improved communications, and at the same time to define objectives in terms of promising techniques for improving communications currently being used in the daily operation of schools, researchers should link evaluation activities to the following six aspects of the school-home communications mix: (1) the academic level at which interactions occur, (2) the locus of communication, (3) whether the school's message is directed to an individual family or to a group or schoolwide audience, (4) whether communications flow from school to home or home to school, (5) topics around which interactions may occur, and (6) the communication methods or vehicles employed. Local school systems should carefully select for study limited sets of communication strategies that meet their local communication needs. Subsequent evaluation of such strategies can contribute to our understanding of the art of improving relations and school effectiveness. (JBM)