Parental roles and communication perceptions in Chinese WeChat class groups: latent class and correspondence analyses

This study investigates parents’ perceptions of communication behaviors in WeChat class groups and how these perceptions are closely related to their attitudes toward educational responsibility allocation in Chinese primary education. A total of 1,286 parents participated in the study. Using latent class analysis, four distinct communication perception profiles were identified: Active, Negative, Detached, and Passive. These profiles reflect varying levels of engagement and perceived communicative value. Correspondence analysis was employed to explore the relationship between these profiles and parents’ attitudes toward responsibility allocation, which include school-dominant, parent-led, parent-school cooperation, and parental coordination. Findings suggest that digital communication behaviors are closely linked to underlying beliefs about responsibility, with trust and role construction playing important roles in fostering effective collaboration. The study highlights the need for differentiated communication strategies that take into account varying parental attitudes and perceptions of school-family roles. Additionally, the findings emphasize the importance of fostering trust between parents and schools, particularly in digital communication settings. This study provides valuable insights into how digital tools can either enhance or hinder parent-school cooperation and offers practical implications for improving communication strategies within educational contexts.

1 Introduction

Digital tools, especially social media, have become routine channels for parent-school communication due to their accessibility, real-time interaction, and traceability (Lampropoulos et al., 2021; Dennen et al., 2020). These platforms have been shown to enhance parental engagement and day-to-day coordination (Amini, 2018; Alade and Donohue, 2023; Tenorio et al., 2021), with widespread international support for structured parent-school cooperation (Dennen et al., 2020).

However, social media use in education raises concerns. Blurred boundaries between family and school, heightened stress, reputational risks due to online controversies, misinformation, and privacy/legal exposure are key issues (Yu and Wei, 2019; Dong, 2022; Zhao and Shi, 2021; Pelkey et al., 2021). The perceived quality of interaction—more than its frequency—affects trust, and conflicting expectations about partnership versus one-way information complicate collaboration (Adams and Christenson, 2000). Moreover, challenges like technoference, digital inequities, and design limitations can fragment information and restrict boundary-setting (Mackay et al., 2022; Barr, 2022; Wong-Villacres et al., 2017; Arnaudeau et al., 2024). Effective engagement requires reciprocal strategies, yet common communication formats often struggle to achieve reciprocity (Kelty and Wakabayashi, 2020; Avari et al., 2023). Policies often frame platforms as both opportunities and risks (Robards et al., 2025), with teacher moderation (Papakonstantinou, 2023) and parental mediation (de Zwart et al., 2010) playing key roles. In China, recent guidance encourages diversified approaches—such as home visits—rather than blanket restrictions on digital platforms like WeChat (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, 2023).

Trust, influenced by values, perceived influence, and negative digital experiences, shapes parental attitudes (Pelletier and Brent, 2002; Barge and Loges, 2003; Strier and Katz, 2016). Parents’ perceptions of communication in class WeChat groups provide insight into trust, but the relationship between participation and trust remains unclear.

This study builds on Hoover-Dempsey’s perspective on parental involvement, considering parents’ attitudes toward responsibility allocation as indicators of role construction, which in turn influence how communication is interpreted (Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1997; Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2005). The discourse of partnership versus information transmission, and role invitations from schools, influence who initiates, monitors, and responds in communication, helping to explain why responsibility allocation is central to collaboration (Barge and Loges, 2003; Anderson and Minke, 2007; Glueck and Reschly, 2014; Adams and Christenson, 2000). Teachers’ role in initiating and encouraging communication significantly influences these dynamics. Teachers’ proactive participation in class WeChat groups not only invites parents into a collaborative relationship but also actively shapes their attitudes toward collaboration and participation. By fostering structured, engaged communication, teachers can encourage parents to view themselves as equal collaborators, rather than passive recipients of information. This fosters a partnership model and enhances shared responsibility.

