At-risk and online: parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s supports in a fully online school

Abstract

At-risk students face a variety of challenges that encompass cultural, social and environmental contexts and identities. Full time virtual schools offer help for at-risk students through the provision of a personalized learning option where students can catch up with past work or complete school work in a non-traditional environment. The purpose of this study was to understand parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement supports in a fully online school. Although research exists on at-risk learners in blended environments, this topic has not yet been fully explored for fully online schools. We need a much fuller understanding of at-risk learners’ supports in online schools. These data are critical for the future success of at-risk students who are increasingly enrolling in full time online schools. Results showed that parents of at-risk students enrolled in a virtual school described affective engagement in terms of relationships, communication with teachers, and communication with students. Interestingly, parents emphasized that the structure of the traditional in-person schooling experience hindered long term relationships. Parents saw behavioral engagement in terms of learning expectations, help with technological issues, and self regulation skills. Parents of at-risk students enrolled in the virtual school also described cognitive engagement opportunities in the areas of teaching and tutoring of academic content, co-learning with students, and collaboration between students. Discussion focused on how virtual schools could embrace innovative staffing models to better support at-risk students who are enrolled in a virtual school as their ‘last resort’.

Keywords:

• Virtual schools
• cyber schools
• at risk
• at-risk
• learner supports
• affective supports
• behavioral supports
• cognitive supports
• academic communities of E
• adolescent community of engagement framework

Reviewing editor:

• Nadaraj Govender, School of education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

SUBJECTS:

• Information & Communication Technology (ICT)
• Legal, Ethical & Social Aspects of IT
• Educational Psychology
• Open & Distance Education and eLearning
• Primary/Elementary Education
• Secondary Education

The word, ‘at-risk’ was coined in 1983 to refer to students who are in danger of academic failure and not being able to complete an academic grade or graduate (Gardner et al., 1983) and has subsequently been widely used by scholars (e.g. Beken et al., 2009; Webber, 2018). At-risk students face a variety of challenges that encompass cultural, social and environmental contexts (Beken et al., 2009; Webber, 2018). A few examples of these challenges are incarceration, teen pregnancy, unhealthy lifestyles, domestic violence, homelessness, and family and income issues (Oreopoulos et al., 2017; Powell et al., 2015; Ripamonti, 2017). Students with disabilities (Dunn et al., 2006; NLTS-2, 2005), English as a second language learners, and ethnic minorities (McFarland et al., 2016) are also at risk. Many of these issues are a factor in students’ decisions to drop out of school without graduation (Beken et al., 2009; Powell et al., 2015; Ripamonti, 2017). For many students, it is often a combination of multiple risk factors occurring over time that cause them to leave school prior to graduation (Frymier & Gansneder, 1989).

Many schools focus on at-risk students because longitudinal measures show significantly less income (Statistic Brain, 2017; NES, 2016; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey, 2022) and higher poverty level (Aud et al., 2010; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey, 2022), higher unemployment rate (Statistic Brain, 2017; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey, 2022), and more government assistance (U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey, 2022; Zvoch, 2006). These and other alarming statistics have led to significant education related legislation in the U.S. that places a priority on helping at-risk learners. Although a focus on at-risk students began in 1983 with the ‘A Nation at Risk’ report, the emphasis has continued in nearly every president’s term, yet in various forms. In fact, the initial report triggered reforms at the local, state, and federal levels to address educational performance (Barnett, 2016). The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 focused on closing the academic achievement gap between at-risk and other students by trying to improve graduation rates and college attendance (Darling-Hammond et al., 2014). This changed in 2015 with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which shifted priorities towards the creation of support and accountability systems to prepare students for future college and career success (Adler-Greene, 2019; Brown et al., 2019; Zinskie & Rea, 2016). ESSA required detailed programs for helping at-risk students to achieve in school and life (Brown et al., 2019; Hope, 2017; Zinskie & Rea, 2016).

One such way of helping students that has been recommended by ESSA is in the area of expansion of personalized learning for at-risk students through online learning. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools offered online learning courses for at-risk students to meet students’ needs for flexibility (Barnett, 2016; Borup et al., 2019; Repetto et al., 2018; Viano, 2018) and to provide them with an equitable education (Hope, 2017), and these programs continue to grow (Adams, 2020; Huh & Reigeluth, 2018; Darling-Aduana, 2019). In these online environments, at-risk students can access content for the courses that they need to take at any time during the day or night, and from any location. At-risk students are also provided with individual mentoring, safe communities in which to learn, and varied methods of teaching in these online environments (Repetto et al., 2010; Rose & Blomeyer, 2007; Shore & Shore, 2009). The use of online learning environments to help at-risk students makes sense in that online systems can be used to more quickly identify a student as at risk and get them the help they need (Watson & Germin, 2008; Cavanaugh et al., 2013; Repetto et al., 2010; Rhim & Kowal, 2008). Also, fully online schools have developed specific intervention programs for various groups of at-risk students that are tailored to their specific academic, social, and environmental needs in order to increase course completion (Archambault et al., 2010). There is some scholarship showing that the use of online learning environments on a part time basis may provide the individualized learning experiences and anytime/anywhere access that at-risk students need to succeed while balancing school and other life responsibilities (Darling-Aduana, 2019; Heinrich et al., 2019; Jaggars, 2014). However, the suitability of fully online schools for at-risk students is largely unexplored (Duffield, 2018; Viano, 2018), although the anytime/anywhere access does offer promise (Sublett & Chang, 2019).

