engleski

Dimensions of parenting, causal attributions and academic achievement

Background: Weiner (1992) in his attributional theory of motivation and emotion emphasises people’ s explanations of their experience (achievement) as the main determinants of the way they think, feel and behave. He suggests that attribution for success or failure influences emotional reactions and success expectation, which would in turn influence motivation and subsequent performance. Three basic dimensions of causality were identified: locus, stability and controllability. A number of studies in academic context have shown that failure which is attributed to stable and uncontrollable factors (such as low ability) hinders future achievement behaviour, whereas failure which is attributed to unstable and controllable factors (such as lack of effort or poor learning strategy) has better implications for future achievement behaviours. It is quite probable that children’ s causal attributions for theirs academic achievement are related to the nature of child-parent interactions. Most parents have strong beliefs about the pattern of favourable characteristics they would like in their children and the childrearing practices they should use to accomplish them (which have to be adapted to the culture differences and to the personality of the individual child). Maccoby and Martin (1983) proposed a two-dimensional classification of parenting patterns with accepting-responsive vs. nonaccepting-unresponsive on one axsis and punishing-controlling vs. nonpunishing- noncontrolling on the other. Combining these basic dimensions of parenting four general styles of parenting have been identified: authoritarian, indifferent, permissive and authoritative. Aims: Numerous studies have explored the influence of dimensions of parenting on healthy child and adolescent functioning. The current study investigated the relationship between parenting dimensions, students’ academic achievement and causal attributions by which students explain attained academic achievement. Methods: The participants were 127 students (72 boys and 55 girls) who were enrolled in a seventh grade of primary school (Mage=13.71). The participants completed the questionnaires anonymously during a regularly scheduled classroom period. Measures: - Questionnaire “ Children and parents” (Macuka, 2003) which is designed to examine how children observe their parents on two basic dimensions of parenting (separately for mother and father). - The Causal Attribution Scale (Sorić, 1998) was constructed to assess students’ causal attributions for academic achievement. The students were first asked to indicate the most important reason for their academic achievement (operationalized as the final mid-term grade) and then to assess that particular reason along the causal dimensions. Results: The emotionality and control as dimensions of parenting were significantly correlated with students’ causal attributions of academic achievement. Students who perceived theirs mothers as more accepting and responsive, and who attained better academic achievement, made more controllable attributions for that achievement. Similarly, students who perceive theirs emotional relationship with mother more positive, and accomplish better grades, made more internal attributions. A large number of studies on the consequences of attribution process found that attribution of academic (un)success to internal, unstable and controllable causes has better implications for future achievement behaviours. It seems that nature of parent- child interactions, especially dimension of emotionality could play an important role in generating favourable kind of causal attributions.

dimensions of parenting ; causal attributions ; academic achievement

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