Some accounts still position parents as assistants rather than partners (Christianakis, 2011), but teachers’ active role in fostering two-way communication is crucial to overcoming these limitations. Research shows that natural opportunities for home-school communication are limited, often requiring structured strategies to improve quality. In class-based WeChat groups, teachers’ role in organizing, encouraging, and inviting discussions provides the necessary structure to improve communication quality and positively shift parents’ attitudes toward involvement.

While the existing literature has explored communication behaviors in digital environments, less attention has been given to how parents perceive these communications. This distinction is important because the way parents interpret communication—rather than merely their level of participation—may be related to their attitudes toward responsibility allocation. Communication perception involves how parents interpret the value and outcomes of interactions, as well as the roles they believe themselves and schools should play. It shapes their trust in the process and is reflected in their engagement.

This study examines Chinese parents’ experiences in WeChat groups to identify distinct communication perception profiles and explore how these profiles relate to responsibility allocation attitudes. A latent class analysis (LCA) is used to identify communication perception profiles, and a correspondence analysis (CA) is used to map these profiles onto responsibility attitudes, contributing to the broader understanding of parent-school trust dynamics (Adams et al., 2009). The insights are relevant beyond WeChat, extending to digital parent-school communication globally (Tenorio et al., 2021; Wong-Villacres et al., 2017).

Guided by this framework, the following research questions are addressed:

Research Question 1: What distinct profiles of parents’ communication perceptions emerge in WeChat class groups across topic initiation, discussion dynamics, discussion outcomes, and communicative value?

Research Question 2: How are these perception profiles related to parents’ attitudes toward responsibility allocation between the family and the school?

Research Question 3: Are profiles characterized by lower participation and lower perceived communicative value more likely to appear together with responsibility allocation attitudes?

2 Methods

2.1 Participants and ethics/consent

A total of 1,286 parents of primary school students in Kunming, China, participated in this study. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling at various off-campus tutoring centers across the city. All respondents had prior experience with class-based WeChat groups. The sample consisted of 208 male and 1,078 female respondents. Due to a significant number of missing age data from female participants, age-related variables were excluded from the analysis. During data validation, data cleaning was performed, and all missing responses were removed, ensuring that the analysis was conducted on complete data with no missing values.

The study adhered to local ethical guidelines. Parents were informed of the study’s purpose, voluntary nature, and anonymity before providing electronic informed consent. Participation was anonymous, and only minimal demographic information (gender and the child’s grade level) was collected. No personally identifying information was gathered. The survey was accessed via a WeChat-scannable QR code, and participants completed the survey on their mobile devices. The average completion time was approximately 15 min.

2.2 Materials

The survey consisted of two main sections: one assessing attitudes toward responsibility allocation in parent-school cooperation and the other measuring parents’ perceptions of communication in class WeChat groups. All items used non-Likert categorical (nominal) response options, producing discrete and non-continuous data. Given that the items were single categorical questions rather than multi-item reflective measures, reliability analyses such as Cronbach’s α or McDonald’s ω were not applicable. Thus, participant responses were treated as nominal variables in all statistical analyses.

In the section on attitudes toward responsibility allocation, parents were asked to report their views on how educational responsibilities should be divided between the family and the school. This section included four items, each with three possible responses (Yes, definitely; No, not really; Uncertain). These items reflected four orientations: School-Dominant Responsibility, Parent-Led Responsibility, Parent-School Cooperation, and Parental Coordination with School.

In the section on communication perceptions, parents reported their perceptions of communication dynamics within their class WeChat groups. Seven items, each with four response options (rarely, occasionally, sometimes, frequently), captured key communication aspects. These items reflected four dimensions: Topic Initiation, Discussion Dynamics, Discussion Outcomes, and Perceived Communicative Value.

Topic Initiation includes whether topics were initiated by parents (PP) or by teachers (TI).

Discussion Dynamics refers to whether replies developed into discussions (DI) and whether teachers actively encouraged or participated in these discussions (TE).

Discussion Outcomes refers to whether discussions contributed to the formation of shared viewpoints (VI).

