The Importance of Family-School Partnership for Teachers and Parents' Support and Students' Motivation

• In Event: 45.067 - Family-School Partnerships: The Conditions and Benefits for the Teachers, Students, and Parents

Abstract

Objectives: This longitudinal study examined the extent to whether students-perceived family-school partnership (FSP) is related to student-perceived support of parents and teachers. The second research question is, whether FSP and the perceived support of teachers and parents has an effect on students’ intrinsic motivation at the end of secondary school in Germany.

Framework: Students’ intrinsic motivation is an important condition for lifelong learning processes and for students´ effort, persistence and achievement in school (Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015; Süssmuth, 2014). At the end of secondary school, when students are in ninth and tenth grade, intrinsic motivation is particularly important because students face educational decisions about their future pathway - so it is important to know, how students’ intrinsic motivation can be enhanced.
Epstein´s overlapping spheres of influence model (1987) describes that families and school are important socialization contexts that shape students’ academic development in school. In detail, the model postulates, that families or schools affect the academic development of students separately or together in family-school-partnerships. Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler (1995) describes, that various types of family-school partnership effect the individual support through this support students´ academic development. Based on these two theoretical models, we assume in this study that students -perceived parent-teacher partnerships are related to students’ intrinsic motivation in the end of secondary school. Second, the study analyzed whether the perceived support would mediate this connection.

Method: Longitudinal structural equation models were applied using student data of two waves of the German longitudinal `motivation in learning in mathematics´ study (MOVE). This study focused on a subsample of 370 ninth and tenth graders (52.7% girls) in German secondary schools.

Results: Our analyses showed that student-perceived parent-teacher partnership is important for student-perceived parents and teachers support. Furthermore, there is a longitudinal positive effect of teachers support on students’ intrinsic motivation and a significant indirect effect of parent-teacher partnership through the perceived teachers support on students’ intrinsic motivation.

Significance: The study indicated the importance of parent-teacher partnership for parents and teachers support and for intrinsic motivation of the students in the end of secondary school. Therefore, the results point to the relevance of involving parents in secondary school.

Authors

• Charlott Rubach, University of California - Irvine

• Rebecca Christine Lazarides, University of Potsdam