The Maternal Factors Effecting Cognitive Engagement During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Path Analysis.

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic as a worldwide traumatic event negatively affects parenting practices (Chung, Lanier, & Wong, 2020), which likely to have effect on child outcomes. The negative experience of the pandemic such as stress and anxiety based on fear of infection and loss of a family member may lead to engage in more controlling behaviors and non-autonomy supporting parenting towards the children. The disease-induced closure of the schools has been compensated through online education. The mothers have taken an active role to monitor and encourage their children in studying during distance education period, which may increase maternal performance pressure on the children.
Self-Determination Theory emphasizes autonomy-supporting parenting to promote children’s self-regulating behaviors in all domains such as school (Deci & Ryan, 2000). However, psychological control or low autonomy support of the parents, especially maternal psychological control is negatively associated with self-regulated learning or cognitive engagement (Deci, Driver, Hotchkiss, Robbins, & Wilson, 1993; Grijalva-Quiñonez, Valdés-Cuervo, Parra-Pérez, & GarcíaVázqueza, 2020; Lee & Kwon, 2012; Lee et al., 2016). Therefore, in the current study, the relationship of the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of the mothers and cognitive engagement of the children through perceived maternal psychological control and performance pressure will be examined in Turkish mother-child dyads (see Figure 1). The pandemic experiences of the mothers would increase psychological control and performance pressure toward their children, and then non-autonomy supporting parenting would decrease the children’s cognitive engagement. The experiences of distance education would also negatively affect the children’s cognitive engagement. Moreover, the moderation effect of the children’s sensitivity temperament on the relationship of psychological control and performance pressure with cognitive engagement will be examined. The negative effects of maternal psychological control and performance pressure on cognitive engagement would be stronger for sensitive children.
The study includes two time points. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19, the data of Time 1 were collected from Turkish mothers and their children as a part of an ongoing project. Time 2 data will be collected in October-December 2020 as online or phone calls from 385 mother-child dyads. The questions related to distance education experiences of the children (i.e. difficulty in access and in paying attention to online education) written by research team, a Turkish adapted version of Parental Psychological Control Scale (Sayıl et. al., 2012), Performance Pressure Scale (Mageau et. al., 2015) and School Engagement Scale (Fredericks, Blumenfeld, Friedel, & Paris, 2005) would be given to the children at Time 2. The COVID-19 pandemic experiences of the mothers (i.e. fear of being infect, to be infected, loss of life and a family member) would be asked to the mothers. Time 1 assessments (i.e. maternal psychological control, performance pressure, and cognitive engagement) would be controlled.
The proposed model would be analyzed as Structural Equation Modeling through AMOS 23 on SPSS. The study would contribute the literature to understand individual and parental factors in affecting cognitive engagement of the children during the pandemic.

Authors

• EZGİ AYDOĞDU, Middle East Technical University)
  Presenting Author

• Sibel KazakBerument, Middle East Technical University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Aysun Dogan, Ege University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Basak Sahin-Acar, Middle East Technical University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deniz Tahiroglu, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (BOUN)
  Non-Presenting Author