Edited by: Jesus de la Fuente, University of Almería, Spain
Reviewed by: Jesús Nicasio García Sánchez, Universidad de León, Spain; Martina Smorti, University of Pisa, Italy
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Educational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Education
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We investigated whether and how adolescents’ perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support influence their maladaptive academic functioning through their achievement goal orientations. Participants were 845 tenth-grade students (447 boys, Mage = 15.20 ± 0.54 years; 398 girls, Mage = 15.13 ± 0.47 years) in China. Data were collected on their reported achievement goal orientations, perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support, and academic-related beliefs, strategies, and behaviors. Bootstrapping with resampling strategies was used for testing multiple mediators’ model and examining mediation effect. Results indicated that, compared with girls, adolescent boys perceived higher parental psychological control. Moreover, we found distinct effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations. Specifically, parental psychological control led to adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through adolescents’ performance-approach goal orientation (PAP) (0.06, BC 95% CI [0.03, 0.09]) and performance-avoidance goal orientation (PAV) (0.02, BC 95% CI [0.01, 0.03]) rather than mastery goal orientation (MAS) (−0.00, BC 95% CI [−0.01, 0.01]); while parental autonomy support reduced adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through their MAS (−0.02, BC 95% CI [0.11, 0.19]) rather than PAP (0.01, BC 95% CI [−0.01, 0.03]) and PAV (0.01, BC 95% CI [−0.01, 0.02]). The results suggest that adolescents will benefit from parents ameliorating maladaptive academic functioning through fostering MASs and be harmed from parents facilitating maladaptive academic functioning through enhancing performance-approach and PAVs.
Among the many constructs of parenting, psychological control and autonomy support have been the primary focus of many studies. Psychological control and autonomy support first appeared in the Children’s Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (Schaefer,
Psychological control refers to the display of a conditionally approving attitude toward children and involves engagement in a host of intrusive parenting tactics to make children think, behave, or feel in parentally approved ways (Barber and Harmon,
The nature and effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on children have been the focus of considerable research. In conceptualizing the roles of psychological control vs. autonomy support, researchers based on self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan,
In recent years, the differentiation the dimensions of psychological control and autonomy support has proved to enhance discriminant validity in terms of their effects on children’s academic behavior. Empirically, children who receive autonomy-supportive parenting show adaptive learning, such as positive attitudes toward school (Annear and Yates,
Researchers argued that the relations between parental psychological control, autonomy support, and academic functioning may show differences in Asian cultures in which relatedness and interdependence than autonomy are more highly valued (Chao and Tseng,
A few studies have examined the effect of parental psychological control and autonomy support on children and adolescents’ academic learning in China. For parental autonomy support, findings were consistent. Results indicated that autonomy support contributed to students’ academic functioning. For instance, Vansteenkiste et al. (
As for psychological control, findings were inconsistent. Some studies found that psychological control had detrimental effects in adolescents’ academics. For example, Wang et al. (
In addition to parental psychological control and autonomy support, personal achievement goal orientations also shape students’ achievement strivings and influence their academic functioning (Grouzet et al.,
The specific reasons for examining achievement goal orientations as mediators for the relations between parental psychological control, autonomy support and students’ academic functioning can be summarized in two ways. First, there is substantial evidence on the influence of students’ achievement goal orientations on their learning (Diseth and Samdal,
The primary goal of the present study was to extend the literature on the understanding of the relations between parenting and students’ academic functioning in a Chinese context in two important ways. One is to examine the relations between parental psychological control, autonomy support, and adolescents’ academic functioning in China; the other is to examine how achievement goal orientations are constructed and developed by psychological control and autonomy support and how they subsequently influence students’ maladaptive academic functioning. We focused on students in adolescence given that during these phase parenting is particularly salient when teenagers are becoming more independent and individuated from their family (Eccles et al.,
Based on the past research, we hypothesized that parental autonomy support would be positively and psychological control would be negatively linked to adolescents’ academic functioning. However, due to the inconsistent findings in previous studies, we were also open to an alternative hypothesis that parental psychological control would not have a negative relation with adolescents’ academic functioning. In addition, we also hypothesized that students’ three types of achievement goal orientations would have mediating roles in the relations between parental psychological control, autonomy support and academic functioning.
The sample consisted of 845 tenth-grade students (447 boys, Mage = 15.20 ± 0.54 years; 398 girls, Mage = 15.13 ± 0.47 years) in four selective high schools that were in five cities in China (Beijing, Guangzhou, Xi’an, Fuzhou, and Shenyang). Almost all adolescents in this sample were of the Han ethnicity. 98% of the adolescents were from intact families, and the others were living with one parent because of parental divorce, death, or other reasons. Most of the parents were at the age of 41–45 years old. In collected effective data, 93% of their fathers and 93.1% of the mothers had an educational level of high school or above; 93.5% of the fathers and 83.4% of the mothers had their full-time jobs.