Virtual schools have consistently outperformed traditional public schools in parental satisfaction (Greene & Paul, 2022a; Kingsbury, 2021; Kingsbury et al, 2022). Regarding parental satisfaction, survey research indicates that schools of choice such as private schools and public charter schools have greater parent satisfaction than traditional public schools on a range of indicators (Barrows et al. 2019). Some of the differences may reflect particular characteristics of schools of choice, though in part greater levels of parent satisfaction may occur simply because parents appreciate the act and process of choosing; indeed, some empirical evidence from low income parents who won vouchers to attend private schools (Stewart & Wolf, 2014) and from charter school parents (Buckley & Schneider, 2009) suggests that some of this greater reported satisfaction fades over time. Beck et al. (2014) and Beck et al. (2013) explored virtual school satisfaction, finding somewhat higher satisfaction for students with disabilities and their parents than for general education peers.

In contrast, over the past several years, the National Education Policy Center has published their report on Virtual Schools in the U.S., which clearly show that full-time K-12 online schools have consistently underperformed on proficiency measures on state assessments compared to traditional public schools (Miron & Gulosino, 2016; Miron et al., 2013; Rice et al., 2014; Huerta et al., 2015; Molnar et al., 2017; Molnar et al, 2019). These findings agree with other research on effectiveness of full time online schools, – regardless of its source (e.g. from newspapers, think tanks, peer reviewed research, etc.; See the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools et al. (2016) report as an example; Also,). With that said, the large numbers of at-risk students enrolled in fully online schools compared to TPS makes comparisons difficult (Barbour & MulCahy, 2009; Barbour et al., 2011; Klein, 2006; Rapp et al., 2006; Watson et al., 2008). At-risk students were found to learn less in an online course than similar learners in a TPS (Hart et al., 2019). Also, fully online schools have a much higher attrition rate (Borup & Kennedy, 2017; Freidhoff, 2015), require more self regulation skills of the learner (Borup, 2016; Hart et al., 2019; Morgan, 2015), and offer less interaction with peers (Ahn & McEachin, 2017; Borup, 2016; Kumi-Yeboah et al., 2017) compared to traditional public schools. It also could take students a full year to learn ‘how to learn’ online (Lueken et al., 2015), which could further exacerbate their at-risk status. Researchers discovered that at-risk students experienced low motivation and self-discipline when enrolled in a high school online credit recovery program at a U.S. virtual school (Oliver & Kellogg, 2015). Unfortunately, the prevailing notion that anytime/anywhere online course access will result in increased learning outcomes assumes student self regulation skills, which isn’t true for at-risk students (Heissel, 2016; Jacob et al., 2016; Yukselturk & Bulut, 2007). With that said, other research has shown that at-risk learners attend school significantly more when taking online classes, which suggests that access to online courses encourages students to attend more school. The same study also showed that online courses administered in this district allowed students, on average, to regain credit faster than feasible in a semester-long, TPS setting (Darling-Aduana, 2019).

Another aspect of fully online schools that has contributed to poor student performance is student mobility. Paul and Wolf (2020) found that when controlling for non-structural student mobility during the outcome year, virtual school students’ achievement was less negative. Greene and Paul (2022b) also found that failure to include unobserved factors, such as reason for enrollment, led to biased achievement results. This means that much of the current research showing poor performance for virtual school students may be downwardly biased, showing that the number of nonstructural moves experienced by a student is a powerful indicator of low-test performance and graduation rates. This confirms decades of research from TPS, which shows that mobile students are more likely to be at-risk than other students (Anderson & Leventhal, 2017; Barrat & Berliner, 2013; Courtney et al., 2004; Cowen, 2017; Cutuli et al., 2013; Ingersoll et al., 1989; Mehana & Reynolds, 2004; Rumberger & Larson, 1998).

Although research exists on at-risk learners in blended environments, this topic has not yet been fully explored for fully online schools. We need a much fuller understanding of the supports needed for at-risk learners to succeed in fully online schools. These data are critical for the future success of at-risk students who are increasingly enrolling in full time online schools. The purpose of this study is to understand parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s supports in a fully online school.

Theoretical framework

This research study used the Adolescent Community of Engagement (ACE) framework as an interpretive lens (Borup et al., 2020;  Martin & Borup, 2022). The ACE framework considers means for supporting student academic engagement in the affective, behavioral, and cognitive areas. Within this framework, affective engagement is defined as, ‘The emotional energy associated with involvement in course learning activities’ (p. 813). Behavioral engagement is defined as, ‘The physical behaviors (energy) associated with completing course learning activity requirements’ (p. 813). And cognitive engagement is defined as, ‘The mental energy exerted towards productive involvement with course learning activities’ (p. 813). The ACE framework fused together aspects of Halverson and Graham (2019) work and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978), emphasizing the gap between a learner’s independent engagement and the level necessary for academic success is dependent on their characteristics and background, learning environment, and personal environment (see Figure 1). Helping learners through things like instructional and collaboration supports, troubleshooting and orienting, organizing and managing, monitoring and encouraging progress supports; and facilitating communication, developing relationships, and instilling excitement for learning will result in increases in cognitive, behavioral, and affective engagement. Actors who provide these supports come from personal and course communities, both of which are crucial to learner success.

Figure 1. Model identifying the facilitators that impact engagement, which then impacts learning outcomes (adapted from Borup et al., 2020).

Most of the existing research that has examined online student support has focused on that offered by online teachers and parents (see for example, Hasler Waters & Leong, 2014). However, only examining the course community support offered by the online teacher provides a narrow view of the support students actually receive from their course community, and more research is needed to examine support offered by other actors. The purpose of this study is to understand parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s supports in a fully online school.

Methodology

The purpose of this study is to understand parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s supports in a fully online school. Specifically, we addressed the following research question: How do parents of at-risk learners enrolled in a full time online school perceive how the school supports learners’ cognitive, behavioral, and engagement needs?

