The Relationship Of The Parents 'involvement And Students' Learning Motivation, Academic Research

Currently, people's knowledge about the relation between home and school has changed with the social conditions that influence families and schools. More and more argue that home and school should cooperate and communicate with each other rather than separate. Research in the past decades shows that both school and family and student can benefit from family's effective involvement in schooling. Parental involvement has been widely recognized as an important variable affecting the education of children. More and more schools have studied the effectiveness of parental involvement, and actively motivate parents to involve themselves in schooling. However, current research on parental involvement was mostly conducted in the western cultural background. The only researches concerning Chinese parents were implemented for overseas Chinese, or in Hong Kong and Taiwan. My research studied the characteristics of parental involvement in Mainland China, and its association with academic motivation and academic achievements of students.Based on random sampling, the research investigated 879 primary students with the scales for parental involvement and academic motivation. In addition, I also conducted interviews with some parents and teachers. The data was processed with statistical software, SPSS10.0. The main conclusions of the research are as follows.(1) There exists significant difference among the dimensions of parental involvement. Parents are more involved in children's education with Home Supervision (HS), and less involved with Parent-Child Communication (PCC). There is rare Home-School Communication (PSC) and Participation in School Activities (PSA).(2) The HS and PCC for parents of students at Grade 1 of primary schools are significantly higher than those for parents of students at grade 3 and grade 5 of primary schools and at grade 2 of junior middle school. The PSC and PSA for parents of students at Grade 1 of primary schools are significantly higher than those for parents of students at grade 3 and grade 5 of primary schools. The HS for parents of students at Grade 3 of primary schools is significantly higher than that for parents of students at grade 5 ofprimary schools and at grade 2 of junior middle school. The PSA for parents of students at Grade 2 of junior middle schools is significantly higher than that for parents of students at Grade 1, grade 3 and grade 5 of primary schools. The HS and PCC for parents with only one child is significantly higher than those for parents with more children, but there is no significant difference between their PSA and PSC. The parental involvement of parents in urban areas is significantly higher than that of parents in rural areas at all dimensions. The educational level of mother has imposed significant influences on HS and PCC, but has no significant influence on PSC and PSA. The educational Level of father has no significant influence on parental involvement at all dimensions. There is no significant gender difference in parental involvement at all dimensions.(3) HS generates significant predictability for extrinsic motivation of students. The higher is the degree of HS, the stronger the extrinsic motivation of students has. PCC yields significant predictability for intrinsic motivation of students. The higher is the degree of PCC, the stronger the intrinsic motivation of students has.(4) HS and PSC negatively predict the academic achievements of students, while PCC positively predicts the academic achievements of students. PSA does not influence the academic achievements of students.(5) HS negatively influences the academic achievements of students via influencing their extrinsic motivation. In contrast, PCC positively influences the academic achievements of students via influencing their intrinsic motivation.