Parental Involvement as a Predictor of School Success: Examining the Mediating Role of Achievement Goals

1. Parental Involvement as a Predictor of School Success: Examining the Mediating Role of Achievement Goals Katie Read Hanover College

2. At a Glance • Parental involvement predicts academic success • Parental involvement activities • (Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992) • But why? • What mediates this relationship?

3. Nature of Parental Involvement • Different qualities of parental involvement • Régner, Loose, & Dumas (2009) • Monitoring • (e.g., parent hovers over child, evaluates, controls) • Supportive • (e.g., parent assists child, provides encouragement, guides)

4. Supportive vs. Monitoring Involvement • Supportive, rather than monitoring, contributes more to better academic success • (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989) • Supportive is a form of authoritative parenting style • High levels of warmth, moderate levels of control • Monitoring is a form of authoritarian parenting style • Low levels of warmth, high levels of control

5. Achievement Goals • Mastery • Focus on process of learning • Performance • Focus on outcome of learning • Performance-Approach • Get that A • Performance-Avoidance • Don’t fail • (Gonzalez, Doan Holbein, & Quilter, 2002)

6. Linking Achievement Goals and Academic Success • Mastery → positive outcomes • (e.g., intrinsic motivation, increased persistence, better exam performance) • Performance-Avoidance → negative outcomes • (e.g., lack of effort) • Performance-Approach → positive or negative outcomes • (Elliot, McGregor, & Gable, 1999)

7. Linking Parental Involvement and Achievement Goals • Parental support → mastery • Parental monitoring → performance-approach and mastery • (Régner, Loose, & Dumas, 2009)

8. Hypotheses • Parental support → Mastery → positive academic outcomes • Parental monitoring → Performance-Avoidance → negative academic outcomes

9. Participants • 77 fourth grade students from three elementary schools • Due to not receiving grades, one was thrown out • 47 females and 29 males • E.O. Muncie, Southwestern, Maplewood • 66 moms and 53 dads, 33 other • 49 with mom and dad

10. Measures • Parental Involvement • (Régner, Loose, & Dumas, 2009) • Monitoring (e.g., She/He checks to see if I have done my homework ) • α=.73 • Supportive (e.g., She/He talks to me about my academic problems) • α=.75

11. Measures cont. • Achievement Goals • (Midgley et al., 2000) • Mastery (e.g., It’s important to me to learn a lot of new concepts this year) • α=.85 • Performance-Approach (e.g., It’s important to me that other students in my class think I am good at my class work) • α=.89 • Performance-Avoidance (e.g., It’s important to me that I don’t look stupid in class) • α=.74

12. Procedure • Informed consent to the parents/ informed assent to the child • Packet of surveys • Step by step process • Encouraged honest answers • Go back and check work • Collected work, thanked, and sent back to class

13. Reliability • Parental Involvement • Monitoring • α=.826 (mom) α=.921 (dad) • α=.75 (researcher’s) • Supportive • α=.534 (mom) α=.799 (dad) • α=.73 (researcher’s)

14. Reliability • Achievement Goals • Mastery • α=.852 • α=.85 (researcher’s) • Performance-Approach • α=.874 • α=.89 (researcher’s) • Performance-Avoidance • α=.767 • α=.74 (researcher’s)

15. Data Analysis • Maximum score for mom/dad support =parental support • Maximum score for mom/dad monitor=parental monitor • Average score for mastery=mastery goal • Average score for performance avoidance=performance-avoidance goal • Letter grades transformed to GPA, then averaged=school success

16. Mediational Analysis Achievement Goal Orientations 2 3 Parental Involvement School Success 1 4

17. Results: Monitor & Performance-Avoidance Girls Boys Performance-Avoidance Goal Performance-Avoidance Goal Parental Monitor .23 Success Parental Monitor -.18 Success

18. Results: Support & Mastery Girls Boys Mastery Goal Mastery Goal .31* .25 Parental Support .30* Success Parental Support .26 Success .23

19. Results (Girls): Support & Mastery Dad Mom Mastery Goal Mastery Goal .51* .21 Parental Support .23 Success Parental Support .36* Success .25

20. What does this mean? • Mothers, who are supportive, influence girl’s mastery goal orientations, which influences girls’ school success • Authoritative mothers hold nontraditional attitudes about gender, which influences their daughters’ attitudes • (Carine & Jan, 1998)

21. What about the boys? • Perhaps not academic parental involvement, but athletic involvement • (Kanters, Bocarro, & Casper, 2008)

22. Discussion • Limitations • Population (rural vs. urban) • Only measured academic parental involvement • Future Direction • Measure other types of parental involvement (i.e., athletics, social) • Other mediators (i.e., cognitively stimulating activities)