Participants

The research site for this study was virtual Schools, Inc., a network of full time online schools located in the continental U.S. The schools use the same curriculum, which is aligned to each state’s grade level standards. .The network has approximately 175,000 students more than half of all U.S. states.

We selected this school as our research site because of its leaders’ recognition of the growing number of at-risk students who enroll in a virtual Schools Inc. school as their ‘last resort’' prior to dropping out. After obtaining IRB approval, we posted a link to a short survey for parents of students in all schools on the charter school network’s Learning coaches community page, asking if they enrolled their child in this school as a ‘last resort’ alternative to dropping out. 165 parents who answered ‘yes’ to this question were sent a follow up email, requesting their participation in a 60 minute focus group centered on understanding their perceptions of their student’s supports received in the school. Initially, 28 parents agreed to participate in the focus groups, with 16 parents from 8 different states actually attending and participating in the groups. Parents of at risk children who participated in the focus groups were all female and a mix of Hispanic and White racial backgrounds and free and reduced meal status, with children ranging from 3^rd through 12^th grade of who 80% had a special education status. Demographics of the parents are listed in Tables one through three. We considered these participants to be key informants as defined by Patton (1990) since they were parents of at-risk students who were enrolled in a fully online school. All but one of the parents had at least one characteristic of an at-risk parent (Beken et al., 2009; Powell et al., 2015; Ripamonti, 2017).

Data collection and analysis

Each parent consented to participate in a one hour, semi-structured focus group during Summer 2022. The focus group protocol was developed based on the ACE framework. The focus group protocol was shared with participants beforehand. Focus groups were conducted via videoconferencing and transcribed using a transcription service. Researchers then listened to each interview several times while reading the transcript, making corrections and taking notes to ensure the transcript was accurate. The demographics of the individuals who participated in the three focus groups can be located in Tables 1–3.

Table 1. Focus group 1 participant demographic information.

Name^a	Gender	Student Grade	Ethnicity	Student SPED/504 status	FARM status
Tanya	Female	3rd Grade	Hispanic	Yes	Yes
Mandy	Female	Kindergarten	Undefined	No	Yes
Jonnette	Female	11th Grade	White	No	No
Juniper	Female	8th Grade	White	Yes	Yes
Opaleska	Female	3rd, 12th Grade	White	Yes	Yes
Randina	Female	6th Grade	White	Yes	Yes

^a Parent names were changed to protect privacy.

Table 2. Focus group 2 participant demographic information.

Name^a	Parent Gender	Student Grade	Ethnicity	Student SPED/504 status	FARM status
Irene	Female	7th Grade	Undefined	No	Yes
Becca	Female	9th Grade	Undefined	No	Yes
Sadie	Female	12th Grade	Asian	Yes	Yes
Tessa	Female	11th Grade, graduated	White	Yes	Yes
Nina	Female	2nd, 5th, 9th Grade, graduated	White	Yes	Yes
Lana	Female	12th Grade	American Indian or Alaska Native	Yes	Yes

^a Parent names were changed to protect privacy.

Table 3. Focus group 3 participant demographic information.

Name^a	Gender	Student Grade	Ethnicity	Student SPED/504 status	FARM status
Lulu	Female	Graduate	Black or African-American	No	Yes
Kandy	Female	12th Grade	White	Yes	Yes
Tammy	Female	Graduate	Undefined	Yes	Yes
Ursula	Female	Graduate	White	Yes	Yes

^a Parent names were changed to protect privacy.

Coding was done using the constant comparative method as detailed by Lincoln and Guba (1986). For this study, an initial coding phase was used to develop a robust codebook. For this phase of coding, each transcript was coded using open coding. We worked toward categorical saturation, searching for the ‘emergence of regularities’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1986, p. 350). The researchers collaborated iteratively on the final coding scheme until a consensus was reached, making an effort to ensure that codes used words and phrases that the parents actually spoke in the focus groups. The researchers also met to discuss the coding process and codes, and some corrections to the codes were made to ensure that they all used actual words spoken by the parents and that they accurately represented the context of what had been said in the focus groups. The next coding phase occurred during which the codes were grouped into categories and provided a label that best represented the codes. The researchers then met to discuss the categories and make any needed corrections, providing confirmation to the data analysis process. Finally, the categories were grouped by similarity into three themes. This was guided by the support elements identified by the ACE framework.

Limitations

The current research is limited in that the population consisted only of parents of at-risk students enrolled in a full time online school network. Although this network enrolls thousands of students across the U.S., it is not inclusive of all full time online schools (public, private, and charter) in the United States. Our study is also limited by what may be perceived as a relatively small sample. We attempted to include as many parents in the school network that were willing. Nevertheless, the data began to reach a high level of saturation through the three focus groups. Results may not generalize broadly to all parents of at risk children in all online schools due to the high percentage of parents in this study whose children had a special education status. Also, none of the parents of at risk children in this study were African American. These specific participant characteristics may limit the broader applicability of the findings and future research should consider at risk students who are in these demographic categories. Additionally, the researcher has children enrolled in a full time online school, so the results may have some inherent bias, although an attempt was made to mitigate that bias through the use of graduate student coders who helped with the data analysis (see above section).

Results

The focus group analyses resulted in findings that were categorized by the behavioral, affective, and cognitive components of the ACE framework. The themes and codes focused on the overall experience of the at-risk student from the perspective of their parents.

Affective engagement

Affective engagement can be described as ‘the emotional energy associated with involvement in course learning activities’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020). Parents of at-risk students described affective engagement in terms of relationships, communication with teachers, and communication with students (See Table 4 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx).

