Jeremiah, Sekione Reward2021-10-152021-10-152018Jeremiah, S. R. (2018) Enhancing parental involvement in children academic life using digital diary. Masters dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam.http://41.86.178.5:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/16048Available in print form, Eat Africana Collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library,(THS EAF LB1139.35.P37T34J47)A good relationship between teachers and parents enable children to have better academic performances, fewer behavioral problems, better language skills and social competence. Many parents have not been able to participate in their child's academic life due to work commitments, schedules, distance, and lack of time. Many schools tend to send letters and paper-based diaries to engage parents in their child's academic life. However, letters and paper-based diaries rarely reach parents on time and information may not reach parents if they are not at home. The study examined the use of digital diary as a tool for enhancing parental involvement in children's academic life. The development of the digital diary followed extreme Programming agile method where 87 parents and 6 teachers from St. Florence academy were involved. Parents and teachers were given three months to use the tool before testing for its usefulness and effectiveness. Data were obtained from seven teachers and 82 parents through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires respectively as well as from system generated reports. The study found that the majority of respondents (84.4% of parents and 96.7% of teachers) indicated that digital diary was a useful tool as it enabled parents to receive timely updates to track a child's progress via their smartphones. Moreover, computer-generated reports showed that messages to/from parents were delivered with approximately 90% success rate. This research argues for schools to adopt and use digital diaries for easy, engaging, and effective home-school communications for better parental involvement.enParent participationParent and childChildren's diariesTanzaniaThesis