The effect of smartphone addiction in the family on student success and parental involvement

This study aims to investigate the effect of the level of smartphone addiction in the family (children and their parents) on parental involvement and student success. The convergent parallel mixed design method was employed, which considers quantitative and qualitative research designs together. A case study was used in the qualitative dimension of the research, and a descriptive and relational screening design was used in the quantitative dimension. In the qualitative dimension of the study, twenty-one students, twenty-one parents and ten teachers were determined as the participants of the research by using the maximum diversity sampling method, which is one of the purposive sampling methods. The parents' of 1468 students in eight primary schools (1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades) located within Tunceli's central district comprise the quantitative dimension's universe. Since the researcher had access to all primary schools in the central area, the research covered the entire universe. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative collection tools were used in the data collection process. Semi-structured interview forms were developed for teachers, parents, and students to collect qualitative data. Two scales were employed to collect quantitative data, one of which was developed by the researcher. The researcher developed the "Smart Phone Addiction Scale in the Family" to measure the level of smartphone addiction in the family. Furthermore, the "Parental Involvement Scale" established by Gürbüztürk and Şad (2010a) was utilised to determine parents' opinions on their educational involvement. The qualitative data collected as a result of the interviews conducted in this research were subjected to content analysis. In the analysis of quantitative data, to determine which statistical tests will be used, the compliance of the data with the assumption of normality was calculated, and the data obtained from the "Smart Phone Addiction Scale in the Family" within this research were in accordance with the normal distribution. However, it was determined that the data obtained from the "Parental Involvement Scale" was not suitable for normal distribution. As a result, while parametric statistical methods were used to analyse data from the "Smart Phone Addiction Scale in the Family", non-parametric statistical methods were employed to examine data from the "Parental Involvement Scale". According to the findings from this research's qualitative and quantitative dimensions, families use their smartphones for communication, social media, and entertainment (game) content for an average of 4 hours and 5 minutes per day. Based on the quantitative data, it has been concluded that families (children and parents) do not engage in uncontrolled and excessive smartphone use. In the qualitative interviews, however, it was discovered that most of the parent participants stated that the use of smartphones in the family was excessive. In contrast, most of the student participants noted that the use of smartphones in the family was as necessary. At the same time, the level of smartphone addiction in the family; It was determined that there was no relationship between the gender of the parent, the age of the parent, the education level of the parent, the grade level of the child, the age of the child, the income level of the family and the number of children in the family, but there was a difference in terms of the child gender variable. Parents' parental involvement levels, on the other hand, were found to accomplish all duties at a high level, apart from the "voluntary active participation" dimension. It has been concluded that they rarely participate actively in in-school and out-of-school activities voluntarily. Furthermore, regarding the amount of parental participation, it was discovered that there is a variation in terms of the parent's gender, age, education level, child's age, and family income level. As the use of smartphones in the family increases, the level of parental involvement in their children's education decreases. Additionally, the impacts of parents' smartphone usage habits on parental involvement include the inability to spare time/postponement, being a role model, supporting the child's education, inhibiting communication with the child, and not being able to spare enough time for the child's education. Students' smartphone usage habits have the following effects on their success: supporting homework and studies with educational content, disrupting homework and responsibilities, distraction/inability to focus, exposure to negative content, and having an asocial personality.