Perceived Communicative Value involves whether discussions were perceived as enhancing children’s academic performance (EA) or improving parents’ educational practices (IP).

These abbreviations (PP, TI, DI, TE, VI, EA, IP) are used throughout the subsequent analyses.

The Chinese-language version of the questionnaire, along with its English translation, is presented in Supplementary materials.

2.3 Data analysis

Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was performed using Mplus to identify distinct communication perception profiles based on parents’ responses to the seven categorical items. LCA identifies latent profiles by recognizing patterns in response data, grouping participants who share similar interpretations of interactions in class-based WeChat groups (Nylund-Gibson and Choi, 2018; Weller et al., 2020). The number of profiles retained was determined using several statistical criteria, including AIC, BIC, and aBIC values, as well as entropy values approaching 1.0 and significant results from the Lo–Mendell–Rubin test (LMRT) and bootstrap likelihood ratio test (BLRT), with a significance level of p < 0.05. No profile was allowed to contain fewer than 10% of participants. The final model selection also took into account interpretability and parsimony.

To assess the overall fit of the model, the χ² test was used to evaluate how well the model explains the observed data and the relationship between observed and expected frequencies. The classification quality of the LCA model was evaluated by assessing latent class separation using entropy (McLachlan and Peel, 2000), Average Posterior Probabilities (APP; Nylund-Gibson and Choi, 2018; McLachlan and Peel, 2000), and Correct Classification Rate (CCR; Lanza et al., 2003). Bivariate Pearson χ², Empty Cells χ² Contribution, and Loglikelihood χ² were computed to assess local independence and further confirm the robustness of the latent class solution (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017).

Correspondence Analysis (CA) was conducted using SPSS to examine the associations between the LCA-identified profiles and the four dimensions of responsibility allocation attitudes. CA is a multivariate technique that visualizes relationships between categorical variables by projecting them into a low-dimensional space, making it easier to interpret how different communication perception profiles correspond to varying orientations toward responsibility allocation (Sourial et al., 2010).

Additionally, Cramér’s V and bootstrap analysis were performed using Stata to evaluate the strength of associations between variables and to assess the reliability of statistical results. Cramér’s V (Agresti, 2013; Kearney, 2017; Akoglu, 2018) was used to measure the strength of association between categorical variables, while bootstrap analysis (Efron and Tibshirani, 1993) provided robust estimates of the chi-square statistics to evaluate result reliability.

3 Results

3.1 Latent class analysis results

Before conducting the Latent Class Analysis (LCA), Cramér’s V coefficientsfor the seven communication perception variables were calculated. The results revealed moderate to strong associations between several variables. For instance, in the teacher-initiated interaction dimension, the Cramér’s V value between TE (teachers’ active encouragement/participation) and TI (teacher-initiated topics) was 0.4168, and the association between TE and DI (replies developing into discussions) was 0.4804. The strongest association was found between VI (shared viewpoints) and PP (parent proposing topics), with a Cramér’s V of 0.5331. These associations support the expectation that active teacher participation is closely related to other aspects of parent-school communication, particularly parental involvement.

To identify the optimal latent profile solution, multiple statistical criteria were considered, including AIC, BIC, and aBIC values, as well as entropy and significant results from Lo–Mendell–Rubin and bootstrap likelihood ratio tests (BLRT). The 4-profile solution emerged as the most appropriate model. Although the 5-profile solution showed lower AIC, BIC, and aBIC values, it did not meet the Lo–Mendell–Rubin test’s significance (LMRT p = 0.390), and one of its profiles accounted for less than 10% of the sample. Therefore, the 4-profile solution was selected, as it provided the best balance between model fit, interpretability, and classification accuracy.

The four profiles were labeled: Active Participant (ActPart), Detached Participant (DetPart), Passive Participant (PasPart), and Negative Participant (NegPart). ActPart (50.1% of the sample) was characterized by high engagement and positive perceptions of communication value. DetPart (14.2%) exhibited the most negativity regarding topic interaction but more favorable views of communicative value. PasPart (20.2%) showed reluctance to engage in parent-initiated interactions but strongly agreed with teacher-initiated discussions. NegPart (15.5%) had the most negative perceptions of communication, especially regarding topic interaction, and was skeptical about the communicative value of discussions.