Affective engagement - relationships

Affective engagement through relationships was explained through relationships with teachers, students, and activities provided by the school to support relationships. Parents felt that teachers treated students as a parent would their child, and tried to promote a familial atmosphere that would last not just during a class, but for the long term. Lana (Focus Group 2) gave an example: ‘, my community family advisor for my remaining two years of high school helped me graduate, was there for my whole pregnancy because I ended up pregnant my senior year in high school’. (Lana, Focus Group 2). Juniper (Focus Group 1) spoke about how her and her son still interact with a teacher from three years previous: ‘[TeacherName] was his first teacher and we are going into our 3rd year and she still will check in on him and make sure he is doing good, or provides any help or direction needed by myself or son during this journey’. (Juniper, Focus Group 1).

Teachers also apparently provided affective engagement in relationships through one-on-one interactions that were based on a deep knowledge of student needs. Ursula (Focus Group 3) explained how her son’s teacher built a relationship based on trust through an understanding of his needs: ‘They had intervention specialists, which makes it great for students with educational issues. That way they are familiar with that student. They know what that student can do and what that student can’t. That student is comfortable with them, so they don’t have a problem asking for help’. She went on to discuss how her son’s teacher used that knowledge of his special needs to develop a rich, teacher-student relationship, resulting in affective engagement.

Affective engagement - communication with teachers

Communication with teachers was another way that parents perceived the affective engagement of their children at the virtual school. Communication surrounded students’ learning strengths, weaknesses, and readiness, grouping, tasks, and scaffolded emotional growth. Teachers used IEPs, frequent and rich parent communication, a knowledge of students’ interests in their communication, and student progress checks. Ursula (Focus Group 3) explained: ‘And the intervention specialists that he had are very encouraging. They had no problem communicating with me on his IEP, back and forth with me when it came to my son. And I really liked that’. This strong communication with parents was paired with a focus on understanding students’ interests:

Like my son got really excited one day. He said, I wanna work on a cruise ship. So, he dove into it. Found out what he had to learn or how to wait and how to be able to be on a cruise ship. Totally outta left field… but that was something that he and [the teacher] and his class talked about it. (Kandy, Focus Group 3)

Teachers also used student progress checks as a form of communication. This was communication for the purpose of checking on a student’s level of understanding, but with more of a focus on their confidence level.

With my daughter, she’s had a lot of teachers that have contacted her when she’s struggling, and they stay up with her to work on stuff and they’ve worked with her one on one. Sometimes if she’s really struggling with stuff, they’ve opened up past work and given her extra work to help her bring her grade up. (Kandy, Focus Group 3) My oldest daughter struggles in math. But the teacher that she had her first semester… took time out of her schedule and said, “Okay. We’re setting up one on ones as many times as we need to through the semester to get her where she needs to be.” After the first meeting, the teacher called me and she said, “Your daughter does not need help. She knows what she’s doing. She just needs the confidence.” And from that point on, that teacher gave her the confidence to be able to do her math and know that she could do it. (Jonnette, Focus Group 1)

Although these student progress checks provided behavioral and cognitive engagement, the examples in this category emphasize affective engagement because of their focus on increasing student confidence through one-on-one interaction and words of affirmation.

Parents of at-risk students also saw teachers using flexible grouping strategies to promote communication. ‘The starting out of smaller groups helped tremendously, my son was participating more and became excited to ‘go to school’, his favorite teacher of all time came from this experience’. (Juniper, Focus Group 1). Focus group participants mentioned groups that included partners (Lulu, Focus Group 3), small or large groups (Tanya, Focus Group 1); students of either varying or similar abilities (Randina, Focus Group 1); teacher and student led (Tessa, Focus Group 2); assigned and self-selected (Mandy, Focus Group 1); and lasting for either a short time (one lesson) or for several weeks (Nina, Focus Group 2).

Teachers also were perceived as using a variety of tasks as their classroom activities. Nina (Focus group 2) talked about how adding the element of fun made a difference for students: ‘They get the kids to laugh and joke. And that’s what you have to do in these [synchronous meetings]. But let me tell you what, if you come in there and you laugh and you talk with these kids and you make your lessons fun, you’ve got that kid’. Adding elements of fun to the classroom involved including references to popular culture in lessons (e.g. Five Nights at Freddies) as well as things like sharing a daily joke.

Finally, parents perceived teachers using strategies such as affirming correct answers, confidence, trust and self efficacy building, emotional sharing, and helping students to learn how to interact with others as ways to scaffold students in their emotional growth. Randina (Focus Group 1) stated that teacher affirmation of his academic work, ‘…gave him the boost he needed’. However, not all of this confidence and affirmation building was communicated in response to students’ academic work. Juniper (Focus Group 3) talked about how a specialist at the virtual school helped her daughter learn how to interact with other students. ‘So, like what you said, my daughter gets that from her speech therapist. They actually work on conversations and stuff there’. Opaleska (Focus Group 1) affirmed that teachers at the virtual school planned specific activities to promote emotional growth:

So, it’s great because it shows them that it’s okay to feel these things. They were allowed to say openly that they were scared. They talk about the seven mindsets. And they all have an opportunity on Fridays to join in a counseling session about the seven mindsets and learn a little bit more about their emotions.

Affective engagement - communication between students

Communication between teachers and students was another way that parents perceived the affective engagement of their children at the virtual school. This communication was usually either teacher or student led. Teacher-led communication focused on using live classes and personalized feedback to communicate on issues of emotional well being. Opaleska (Focus Group 1) explained:

My daughter’s classroom, the first five minutes of the classroom, they put up a little chart and they ask them how are you feeling today. And they have a red. They have faces from insideOut [movie] on there. And they’re like, “circle where you are.” And the teachers reassure them it’s okay to be angry today and they talk about how they are feeling with other students.