Students completed self-report measures of personal achievement goal orientations, academic-related functioning, and their perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support. The data were collected online in their first semester of the tenth grade. Every student had an account and password to log into online assessment system, which guaranteed participants’ privacy and security and ensured the accuracy of results and automation of data collection. A certain psychology teacher with necessary training in each school organized the participants to complete the online measures in their computer rooms during the students’ leisure time. Extensive explanations were provided to the participants if they had questions during the collection of data. No evidence indicated that the students had difficulties in understanding the measure items. Written consent was obtained from all students and their parents/legal guardians through the schools.
The measures were initially created in English. Standard translation and back-translation procedures (Brislin,
Adolescents reported on their parents’ psychological control by responding to an 18-item measure. The items, most of which were selected from existing measures (Barber,
Ten items adopted from prior research were used to measure parental psychological autonomy support (McPartland and Epstein,
Students reported on their personal achievement goal orientations by responding to a 14-item instrument. The items were selected from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales (PALS) (Midgley et al.,
Nineteen items were selected from the PALS (Midgley et al.,
In general, the statistical analyses in the present study consisted of two steps. In the preliminary analysis, we calculated the means, SDs, and inter-correlations among the study variables. In the second step, multiple mediator analyses were conducted in which three mediators (mastery, performance-approach, and PAVs) were entered simultaneously to test the mediating role of achievement goal orientations on the relation between parental psychology control, autonomy support, and students’ maladaptive academic functioning using the PROCESS syntax in SPSS (Hayes et al.,
A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to examine the overall effects of sex on these variables. A significant effect of sex,
Means and SDs of variables for boys and girls.
Variables | Boys (447) | Girls (399) | |
---|---|---|---|
Psychological control | 2.66 (0.94) | 2.39 (0.89) | 19.06*** |
Autonomy support | 3.67 (0.72) | 3.74 (0.69) | 2.55 |
Mastery goal orientation | 3.99 (0.70) | 4.06 (0.68) | 2.23 |
Performance-approach goal orientation | 2.17 (0.78) | 2.13 (0.78) | 0.54 |
Performance-avoidance goal orientation | 2.74 (0.86) | 2.68 (0.83) | 1.09 |
Maladaptive academic functioning | 2.14 (0.58) | 2.01 (0.49) | 11.54** |
Table
Interrelations among variables.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Psychological control | ||||||
2 Autonomy support | −0.14 |
|||||
3 Mastery goal orientation | −0.01 | 0.16 |
||||
4 Performance-approach goal orientation | 0.27 |
0.00 | 0.14 |
|||
5 Performance-avoidance goal orientation | 0.22 |
0.02 | 0.22 |
0.71 |
||
6 Maladaptive academic functioning | 0.29 |
−0.13 |
−0.13 |
0.47 |
0.39 |
We hypothesized that the relation between perceived parenting and students’ maladaptive academic functioning would be mediated by students’ achievement goal orientations. Three regression analyses allowed us to examine mediation: (1) a regression analysis predicting effects of parenting on students’ maladaptive academic functioning, (2) a regression analysis predicting students’ achievement goal orientations from parenting, and (3) a regression analysis that included parenting and students’ achievement goal orientations as predictors of students’ maladaptive academic functioning. Students’ sex was controlled as a covariate when testing the relation between parenting and maladaptive academic functioning (please see Figure
Multiple mediation model depicting direct and indirect effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on students’ maladaptive academic functioning tested in the present study, controlling for gender. Abbreviations: MAS, mastery goal orientation; PAP, performance-approach goal orientation; PAV, performance-avoidance goal orientation.
First, parental psychological control and autonomy support were significant predictors of maladaptive academic functioning (
Students’ achievement goal orientations as mediators of the relation between parenting and maladaptive academic functioning. Abbreviations: MAS, mastery goal orientation; PAP, performance-approach goal orientation; PAV, performance-avoidance goal orientation. Students’ gender was controlled as a covariate. Values represent standardized regression coefficients. **
The product of the path coefficient (ab) for the indirect path from parenting to students’ maladaptive academic functioning
Indirect effect of parenting on students’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations.
Product of coefficients | Bootstrapping |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
|
BC 95% CI |
|||
Point estimate | SE | Lower | Upper | |
MAS | −0.00 | 0.01 | −0.01 | 0.01 |
PAP | 0.06 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.09 |
PAV | 0.02 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.03 |
MAS | −0.02 | 0.01 | −0.04 | −0.01 |
PAP | 0.01 | 0.01 | −0.01 | 0.03 |
PAV | 0.01 | 0.00 | −0.01 | 0.02 |
We further tested whether any two indirect effects of parenting variables on maladaptive academic functioning
Contrasts of indirect effects from parenting on students’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations.
