The Relationship Between Parental Factors And Academic Self-regulation

A great deal of research had examined the relationship between parental factors and children's academic motivation, yet few researchers had paid attention to the relationship between parental academic expectations and students' academic self-regulation and the relationship between parental behaviors that reflect their expectations and students'academic self-regulation. In particular, little empirical research had tried to confirm the moderating role of parenting styles in the relationships.To remedy the existing literature, this study employed questionnaires to assess students'perceptions of their parents' academic expectations, parental relevant behaviors, parenting styles and academic self-regulation. It also designed two indigenous questionnaires to assess students' perception of parental academic expectations and relevant parental behaviors. The study examined the relationship between parental academic expectation and students'academic self-regulation, especially the moderating role of parenting styles in the relationship for both primary school students and high school students. It also examined the relationship between parental behaviors in the academic area of primary students and their academic self-regulation, and the moderating role of parenting styles in the relationship.The results indicated that for primary school students, parental academic expectations and parental relevant behaviors both positively predicted their learning autonomy. However, contrary to the hypothesis, there was no significant moderating effect of parenting styles in the relationships. While for high school students, parental academic expectations negatively predicted their learning autonomy, and the predictability was weaker than that for primary school students. Moreover, there was no moderating effect of parenting styles in this relationship. We discussed the limitations of this study and pointed out the direction for future research.