Poster #29 - Parental Monitoring and High School Academic Achievement as Antecedents of Educational Attainment and Job Satisfaction

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

Educational attainment and job satisfaction are related to an array of positive outcomes during adulthood, such as happiness and health (De Witte et al., 2016; Kaplan et al., 2017; Nikolaev, 2018). Thus, it is crucial to consider factors that may promote these components of educational success. Parental monitoring is mostly studied as a protective factor for risky behaviors during adolescence (Omer et al., 2016), yet it is also associated with positive educational outcomes. Notably, parental monitoring behaviors are related to higher autonomous school motivation and achievement (Affuso et al., 2022; Cimon-Paquet et al., 2022). In turn, academic achievement during high school is associated with educational success in early adulthood, including higher educational attainment (Galla et al., 2019). Accordingly, the current study examined academic achievement as a potential mediator explaining the links between parental monitoring during adolescence and both educational attainment and job satisfaction during adulthood.

Our sample included 820 adolescents (51% boys, 49% girls) who were part of a larger longitudinal study conducted in Oregon, United States. Among participants, 44.3% identified themselves as European American, 29.4% as African American, 5.7% as Latinos, 5.4% as Asian, 1.6% as Native American, and 13.6% identified as mixed or other. When they were aged 15.5 years (Grade 10), participants completed a parental monitoring scale assessing parental knowledge of their activities and whereabouts. Student’s high school grade point average (HS-GPA) was obtained through school records when they were in Grades 10, 11, and 12, and subsequently averaged to create a cumulative GPA. Finally, educational attainment and job satisfaction were assessed using self-reports when participants were aged 29 years.

A path analysis (see Figure 1) was conducted in Mplus, and revealed an excellent model fit, χ2 (1) = 0.030, p = .86, CFI =1.00, TLI =1.00, RMSEA = .00 [.00−.05], p = .95, SRMR = .001. Controlling for gender and maternal educational attainment, parental monitoring was positively associated with HS-GPA, b = .24, p < .001. In turn, HS-GPA was positively related to educational attainment, b = .54, p < .001, and job satisfaction in adulthood, b = .10, p = .044. Results show that HS-GPA was a significant mediator of the positive relation between parental monitoring and educational attainment, c’ = .126 (.020), p < .001, CI 95% [0.090, 0.168]. HS-GPA also mediated the positive association between parental monitoring and job satisfaction during adulthood, although marginally, c’ = 0.024 (.012), p = .052, CI 90% [0.005, 0.045].

Our results suggest that parental monitoring during adolescence can promote higher educational attainment and job satisfaction during adulthood, and that these links are partly explained by higher academic achievement during high school. Thus, parenting interventions aiming to increase monitoring behaviors could not only contribute to preventing risky behaviors during adolescence, but also have long-lasting benefits on youth educational pathways.

Authors

• Catherine Cimon-Paquet, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)
  Presenting Author

• Marie-Helene Veronneau

• Thao Ha, Arizona State University

• Thomas J Dishion