Figure 1 visually represents the distribution of these four profiles, showing their relative proportions and highlighting differences in communication perception patterns. Detailed tables of the posterior probabilities for each latent profile are provided in the Supplementary materials.

Figure 1

Figure 1. Stacked bar chart of latent class distribution by communication profiles.

These profiles reveal distinct patterns in how parents perceive communication within class-based WeChat groups, emphasizing the significant variation in communication behaviors and their interpretations (Table 1).

Table 1

Table 1. Model fit for latent profiles of parent-school communication.

3.2 Correspondence analysis results

To investigate the relationship between the latent profiles of parent-school communication and parental attitudes toward responsibility allocation, a cross-tabulation analysis was performed between the four responsibility allocation attitudes and the four latent profiles, as shown in Table 2. The chi-square test results revealed significant associations (p < 0.05) between these variables. Specifically, for each responsibility allocation attitude, the Cramér’s V values ranged from 0.136 to 0.235, indicating the strength of the association.

Table 2

Table 2. Contingency table of latent profiles by responsibility attitudes.

To further assess the reliability of these results, a bootstrap analysis was conducted. The bootstrap results, provided in Supplementary Table 9, yielded robust estimates of the chi-square statistics. For all tests, the Z-values calculated from standard errors were statistically significant, confirming the robustness of the associations between the latent profiles and the responsibility allocation attitudes. These results, along with the significant chi-square values, strongly support the reliability of these associations.

In the four correspondence analyses, the first dimension (Dimension 1) explains a large proportion of the variance in each case. For school-dominant responsibility and latent profile, Dimension 1 explains 75.3%; for parent-led responsibility and latent profile, Dimension 1 explains 76.2%; for parent-school cooperation and latent profile, Dimension 1 explains 85.3%; and for parental coordination with schools and latent profile, Dimension 1 explains 80.6%. This information is presented in Supplementary Table 10.

Figure 2 presents the two-dimensional correspondence plot, which visually captures the relationships between the four responsibility orientations and the four communication perception profiles. This plot helps to reveal how each communication profile aligns with specific responsibility orientations.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Correspondence analysis of latent classes and responsibility allocation attitudes.

For School-Dominant Responsibility, the Negative Participation profile is positioned close to the “Yes, definitely” response, indicating a strong inclination toward supporting the school in taking primary responsibility.

In contrast, for Parent-Led Responsibility, the Passive Participation profile is near the “Yes, definitely” category, signaling a preference for a family-led approach. Meanwhile, the Detached Participation profile is positioned near the “Uncertain” response, reflecting ambivalence toward this responsibility model.

For Parent-School Cooperation, both Negative Participation and Passive Participation profiles are located relatively close to the “Yes, definitely” category, indicating their support for collaboration between parents and schools. The Detached Participation profile, however, remains near the “Uncertain” response, suggesting indecision or lack of commitment to this cooperative model.

In the context of Parental Coordination with School, the Passive Participation profile is again positioned near “Yes, definitely,” indicating agreement that parents should coordinate with schools, while the Detached Participation profile appears near “Uncertain,” again reflecting ambivalence.

Across all plots, the most notable pattern is that the Active Participation profile does not exhibit a strong alignment with any particular responsibility orientation. This profile appears to be neutral, with no clear preference for one responsibility model over another. The Detached Participation profile shows uncertainty toward Parent-Led Responsibility, Parent-School Cooperation, and Parental Coordination with School.

These results suggest that communication perception profiles are meaningfully associated with how parents conceptualize educational responsibilities. However, the nature of these associations is nuanced and cannot be fully captured by simple categorizations of participation level or positive versus negative perceptions.