What was the result? ‘And they became a small little community within – like, they could talk to each other. They had little sessions throughout the day’. (Ursula, Focus Group 3).

Student-led communication with other students was another way that parents perceived affective engagement of their children at the virtual school. This kind of communication was usually during unstructured periods of the day, such as lunch: ‘they do lunch breaks twice a week where the kids can come and have lunch but also play the games as well’. (Opaleska, Focus Group 1). Students interacted with each other socially during these unstructured periods: ‘they did have break out rooms to where they were able to talk amongst themselves’. (Tammy, Focus Group 3). This also led parents to get together: ‘There was a Facebook Group for learning coaches for our school. We share our successes and concerns and we help each other out. It truly is a wonderful community’. (Mandy, Focus Group 1). The result was students who were excited to learn: ‘She was excited to get online with her teachers and her classmates. And my kids were learning. They were, actually, excited about school’. (Jonnette, Focus Group 1).

Behavioral engagement

Behavioral engagement can be described as, ‘The physical behaviors (energy) associated with completing course learning activity requirements’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020). Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school saw behavioral engagement in terms of learning expectations, help with technological issues, and self regulation skills. Learning expectations involve what students should know and be able to do as they work to achieve their goals. Parents stated that learning expectations were sometimes communicated via a weekly newsletter, which appeared to be focused on introducing students and learning coaches to what will be covered in academic courses during the week (See Table 5 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx). Mandy (Focus Group 1) explained:

Each week, the administrative group, they send out a newsletter. They give you a theme for the week. And it’s called the Principal’s Corner. And they go over the books that they want you to learn or what you’re going to be reading about. It’s all by theme. (Mandy, Focus Group 1)

Another form of behavioral engagement was accomplished through schoolwide and course-specific orientation sessions. Juniper (Focus Group 1) stated, ‘We have several "boot camps" to give them general info about the school year and then each of the classes have similar boot camps geared toward their classes and going over what is expected and what they will cover during the year’. (Juniper, Focus Group 1).

Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school also saw help with technological issues as examples of behavioral engagement. Opaleska (Focus Group 1) shared her confidence in the technology support staff at the school: ‘I think we have a great technical support team. So, they’re very thorough. And they’re very good at explaining things to them. The teachers don’t really have to because it’s really how it is’. (Opaleska, Focus Group 1). Also, Randina (Focus Group 1) shared a specific example of how a teacher helped her child learn how to submit an assignment: ‘my son had to write a few papers and when it came to turning them in they sometimes did screen share did class and walked the kids step by step and on how add the doc and submit it’ (Randina, Focus Group 1). Teachers and technological support staff helped students to behaviorally engage with their courses through efforts like these.

Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school also saw teacher scaffolding of self regulation skills as examples of behavioral engagement. Self-regulation is the ability to understand and manage your behavior and your reactions to feelings and things happening around you. These skills were evident through the use of asynchronous work assignments for students with medical issues:

For my daughter, she has medical issues… which means instead of having to attend classes at a certain time, she can do her classwork and watch the videos when she’s feeling up to it. So, if she’s in pain or has a migraine or stuck in bed, she can wait until the pain passes to be able to do her work. She does have days where it’s bad enough that she still can’t get outta bed and isn’t able to attend on those days, but she can catch up on her work. I love that she can still get her work done and catch up on it. (Kandy, Focus Group 3)

Kandy’s daughter showed self regulation skills in being able to track work that needed to be done on her own and accomplish it at a different time when she was feeling well physically. Several parents discussed how teachers used a variety of tools to help students to develop self regulation skills, such as calendar schedules and system alerts. Randina (Focus Group 1) shared that, ‘teachers would use the [course management system] to tell students that they were missing assignments’. Additionally,

And I feel like, especially for the younger ones, that color coding and knowing that there’s a key to follow in order to get those assignments in on time or hey, you have until this day to get it done, talk to me or your learning coach to know what you need to get done. And I feel like that helped, especially the younger grades. (Mandy, Focus Group 1)

Mandy’s child found the use of color coding helpful in developing self regulation skills. In all cases, although it may have been difficult, these tools helped students prepare for their future:

I know my son struggled at first with being able to get used to having homework. That was the first struggle. And then so, I feel like transferring him from public school to [our online school]helped him with his readiness skills that he needed to enter into college. And get ready to be prepped for what he needed to do. So, it was a struggle for him a little bit at first, but then he started getting used to getting on a schedule of what to do and how to do it. (Lulu, Focus Group 3)

Cognitive engagement

Cognitive engagement can be described as, ‘The mental energy exerted towards productive involvement with course learning activities’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020). Parents of at-risk students enrolled in the virtual school described cognitive engagement opportunities in the areas of teaching and tutoring of academic content, co-learning with students, and collaboration between students (See Table 6 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx).

Cognitive engagement - teaching content

On the positive side, some parents viewed the virtual school coursework as academically challenging: ‘He was challenged. I feel like the classes that he did have in his online school, he wouldn’t have received in his regular school. And so, he even graduated a semester early. So, I wasn’t expecting that’ (Kandy, Focus Group 3). Mandy explained what she viewed as technological innovation: ‘My son’s second grade teacher last year, she had Near Pods. She allowed [students] to write or draw on the screen and share, comprehending what they read. That was something that was really neat and we have never experienced before. (Mandy, Focus Group 1).

