Grade 11 & 12 students’ perceptions of parental involvement: Implications for student academic motivation

Abstract

There are many variables that impact a student’s level of academic motivation. Understanding and enhancing student motivation is an important factor of academic success (Hoang, 2007). Currently, in North America, it is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve a high standard of living and receive quality employment without some level of post-secondary education (Anisef & Sweet, 2005).Therefore, how academically motivated a student is at the high school level may significantly impact their future employment and career options. For the purpose of the present study, parental involvement levels in both student academics and extracurricular were examined as possible variables impacting level of student academic motivation. 124 grade 11 and 12 public high school participants completed a series of questionnaires which were designed to measure level of parental involvement in academics, parental involvement in extracurricular, and level of student academic involvement. Categories of highly-involved, moderately-involved, and minimally-involved parenting were determined based on participant scores from the questionnaires. Analysis revealed that increased student academic motivation scores were significantly associated with increased levels of parental involvement. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis also revealed that parental academic motivation was a significant predictor of student academic motivation over and above what was accounted for by demographic information (i.e. time spent on homework, grade average, gender). Furthermore, extracurricular parental involvement was determined to be a significant predictor of student academic involvement over and above the variance accounted for by demographic information as well as parental academic involvement.