Product of coefficients | Bootstrapping |
|||
---|---|---|---|---|
|
BC 95% CI |
|||
Point estimate | SE | Lower | Upper | |
MAS vs. PAP | −0.06 | 0.02 | −0.09 | −0.03 |
MAS vs. PAV | −0.02 | 0.01 | −0.04 | −0.01 |
PAP vs. PAV | 0.03 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.07 |
MAS vs. PAP | −0.04 | 0.01 | −0.07 | −0.01 |
MAS vs. PAV | −0.03 | 0.01 | −0.05 | −0.01 |
PAP vs. PAV | 0.01 | 0.01 | −0.01 | 0.02 |
The present study examined adolescents’ perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support and their relations with academic functioning through achievement goal orientations in Chinese adolescents. This research first systematically examined the psychometric properties of used measures with a Chinese population and then tested the mean level scores and the interrelations of these measured constructs. Moreover, a mediating effect model was tested to explore the underlying process of students’ maladaptive academic functioning affected by parental psychological control and autonomy support
In our study, boys perceived significantly higher parental psychological control and tended to perceive lower parental autonomy support than girls did, although not at a significant level. There may be two main reasons for this finding. First, boys may manifest more disruptive behaviors, such as excessive agitation, aggressiveness, and noncompliance than girls (Duchesne and Larose,
In addition, it is worth noting that there were no significant gender differences on students’ achievement goal orientations. The result of MAS is consistent with Western findings (Chouinard and Roy,
Previous studies concerning the relations between parenting and child outcomes have been conducted mainly in Western cultures. Many researchers asserted that autonomy is not highly valued in the East; therefore, parental psychological control and autonomy support might not have the same effects on children’s academic functioning as found in Western samples (Chao and Tseng,
Moreover, in our study, both parental psychological control and autonomy support are slightly associated with adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning. The small magnitude association may be situated within cultural context (Lu et al.,
In the study, the mediating role of students’ achievement goal orientation for the relation between parental psychological control, autonomy support, and maladaptive functioning was supported. We found that, parental psychological control led to students’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through students’ performance-approach and PAVs rather than MAS; while parental autonomy support reduced students’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through their MAS rather than these two types of performance goal orientations.
These findings suggest that parental psychological control and autonomy support have distinct influencing paths on adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations. Previous studies indicated that when parents use intrusive parenting tactics to urge children to study, children may feel social-evaluative pressure and must achieve the expectations set by their parents. For instance, Roth et al. (
In addition, it is worth noting that, after putting students’ achievement goal orientations as mediators into the model, the direct effect of parental psychological control decreased substantially (from
The study offered a closer look at psychological controlling and autonomy-supportive parenting in Chinese culture, responding the appeal of examining parenting within and across different countries and cultures. The findings of the study also added to a deeper understanding of how Chinese high-school students’ adoption of achievement motivations vary with parental psychological control and autonomy support, and then to affect students’ maladaptive academic functioning. It suggests that the harmful nature of parental psychological control and the benefit of parental autonomy support through achievement goal orientations should be concerned and addressed in Chinese parental education.
The study had two main limitations. First, all data were collected from a single source, which may affect the objectivity of the conclusions. Future studies should adopt multiple sources of assessment such as including parent-reported or observed data to avoid shared method variance. Second, we did not examine the relations between parenting and students’ adaptive academic functioning; therefore, we cannot compare the findings of the effects of parenting on students’ maladaptive academic functioning with that on adaptive academic functioning. It is possible that the negative influence of parental psychological control exacerbates students’ maladaptive academic functioning, while the positive contribution of parental autonomy support facilitates students’ adaptive academic functioning. Future research should simultaneously explore the relations between parenting and students’ adaptive and maladaptive academic functioning.
This novel research helps elucidate Chinese adolescents’ perceived parental psychological control and autonomy support and the mediating effects of achievement goal orientations on the relations between parenting and maladaptive academic functioning. Distinct effects of two types of parenting on adolescents’ maladaptive academic functioning through achievement goal orientations were revealed. Specifically, parental psychological control exacerbated students’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through students’ performance-approach and PAVs; however, parental autonomy support reduced students’ maladaptive academic functioning, mainly through MAS.
This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Research Ethics Committee of East China Normal University. All research participants were not adult. Participants and their parents/legal guardians provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of East China Normal University.
The execution of this paper was a combined effort on behalf of all authors. CD and DD conceptualized and designed the study. The data collection was conducted by CD and ML. XX performed the statistical analyses and drafted the initial manuscript before DD, ML, and CD contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.