With that said, the teaching of content also had a few negative perspectives:

And when she started the [online] program, they didn’t have advanced classes to meet her academically. She’s been in advanced math classes since she was in second grade. Their most advanced math class they could offer her was practical math. Now she does okay with her classes and stuff, but they really don’t challenge her. (Ursula, Focus Group 3).

Ursula saw her daughter enter the virtual school with an advanced understanding of mathematics, but she didn’t experience any challenge to grow in those skills. Meanwhile, Kandy’s daughter (Focus Group 3) was encountering technological issues: ‘And then with the new grading system and all the tech problems, she wound up failing about half of her classes last year, so’. (Kandy, Focus Group 3).

Cognitive engagement - tutoring content

Tutoring of academic content was perceived by parents as being accomplished through small groups, asynchronous feedback, and formative assessments. Juniper (Focus Group 1) explained the importations of small groups: ‘Ours does breakout rooms as well! separate room for more one on one or smaller group or designated tutoring hours to sign up for’. Other parents saw asynchronous feedback as working better, especially for older students:

It’s harder for them to ask questions in the middle of the [synchronous class] sometimes because so many people have questions. So, they email their teacher and the teacher will directly respond back. So, sometimes, for my oldest, they will send video of how to do it or they will have – they will show examples in an email and they will have conversation back and forth that way. (Opaleska, Focus Group 1)

The virtual school also used Star testing to formatively assess student’s skills and knowledge in a variety of academic subject areas. Results on this test were not used as part of student grades, but to provide teachers with information on their strengths and weaknesses. Jonnette (Focus Group 1) explained, ‘They also had on their Star testing, if they had scored low, they had classes that they had to attend to work on the skills where they were lacking’.

Cognitive engagement - learn with student

The school model used in this virtual school included a learning coach, usually a parent or guardian who helped the student to keep track of their work. However, parents found themselves much more cognitively engaged than that, and actually learned the content alongside their student. As one parent expressed, ‘Being here with them and being able to learn right along with them’. (Nina, Focus Group 2).

My daughter last year, she was doing her work and stuff, but there was a couple of classes she was kinda struggling in. She wasn’t failing, but she was having a hard time with the work because she wasn’t quite understanding it. And most of the time, her and I have to sit down, and I have to explain it to her and reword it to her in a way that she understands. (Kandy, Focus Group 3)

when it came to math, I had to spend time and I didn’t mind it. We spent time really going through each lesson. I know other kids probably didn’t have that opportunity or they didn’t have a parent willing to go through each lesson with them step by step. Some kids are going to get it or some kids are not going to get it. (Irene, Focus Group 2)

Parents went to these lengths to help their children learn because, as Nina (Focus Group 2) put it, ‘I would not have traded this experience for anything because I get to be here every day and watch them turn into productive humans’.

Teachers also participated in learning alongside their students. Kandy (Focus Group 3) described how one teacher worked with her daughter through a series of calls, zooms, and emails to help: ‘That teacher would reach out to her every week for the rest of the semester. And that really helped her see, hey, this person actually cares about me and wants to see me succeed. And so, that made a big impression on her’. Lulu (Focus Group 3) agreed, stating that her, ‘…. son enjoyed the office hours the teachers provided to help with extra support. Kinda liked the extra tie for materials that he didn’t understand’.

Cognitive engagement - collaboration with student

Collaboration between students was perceived by parents as being accomplished through small groups, and peer tutoring. ‘The small groups were very helpful, they worked at the level he was at and really helped him when he didn’t understand and broke it down so he could understand it’. (Randina, Focus Group 1). Those groups included peer to peer work, which emphasized interactions between students who were collaborating:

Then it also opened up the social part of it. They had break out rooms where they were able to talk amongst themselves and figure out problems. And each one had an input into figuring out a problem and I feel like it made them individually feel good about themselves that they contributed to solving the problem. (Tammy, Focus Group 3)

Opaleska, from Focus Group 1, explained the source of some of those peer tutors: ‘I do know that our school offers tutoring because my daughter is in National Honor Society. They have the opportunity to tutor and mentor other students. And then, they also have the opportunity to participate with the guidance counselors, too’.

Discussion

This section discusses themes and categories derived from the affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement sections of the focus groups. Additionally, the discussion has also been bolstered by some of the themes and categories from the online experiences section of the focus groups.

Discussion: Affective engagement

Overall, this research indicates that parents of at-risk children enrolled in a virtual school felt that their students’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement were supported by teachers, other students, and the school. As previously stated, affective engagement can be described as ‘the emotional energy associated with involvement in course learning activities’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020). In this study, parents of at-risk students described affective engagement in terms of relationships, communication with teachers, and communication with students (See Table 4 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx).

Affective engagement through relationships was explained through relationships with teachers and other students, as well as activities provided by the school to support relationships. Borup et al. (2019) performed research that showed the benefits of school staff who focused on developing relationships with students (Borup et al., 2019). Parents in our focus groups felt that teachers treated students as a parent would their child, and tried to promote a familial atmosphere that would last not just during a class, but for the long term. Borup et al. (2020) and Harms et al. (2006) discussed the importance of this kind of relationship with a student which extended well beyond ‘normal’ course and school boundaries in order to support affective student engagement. Also in this study, parents of at-risk students enrolled in the virtual school perceived teachers as interacting one-on-one with students in a way that was based on a deep knowledge of student needs. This confirms prior research that confirmed that online courses could be customized to meet at-risk students’ needs (Barnett, 2016; Borup et al., 2019; Repetto et al., 2018; Viano, 2018). Parents of at-risk students also saw teachers using flexible grouping strategies to promote communication. Teachers also were perceived as using a variety of tasks as their classroom activities. These results confirm decades of research on the use and importance of flexible grouping, and respectful tasks in differentiation of instruction, both in the in-person classroom ((Doubet, 2007; Hockett, 2010; Tomlinson, 2001, 2005) and in virtual schools (Beck & Beasley, 2021; Beasley & Beck, 2017).

