PRIVACY RIGHTS FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN IN K-12 SCHOOLS: A MIXEDMETHODS STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATORS ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FAMILY EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT (FERPA)
Date
2018-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was an important issue in education that dealt with student
privacy. Student education records were not accessible to parents, and important decisions were being made for the students without input from the parents. Based on this abuse, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was signed into law.
The purpose of this study was to determine if site administrators and teachers from
educational institutions understand how to enforce FERPA. This study assessed the site
administrators’ understanding of FERPA via a survey with questions on the knowledge of
FERPA, student data, and student/parent rights. The study also assessed the impact of providing FERPA training to site administrators with a pre- and post-test. Interviews were conducted with the teachers to gain an understanding of their knowledge of FERPA with questions on student confidentiality and student data. The methodology for this study was a mixed-methods approach that used a one-group pretest-posttest design for the quantitative research and was supplemented by the qualitative data. The results presented in this study contribute to the research literature on the importance of being trained in FERPA to enforce compliance and protect student confidentiality and privacy. Although there was a small sample size, there were slight increases from the pre-test to the posttest, which reinforces the importance of being trained on FERPA.