Due to the significant gender disparity in the study sample, the four correspondence analyses were conducted separately for male and female parents. As shown in Supplementary Tables 11–20, significant associations were found between the four responsibility allocation attitudes and the latent profiles for both genders. The Cramér’s V coefficients indicate stronger associations among male parents compared to female parents. The bootstrap analysis results further confirm the reliability of these associations.

Examination of inertia tables and biplots revealed notable differences between male and female parents in how responsibility allocation attitudes aligned with latent communication participation profiles.

Regarding the School-Dominant Responsibility attitude, the Detached Participant profile of male parents was positioned closer to the “Yes, definitely” response, whereas the Negative Participant profile of female parents was nearer to “Uncertain.”

For Parent-Led Responsibility, the Passive Participant and Negative Participant profiles of male parents were located closer to “Yes, definitely,” while the Detached Participant profile of female parents was near “Uncertain.”

In the case of Parent-School Cooperation attitudes, the Negative Participant profile of male parents was closer to “Yes, definitely,” while the Detached Participant profile of female parents was positioned near “Uncertain.”

In terms of Parental Coordination with School, the Active Participant profile of male parents was positioned closer to “No, not really,” while the Detached Participant and Passive Participant profiles were closer to “Yes, definitely.” For female parents, the Detached Participant profile was near “Uncertain,” while the Passive Participant profile was closer to “Yes, definitely.”

4 Discussion

4.1 Responsibility attitudes as a lens for interpreting communication perception profiles

The results of this study challenge several intuitive notions about parent-school communication and collaboration. Specifically, it is often assumed that higher levels of active participation should correspond to higher participation quality, and that passive participation aligns with less proactive attitudes toward parent-school cooperation and a less autonomous parental role construction. Furthermore, it is commonly believed that communication participation and trust should be closely linked to a clearly defined, autonomous parental role construction. However, these intuitive notions are contradicted by the findings of this study.

Latent class analysis based on the seven indicators of parents’ perceptions of their experiences in WeChat-based parent-school communication identified four distinct profiles. Parents classified under the Active Participation profile do not show a clear preference for responsibility allocation in parent-school cooperation. In other words, this group does not exhibit a definitive inclination toward a particular parental role construction. This can be interpreted as a strategic choice or as a reflection of the flexibility and balance in responsibility allocation between parents and schools. Alternatively, it may reflect a lack of, or unwillingness to express, a clear inclination toward role construction, meaning these parents may not assert an autonomous stance on responsibility allocation but instead follow social expectations regarding parent-school communication. This group represents the largest proportion of parents, forming the main base for the routine work of schools and teachers.

Parents in the Negative Participation profile, on the other hand, tend to favor school-dominant responsibility in parent-school cooperation. Despite their lack of trust in the school, they still rely on it, which indicates a group of parents who are unable, unwilling, or resistant to assume responsibility, including cooperative responsibility, in parent-school partnerships. This situation is detrimental to the school’s work. Schools and teachers should improve communication quality and enhance institutional credibility. They should also promote parental autonomy in responsibility allocation through various activities to better support both the school’s work and the child’s development.

Parents in the Passive Participation profile lean toward parent-led responsibility allocation and parent-school cooperation. These parents show a clear tendency toward role construction and recognize their limitations in taking on all educational responsibilities. This group represents parents who have clear tendencies toward role construction and well-defined boundaries regarding responsibility in home-school cooperation. Schools and teachers should provide clear and effective pathways and opportunities for collaboration with such parents.

Parents in the Detached Participation profile tend to favor school-dominant responsibility and exhibit high uncertainty in other areas. This profile indicates a very clear tendency toward parental role construction. With low levels of engagement and trust, coupled with a preference for school-dominant responsibility, this group likely represents parents who are disengaged or have abandoned their role in home-school cooperation. This group poses a challenge for schools and teachers, who should not adopt strong promotion measures but instead focus on maintaining minimal and reasonable communication, exploring potential strategies for engagement based on understanding the parents’ situation.

