This work is situated in research on Parental Involvement (PI) in Computer Science (CS) Education. While the importance of PI in children's education is well established, most parents have little experience in CS and struggle to facilitate the learning of a child in the area. If PI in CS Education is to happen, then we argue that parents need support and that understanding the current behaviours and attitudes toward CS in the family context is important to discerning the form that support should take. This article therefore describes the development of an instrument to identify factors relating to parental attitudes toward and motivation for PI in CS education. Relevant variables situated in the context of parental computing behaviours and attitudes in the home were identified using a literature review and expert focus group. These include computing usage, availability, confidence, and experience. To measure these variables, a survey instrument was developed and administered to a large sample of parents ( n = 1228). Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis confirm that the instrument measures five constructs, namely “Confidence,” measuring parental confidence levels with computing; “Attitude to PI”; “Motivation for PI”; and two types of “Usage”: Creation and Consumption. Results of Pearson correlation revealed significant positive relationships between confidence and both positive attitudes toward, and motivation for, PI, with linear regressions confirming that confidence was a significant predictor of both. Regression analysis also identified that creative usage was a predictor of positive attitudes to PI, and that programming experience was a predictor of attitude to, and motivation for, PI. These findings were further validated through triangulation with qualitative data from focus groups with the target population. We conclude that this understanding of the predictors of PI attitudes and motivation should inform the design of initiatives to address parental engagement in CS Education.

中文翻译：

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父母参与计算机科学教育和家庭计算态度和行为：模型和规模发展

这项工作位于对计算机科学 (CS) 教育中父母参与 (PI) 的研究。虽然 PI 在儿童教育中的重要性已经确立，但大多数父母在 CS 方面经验不足，并且难以促进该地区孩子的学习。如果 CS 教育中的 PI 发生，那么我们认为父母需要支持，并且了解当前家庭环境中对 CS 的行为和态度对于辨别支持应该采取的形式很重要。因此，本文描述了一种工具的开发，以确定与父母对 CS 教育中 PI 的态度和动机相关的因素。使用文献回顾和专家焦点小组确定了位于父母计算行为和家庭态度背景下的相关变量。这些包括计算使用、可用性、信心和经验。为了测量这些变量，我们开发了一种调查工具，并对大量父母样本进行了管理（n= 1228)。探索性和验证性因素分析的结果证实，该工具测量了五个结构，即“信心”，通过计算测量父母的信心水平；“对 PI 的态度”；“PI 的动机”；以及两种“使用”：创造和消费。Pearson 相关结果显示信心与对 PI 的积极态度和动机之间存在显着的正相关关系，线性回归证实信心是两者的重要预测因素。回归分析还发现，创造性使用是对 PI 积极态度的预测因素，编程经验是对 PI 态度和动机的预测因素。这些发现通过与来自目标人群的焦点小组的定性数据进行三角测量得到进一步验证。