Is text messaging a viable way to support parents? A systematic review, pilot study, and correlation study examining the feasibility, utility, and barriers to a parenting text messaging intervention

Many high school students, especially those from a low socioeconomic background, struggle with poor academic outcomes and school disengagement (Hopson & Lee, 2011; Lamb et al., 2015). Therefore, an easily accessible and affordable intervention would be useful to enhance teenagers’ academic performance and engagement. One way to enhance academic outcomes is through parenting, as parenting and parental involvement in teenagers’ education are associated with better students' academic performance (Boonk et al., 2018; Cheung & Pomerantz, 2012; Froiland et al., 2013; Hill & Tyson, 2009; Vasquez et al., 2016). To allow the intervention to be easily accessible with minimal cost for parents, I looked into delivering the intervention through text messages hosted by a smartphone application, as most families own a smartphone, and have internet access (e.g., Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018).

A systematic review was conducted to gain insight from studies which had previously utilised parenting text messages to improve students’ academic outcomes and engagement. The review suggested that text messaging interventions could feasibly deliver parenting interventions. Some studies showed that text messaging parenting interventions were effective in enhancing teenagers’ academic achievement and/or engagement. However, the effect sizes tended to be very small, and findings were not consistent across studies. Therefore, the present thesis proceeded with using text messages as an intervention-delivery medium to further investigate the effect of a text messaging parenting program.

A text messaging intervention for parents was developed to improve their parenting practices and thereby enhance their high school teenagers’ academic achievement and engagement. To ensure the effectiveness of the program, I used the evidence-based Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) as the foundation of my intervention (Sanders & Mazzucchelli, 2018b). A pilot study was conducted to understand high school parents’ preferences on the intervention logistics and text message content. Results suggested that parents would like to receive parenting text messages once a day between 9:00 a.m. and 9:59 a.m., and at most five times per week, during weekdays. The Triple P messages were also well-received by parents (the average usefulness rating ranged from 3.80 to 4.35 out of 5, 5 being extremely useful, 1 being not at all useful). In addition, parents’ socioeconomic status was only somewhat associated with the perceived usefulness of the messages. This led to the next study which involved launching the Triple P text messaging intervention to high school parents.

However, due to the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, recruitment became difficult, and therefore, the intervention study was redesigned to provide sufficient power for effect detection. Specifically, the study investigated the extent to which Triple P messages could add value to Triple P Online. Despite advertising the free parenting program to thousands of parents, the recruitment rate was low, resulting in an insufficient sample size to perform meaningful statistical analyses. Nevertheless, parents in the study found Triple P messages to be generally useful (average usefulness rating ranged from 3.10 to 4.29 out of 5, with 5 being very useful, 1 being not at all useful).

The low recruitment rate of the Triple P messaging and Triple P Online intervention was surprising given the substantial adverting and the fact that Triple P Online was a well-established parenting program (Ralph & Sanders, 2013). Therefore, I conducted a follow-up study to investigate the barriers high school parents might face that hinder their participation in parenting programs, especially in online and text messaging parenting programs. The results revealed some factors (e.g., parenting style and parents' attitude in being involved in their teenagers’ education) that were associated with parents’ willingness to seek parental help from various sources (including from online resources), as well as parents’ intention to participate in online and/or text message parenting interventions. Factors such as parental self-efficacy, parenting style, and parents' attitude in being involved in their teenagers’ education also predicted whether parents found parenting help useful. Moreover, the study found evidence of parental help negation - parents who might benefit from help (e.g., parents with less positive parenting practices) were less likely to seek it. These results provided potential explanations for the low recruitment rate of the Triple P messaging and online study. Future studies should address these barriers and thereby better encourage parents to seek parenting help.