Influences of Parents’ and Teachers’ Educational Practices on Adolescents’ Mastery Motivation: A Longitudinal Multilevel Examination

• In Event: Academic Development of Chinese Adolescents: A Systematic Perspective of Child, Family, School, and Culture

Abstract

Background:
Mathematics, as a discipline of fundamental natural science, plays an increasingly pivotal role in today’s technology-driven society. Chinese adolescents exhibit higher levels of math anxiety compared to their Western European counterparts, exacerbated by the weight of entrance exams and intense academic competition. As such Chinese students’ persistence and coping with potential setbacks are crucial for their math learning. While it is clear that adults’ learning related practices can predict adolescents’ learning motivation, there is a paucity of research specifically examining the unique and interactive effects of parental and teachers’ practices.

Method:
This study examined the unique and interactive effects of parents’ and teachers’ goal-oriented instructional practices on adolescents’ mastery motivation via a six-month longitudinal design. Participants consisted of 2,093 middle school students (M age = 14.01, SD age = 0.71, 48.9% female), their parents (M age = 40.71, SD age = 5.36, 60.4% mothers), and their mathematics teachers (N = 29, M age = 39.73, SD age = 9.28, 40.5% female). The socio-economic status of the families was mostly from low to middle, with 64.2% and 72.2% of fathers and mothers respectively earning a monthly income below 5000 RMB per month (approximately 700 USD).

Results:
The results showed that parental person responses to failure negatively predicted children's persistence at T2, whereas parental process responses to failure positively predicted adolescents’ persistence at T2. As to adolescents’ negative reactions to failure, an interactive effect of parents’ and teachers’ practices emerged. Specifically, for children in classrooms where teachers exhibited high levels of mastery-oriented approaches, parents’ person responses to failure significantly and positively predicted their children’s negative reactions to failure at T2. However, this relation was non-significant for children in classrooms with low levels of teachers' mastery-oriented approaches.

Conclusion:
These findings shed light on both the unique and interactive effects of parents’ and teachers’ practices on facilitating adolescents’ mastery motivation. Parents and teachers should have a unified approach when dealing with adolescents’ academic setbacks, and that parents should be encouraged and trained in process responses to promote adolescents’ mastery motivation development.

Authors

• Tong Zhou, Shanghai Normal University

• Xi Chen, East China Normal University

• Jingyao Bai, East China Normal University

• Hongyu Fan, Chi-Jin School District

• Junsheng Liu, East China Normal University