Associations of parental mastery and performance goal orientations and preschoolers’ mastery motivation

• In Event: Understanding the origins, determinants, and consequences of children’s mastery motivation: A developmental approach

Abstract

Parental achievement goal orientations, although not a direct manifestation of parental involvement, have been found to predict adolescent achievement motivations. For example, lower parental mastery goals (PMGs) and higher parental performance goals (PPGs) are associated with higher self-handicapping tendency (Chang, Lay, & Wu, 2020; Gonida, Kiosseoglou, & Voulala, 2007; Hatzikyriakou, Gonida, & Kiosseoglou, 2019), which involves quitting trying to avoid the distress accompanied with failure. Rarely has research traced back to early childhood and investigated whether and how PMGs and PPGs are associated with mastery motivation (MM), which has been regarded as an important developmental precursor for later achievement motivation. Moreover, since mothers and fathers often involve in young children’s daily life in different ways, their PMGs and PPGs may play different roles in young children’s behavioral and emotional adaptation while facing challenges.

Using a prospective design, this study was to examine whether mothers’ and fathers’ PMGs and PPGs measured during infancy could predict two dimensions of preschoolers’ MM that are closely related with the concept of self-handicapping. Based on prior findings of the relation between PMGs/PPGs and adolescent self-handicapping tendency, we hypothesized that PMGs would associate positively with young children’s “cognitive/object persistence” and negatively with their “negative reactions of failure” while the association between PPGs and the two dimensions of MM would be inverse.

A total of 49 dyads of fathers and mothers of 10-month-olds residing in the Taipei area participated in this study. Their PMGs and PPGs were assessed using the “Perceptions of Parents, Home Life, and Neighborhood” assessment in the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000). Due to high correlation between performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (r=.685, p<.0001), the two goals were combined into one indicator of PPGs. Later when the children were at 26 and 37 months of age, the mothers filled out the preschool version of the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ; Morgan et al., 2009).
Four sets of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted at each age to predict children’s “cognitive/object persistence” and “negative reactions to failure” by either PMGs or PPGs held by parents. As shown in Table 1, Step 1 included a particular goal orientation held by both mothers and fathers. Step 2 added the interaction term of that particular goal orientation from mothers and fathers..
In concordance with our hypotheses, maternal PMGs positively predicted children’s “cognitive/object persistence” at 26 months of age (β=0.30, t[45]=2.13, p<.05). Maternal PPGs positively associated with children’s “negative reactions to failure” at 37 months of age (β=0.47, t[27]=2.62, p<.05) as well as at 26 months of age provided that paternal PPGs were low (β=0.48, t[45]=2.41, p<.05), see Figure 1.

In conclusion, this study indicated that different functions of maternal and paternal achievement goal orientations are already present in preschool period. The relation between parental achievement goal orientations and adolescent maladaptive academic responses such as self-handicapping may have its roots in early childhood. The similarities and differences of the impacts of PMGs and PPGs on preschoolers and adolescents were also discussed.

Authors

• Keng-Ling Lay, National Taiwan University
  Presenting Author

• Che Cheng, National Taiwan University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Su-Ying Huang, Fu Jen Catholic University
  Non-Presenting Author