Educational Differences in Parents’ Math Support Self-Efficacy and Relations to Adolescents’ Math Motivation: Conceptual Replications (Poster 20)

• In Event: Thursday Poster Session 2:30 pm
  In Poster Session: Learning and Motivation in Social and Cultural Contexts 1

Abstract

Family factors like parents’ math support self-efficacy can promote adolescents’ math motivational beliefs, but there is limited understanding of whether this promotive role is consistent across families from diverse socioeconomic and racial/ethnic backgrounds and data sources. Using two large-scale datasets, mean-difference tests in parents’ math support self-efficacy revealed that college-educated parents have higher math support efficacy than their non-college-educated counterparts, results that replicated across racial/ethnic groups and datasets. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that relations between parents’ math support self-efficacy and adolescent math motivation were consistent only among White families but varied among Black, Asian, and Latinx families. These findings have implications for considering the simultaneous, intersecting roles of parent education and race/ethnicity to help families promote adolescents’ math motivational beliefs.

Authors

• Nestor Tulagan, University of Rochester

• Christy R. Starr, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Jacquelynne S. Eccles, University of California - Irvine

• Sandra D. Simpkins, University of California - Irvine