Another aspect of affective engagement that was present in this study was teachers’ use of strategies such as affirming correct answers, confidence, trust and self efficacy building, emotional sharing, and helping students to learn how to interact with others as ways to scaffold students in their emotional growth. These strategies helped students to value the course topic and increase in their beliefs about their academic success (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), as well as to provide clear connections with their teacher and avoid feelings of isolation which are common in online courses (Symeonides & Childs, 2015). Communicating online requires a different set of skills than in-person, which may lead students to be tentative and uncommunicative at first (Borup & Stimson, 2019). The strategies used by teachers in this study helped to encourage students that they could succeed, as well as trained them in how to interact with others appropriately in an online course.

This research study also found that teachers used communication between teachers and students and students and their peers to affectively engage students in the virtual school. Teacher-led communication focused on using live classes and personalized feedback to communicate on issues of emotional well being, while student-led communication with other students occurred during unstructured periods. These uses of both student and teacher led communication to support affective engagement confirms aspects of the ACE framework (Borup et al., 2020).

These findings not only confirm important aspects of the ACE framework regarding affective engagement, they also echo a significant literature base on the importance of social and emotional learning in the classroom, and point to the need to apply it to the online classroom in order to be effective (Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2020), especially with at-risk students (Roksa & Kinsley, 2018).

Discussion: Behavioral engagement

As previously stated, behavioral engagement can be described as, ‘The physical behaviors (energy) associated with completing course learning activity requirements’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020), and is a significant component of the ACE Framework. Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school saw behavioral engagement in terms of learning expectations, help with technological issues, and self regulation skills (See Table 5 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx). Parents in this study stated that learning expectations were sometimes communicated via a weekly newsletter, which appeared to be focused on introducing students and learning coaches to what will be covered in academic courses during the week, or through schoolwide and course-specific orientation sessions. A newsletter and orientation sessions may be effective means to address students’ tendencies to underestimate the time and energy needed for a variety of online assignments and activities (McClendon et al., 2017). Moreover, orientation sessions could be utilized to provide a broad overview of learning expectations and other information on how to succeed in an online school (Borup et al., 2020).

Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school also saw help with technological issues as examples of behavioral engagement. This confirmed another part of the ACE framework, which suggested the importance of assistance in understanding how to navigate the online environment and solve any technological issues that students encountered. Hillman et al. (1994) explained that not understanding how to navigate an online learning environment will result in less active involvement in course work, and other research has shown that students’ problems with an online learning environment has led them to drop out of courses (de la Varre et al., 2014). As teachers in this virtual school helped students with understanding the technology platforms and tools, as well as to solve any technical issues, the students behaviorally engaged with their academic courses.

Parents of at-risk children enrolled in the virtual school also saw teacher scaffolding of self regulation skills as examples of behavioral engagement. In this study, self regulation skills were evident through the use of asynchronous work assignments for students with medical issues and learning how to use a variety of tools to better organize and manage time and work. Organizing and managing is another important aspect of behavioral engagement in the ACE Framework (Borup et al., 2020). Also, students learning outside of a physical classroom tend to have an increased need for these skills (Borup et al., 2015). This may be due to the large amount of digital distractions available to today’s students (Cho & Littenberg-Tobias, 2016), especially through social media (Hollis & Was, 2016). Parents in this study confirmed that these skills were not present at the beginning of their child’s enrollment in the virtual school, and that they required both time and effort to develop. Parents also confirmed that self regulation skills were key to their students’ academic success, which confirms research by Michinov et al. (2011). The support received by teachers, and tools at this virtual school were critical in these students’ academic progress (Hendrix & Degner, 2016; Repetto et al., 2010).

Parents in this research study also perceived that their students learned how to track work that needed to be done on their own and then accomplish it at a different time. The ACE Framework identifies this as another means to support behavior engagement. Parents in our study saw flexibility of learning pace and the lack of, or flexibility in deadlines as contributing to the need for skills in monitoring progress. This support research by Michinov et al. (2011), which found that the absence of deadlines was negatively correlated with online course performance. Teachers in this study utilized tools such as the course management system alerts, online calendars, to-do lists, and even color coding to help students to develop skills in monitoring progress. Other teachers used reward systems which provided both incentives and punishments to help students to develop these skills (Borup et al., 2015). These kinds of support of behavioral engagement are critical because they are often missing in K-12 students (Paudel, 2020).

Discussion: Cognitive engagement

Cognitive engagement, another important aspect of the ACE Framework, can be described as, ‘The mental energy exerted towards productive involvement with course learning activities’ (p. 813, Borup et al., 2020). Borup et al. (2020) identify important indicators of cognitive engagement as the teaching and tutoring of content, learning with the student, and collaboration between students - which confirmed much of Anderson et al’s previous work (2001). In this qualitative research study, parents of at-risk students enrolled in the virtual school described cognitive engagement opportunities in the areas of teaching and tutoring of academic content, co-learning with students, and collaboration between students (See Table 6 for codes and themes at http://bit.ly/3OScAQx).

Regarding the teaching of content, some parents viewed the virtual school coursework as academically challenging, while others didn’t. Still other parents identified the virtual school activities as technologically innovative, while still others did not. This may be due to the fact that student academic development and experience varies so widely, and thus their ability to engage in the activities and receive the desired support also varies (Halverson & Graham, 2019). Tutoring of academic content was perceived by parents in these focus groups as being accomplished through small groups, asynchronous feedback, and formative assessments, which confirmed the importance of these one on one cognitive interactions in the ACE Framework and in other research (Doubet, 2007; Hockett, 2010; Tomlinson, 2001, 2005; (Beck & Beasley, 2021; Beasley & Beck, 2017).

