Poster #69 - Academic Worries about Middle School and Adolescent Academic Outcomes: The Role of Parental Involvement

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

With the transition to middle school comes changes to the academic setting (i.e., multiple teachers, classes separated by subject) and increased expectations regarding academic achievement. Adolescents often have a number of concerns about the transition to middle school that could affect their future academic outcomes, yet research in this area is relatively limited (e.g., Duchesne et al., 2012). Parental involvement is a reliable and consistent predictor of adolescent academic outcomes and could ameliorate the effects of youth concerns on their academic outcomes (Hill & Tyson, 2009). Thus, the current study investigated the associations linking adolescents’ academic worries and concerns about the middle school transition with their academic outcomes in middle school, and parental involvement as a moderator of these associations.

Participants included 52 young adolescents (56% boys; 62% European American; Mage = 11.06 years, SD = .31), their mothers (Mage = 41.37 years, SD = 6.67), and their teachers who are part of an ongoing longitudinal study. At T1 (before middle school transition), adolescents’ worries about middle school were assessed with the Academic subscale of the Worries about Middle School measure (Duchesne et al., 2009) and from open-ended reports about their top three concerns about middle school (proportion of academic concerns out of all concerns was computed), and mothers reported on parental school (parent-teacher relationship quality, involvement; CPPRG, 1991) and parental home (discussions about education, schoolwork assistance; Pomerantz et al., 1997) involvement. At T1 and T2 (after the middle school transition), teachers reported on adolescents’ school adjustment (e.g., conduct, academic motivation; CPPRG, 2003), school engagement (IRRE, 1998), and academic performance (Pierce et al., 1999). All measures were reliable (αs = .70-.96).

Regression analyses (Table 1) revealed limited main effects of adolescent academic worries/concerns and mothers’ involvement on adolescent academic outcomes; however, mothers’ involvement moderated the prospective association between adolescents’ academic worries/concerns and their academic outcomes. Specifically, parent-teacher relationship quality moderated the associations linking academic worries and proportion of academic concerns with adolescent academic outcomes. Follow-up analyses revealed that low-quality parent-teacher relationships exacerbated the associations linking adolescents’ academic worries and proportion of academic concerns with poorer academic outcomes; associations were non-significant or attenuated when parent-teacher relationship quality was high. Similarly, parental discussions at home moderated the associations linking the proportion of academic concerns with school engagement and academic performance. Follow-up analyses revealed that more discussions about education attenuated the effects of higher proportion of academic concerns on adolescent outcomes, but the associations were non-significant at low-levels of discussions at home. See Figures 1a-d.

In the context of the middle school transition, low-quality parent-teacher relationships exacerbated, whereas high-quality parent-teacher relationships attenuated, the negative effects of adolescents’ academic worries/concerns. Similarly, more discussions about education at home attenuated the negative effects of adolescents’ higher proportion of academic concerns about middle school. Findings highlight the important role of establishing a high-quality parent-teacher relationship and encouraging parent communication about education in order to reduce the negative effects of adolescents’ academic worries as they approach the middle school transition. Additional analyses will examine father involvement.

Authors

• Tianying Cai, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Kelly M Tu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author