The Strategies of Parental Choices in Supplemental Online Learning: a Middle School Perspective

The online education market is growing rapidly, offering more and more opportunities for children. The choice of a child's educational trajectory is traditionally based on family values, educational needs, and financial capabilities. While parental strategies regarding traditional education have been well studied, there is a lack of information on how parents approach the choice of additional online education for their children. This study focuses on the analysis of parental strategies in the context of online subject education. The study is based on a survey of 620 parents of students in grades 5-11 from 5 regions of Russia. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to determine the factors influencing the decision to choose online education. The results of the study show that in most cases, when choosing online subject education, parents rely on the experience of traditional education. At the same time, in addition to expected criteria such as the reputation and qualifications of teachers, parents pay special attention to the formats of interaction with the child and the ability to monitor learning progress. The data obtained will be useful for online schools and online course developers.