Learning with the student was another major theme in this study. The school model used in this virtual school included a learning coach, usually a parent or guardian who helped the student to keep track of their work. However, parents of at-risk children in this study also learned the content alongside their student, often going through an assignment step by step in order to make sure their child understood the content. Previous research suggests that students often sought out help from parents in online courses where teachers were not readily available (Borup et al., 2015), but this does not seem to be the case in this situation. Instead, it may be simply that students naturally receive more support from the physical location in which their learning takes place (Oviatt et al., 2018), even if the virtual school doesn’t facilitate these local support efforts. It may also be that parents were empowered to participate more fully in their students’ education because they were challenged to do so (Hoover‐Dempsey et al., 2005) and provided the resources to help their child to fully participate in their virtual school. For example, the school may provide learning analytics data to parents to help them to monitor student progress and engagement (Borup et al., 2019).

Collaboration between students was perceived by parents of at-risk students as being accomplished through small groups, and peer tutoring. Small groups included peer to peer work, which emphasized interactions between students who were collaborating. Students in these groups worked together to develop knowledge, solve problems, and accomplish tasks. This is important, as this particular use of small groups is considered to be an important aspect of a quality online course (iNACOL, 2011), and it is often a component that is not included, due to an overemphasis on a flexible learning environment (Garrison, 2009; Gill et al., 2015).

Discussion: Recommendations

A few strategies for virtual schools are recommended based on the results of this research study. First, virtual schools should consider increasing affective engagement opportunities in the areas of relationships, communication with teachers, and communication with students. Some specific approaches virtual schools could utilize should be the promotion of long term, familial relationships among students and teachers, flexible grouping strategies to promote communication, and the use of strategies such as affirming correct answers, confidence, trust and self efficacy building, emotional sharing, and helping students to learn how to interact with others as ways to scaffold students in their emotional growth.

Second, virtual schools should consider increasing behavioral engagement opportunities in the areas of learning expectations, help with technological issues, and self regulation skills. Virtual schools should consider clarifying learning expectations through the use of a weekly newsletter and schoolwide and course-specific orientation sessions. They should also consider the importance of providing ubiquitous technical support for students in understanding how to navigate the online environment and solve any technological issues. Also, virtual schools could boost students’ engagement in self regulation skills through the development of organizational and management skills, such as the use of asynchronous work assignments, learning how to use a variety of tools to better organize and manage time and work,

Third, virtual schools should consider increasing cognitive engagement opportunities in the areas of teaching and tutoring of academic content, co-learning with students, and collaboration between students. Virtual schools need to consider how to customize academic content to students of varying academic levels in engaging manner, and to provide just-in-time tutoring support that takes this into consideration as well. Co-learning with students was also a key part of cognitive engagement, and virtual schools would be well served to consider adding a fulltime online facilitator whose responsibilities include meeting regularly with the student to learn the content together.

Conclusion

At-risk learners are students who are in danger of academic failure and not being able to complete an academic grade or graduate (Gardner et al., 1983), and they face a variety of cultural, social, and environmental challenges (Beken et al., 2009; Webber, 2018). One recommended way of helping students that has been recommended by ESSA is in the area of expansion of personalized learning for at-risk students through online learning, and these programs continue to grow (Adams, 2020; Huh & Reigeluth, 2018; Darling-Aduana, 2019). In these online environments, at-risk students can access content for the courses that they need to take at any time during the day or night, and from any location.

Although research exists on at-risk learners in blended environments, this topic has not yet been fully explored for fully online schools. We need a much fuller understanding of the supports needed for at-risk learners to succeed in fully online schools. The purpose of this study was to understand parent perceptions of at-risk learner’s supports in a fully online school. Results on student engagement confirmed the validity of the ACE Framework for at-risk high school students and showed that the school used a variety of personnel and tools to affectively, behaviorally, and cognitively engage at-risk students.

More research needs to be accomplished to confirm various aspects of the framework on a larger scale, but one possibility is that virtual schools should consider the use of innovative staff models that would ensure students have adequate affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement and supports. This would allow teachers to focus on teaching, and these other staff roles to engage students in these other areas. Even TPS hires a variety of non-teacher staff as interventionists, community advisors, counselors, etc. What we don’t know is what kind of staff does a virtual school need for the unique needs of virtual school students? For example, Valor Global Online includes what they call ‘Advocates’ on their staff, whose role is to ‘foster and grow connections with both students and parents, understands the benefits of meaningful assessments, and respond promptly and reliably to requests and concerns from students, parents, and teachers’ (Beck, 2022, p. 369). This role would help to fill in any gaps in student affective and behavioral engagement that may exist in a virtual school and has been used successfully in blended schools as well (Drysdale et al., 2014). Moreover, this role may be particularly helpful for at-risk students who have an acute need for these types of engagement.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

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Dennis Beck

Dennis Beck is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Arkansas. His research focuses on the impact of online technologies on vulnerable populations. In this vein, he has studied special education parent and student satisfaction and student achievement with cyber schooling, as well as the impact of homework on student achievement and student and parent satisfaction in cyber schools. Additionally, in order to better understand the impacts of cyber schooling on vulnerable populations, he has studied the virtual school field experiences for pre-service administrators as well as the roles, responsibilities, issues, and difficulties facing those in leadership of these type of schools. He has published in several venues, including IEEE TLT, Computers & Education, American Journal of Distance Education, Educational Administration Quarterly, and the Journal of Educational Research.