Overall, the parent groups in this study vary significantly, with each of the four profiles showing different characteristics. The Passive Participation profile, with its clear tendencies toward role construction and well-defined responsibility boundaries, represents an autonomous parent group that is beneficial to the work of schools and teachers, as well as to the learning and growth of the children. The Negative Participation and Detached Participation profiles, together accounting for approximately 30% of the sample, present significant challenges for schools and teachers and require special attention. However, the four profiles reflect not only the parents’ perceptions of communication but also the teachers’ influence on these perceptions. Therefore, the measures taken by schools and teachers should not only target the characteristics of parents but also reflect their own roles and practices.

4.2 Implications for theory

This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of parental involvement by offering a multi-dimensional framework for interpreting communication perceptions in digital parent-school contexts. It challenges the binary view of parental involvement (active vs. passive) and demonstrates the close associations between communication perceptions, trust, parental role construction, and attitudes toward responsibility allocation in parent-school cooperation. The study reveals that these factors are intricately linked, with communication perceptions influenced by deeper constructs such as trust, role identification, and beliefs about responsibility, all of which play a critical role in shaping parents’ involvement in educational processes.

A significant theoretical focus of this study is the view that parents’ responsibility allocation attitudes, reflecting their role construction, can serve as a critical lens for interpreting trust in digital parent-school communication. The findings of this study align with Hoover-Dempsey’s role construction model, indicating that parents’ perceptions of their role in education are closely linked to their trust in school authority, the communication processes, and their social networks.

Additionally, from the perspective of Adams and Christenson’s (2000) work on trust, the results of this study support the distinction between two types of trust: institutional trust (trust in the school as an institution) and process trust (trust in how communication occurs). Future research could further develop a new model of parent-school trust in digital communication by emphasizing the value and quality of communication.

This study connects responsibility beliefs and communication perceptions, moving beyond simplistic categorizations of parents as “active” or “passive” participants. It offers a more nuanced understanding of how parental involvement relates to both institutional practices and individual role constructions. Future studies could consider building upon this research to explore causal relationships in parent-school communication.

4.3 Implications for practice

The findings suggest that one-size-fits-all communication strategies are ineffective. Schools and teachers should adopt targeted strategies based on the four communication perception profiles:

Clarify Responsibility Boundaries: Explicitly define areas where parents can exercise influence and how feedback is solicited. This will help reduce confusion for Detached Participants and provide clear guidance for Passive Participants who rely on structured input from the school.

Offer Personalized, Two-Way Opportunities: In addition to routine updates, provide avenues for parents to engage in smaller decisions (e.g., quick polls, follow-up discussions). This will meet the needs of Negative Participants who desire high-quality cooperation and Active Participants who value practical communication.

Manage Cognitive and Temporal Load: Set norms for the frequency and volume of messages to reduce pressure. This will alleviate fatigue for Active Participants and reduce participation barriers for Detached Participants who feel overwhelmed by excessive communication.

Invest in Professional Development: Provide training for teachers on fostering reciprocal engagement, guiding meaningful discussions, and inviting parents into roles of responsibility through clear and inclusive communication. This approach will convert Negative Participants into active collaborators and engage Detached Participants more effectively.

Cultivate a Welcoming Climate: Ensure that communication feels like an invitation, not a burden. By fostering a respectful and open environment, schools can enhance parental belonging and willingness to participate.

Address Power and Privacy Concerns: Establish clear privacy policies and boundary language to protect both teachers and parents. Teacher-parent interactions on digital platforms should respect personal boundaries while building trust through transparency (de Zwart et al., 2010).

4.4 Link back to the research questions

Research Question 1: What distinct profiles of parents’ communication perceptions emerge in WeChat class groups across topic initiation, discussion dynamics, discussion outcomes, and communicative value?

Answer: Four profiles were identified: Active Participants (ActPar), Negative Participants (NegPar), Detached Participants (DetPar), and Passive Participants (PasPar). These profiles show varied patterns in communication behavior and perception of value.

Research Question 2: How are these perception profiles related to parents’ attitudes toward responsibility allocation between the family and the school?

Answer: Negative Participants aligned with School-Dominant Responsibility, Passive Participants favored Parent-Led Responsibility and Parental Coordination with School. Active Participants displayed a neutral stance, and Detached Participants showed uncertainty.

Research Question 3: Are profiles characterized by lower participation and lower perceived communicative value more likely to appear together with particular responsibility allocation attitudes?

Answer: Yes. Negative Participants with low participation and low perceived value aligned with School-Dominant Responsibility. Passive Participants favored Parent-Led Responsibility and Parental Coordination with School. This highlights the importance of responsibility beliefs in interpreting low participation.

5 Conclusion

This study reveals that parental engagement in digital class groups is not simply about participation frequency but reflects deeper beliefs about educational responsibilities. By identifying four distinct communication perception profiles—Active, Passive, Negative, and Detached—we move beyond the binary of “engaged” versus “disengaged” parents. The correspondence between these profiles and responsibility attitudes shows that similar behaviors can have different meanings: high activity does not always signal partnership, and low activity does not automatically imply lack of cooperation.

The key theoretical contribution is the establishment of role construction as a critical lens for interpreting digital communication. Parents interpret their communication experiences through their pre-existing beliefs about responsibility, which explains why Active participants and Negative participants, despite similar engagement levels, diverge significantly in their views on responsibility.

From a practical perspective, these findings argue against one-size-fits-all communication strategies. Instead, tailored approaches are essential: clarify boundaries for Detached participants, build reciprocity with Negative participants, offer structured guidance for Passive participants, and leverage the flexibility of Active participants.

In conclusion, effective digital partnerships are not built by increasing communication volume but by aligning its quality and structure with the diverse role expectations of parents. While this study is situated within the context of WeChat groups, the insights hold broad relevance for digitally mediated home-school collaborations globally.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are publicly available in Mendeley Data: Dou, Gang; Chen, Siyuan (2025), “Parent-School Communication via Primary School Class WeChat Groups: Patterns and Responsibility Allocation Attitudes”, Mendeley Data, V2, https://doi.org/10.17632/bpn8dh9wf5.2. This repository includes all raw data, analysis scripts, intermediate results, final figures, and detailed step-by-step instructions for reproducing the analyses reported in the manuscript. For convenience, a complete archive of these materials is also provided as a compressed file in the Supplementary Material accompanying this article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics statement

Ethical approval was not required for the study involving humans in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent to participate in this study was not required from the participants or the participants’ legal guardians/next of kin in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

Author contributions

GD: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Formal analysis, Methodology, Conceptualization, Validation. SC: Resources, Writing – original draft, Data curation, Project administration, Investigation.

Funding

The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the parents who participated in the survey and generously shared their experiences with WeChat class groups. We also thank the off-campus tutoring centers in Kunming that facilitated recruitment and provided space for data collection. Their support made this study possible.

Additionally, we would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by DeepSeek AI model (Depth Seek, the DeepSeek-V3 series, a 128K context Transformer-based Large Language Model, Knowledge Cut-off: July 2024), ChatGPT-4 (OpenAI), and DouBao (ByteDance, the DouBao-1.5 Pro series, a Transformer-based Large Language Model with Mixture of Experts (MoE), supporting up to 256K context, Knowledge Cut-off: 2024) in various stages of this research, including text revision and statistical analysis. Their support in text checking and data analysis significantly enhanced the quality and precision of the study.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that Generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. The authors declare that generative artificial intelligence tools were used only for limited technical assistance during manuscript preparation. Specifically, DeepSeek (DeepSeek-V3), ChatGPT-4 (OpenAI), and DouBao (ByteDance) were prompted by the authors to generate draft statistical code based on the authors’ explicit analytical specifications; all such code was subsequently reviewed, validated, modified as needed, and fully approved by the authors. Additionally, these tools were consulted for language polishing. The AI systems were not involved in any substantive aspect of the research, including study conception, data interpretation, scientific reasoning, or scholarly content. Full responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the work rests solely with the authors.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1686878/full#supplementary-material

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