Validation of a Self-Report Scale on Parents' Process and Person Response to Children's Math Learning

• In Event: The Quality of Parental Involvement in Children’s Schooling: Considering Measures and Outcomes

Abstract

Parents’ heightened use of person praise, which focuses on ability (e.g., “You are smart”), predicts dampened motivation among children over time (Pomerantz & Kempner, 2013). In contrast, parents’ heightened use of process praise, which focuses on effort and strategies (e.g., “You worked hard”), predicts enhanced motivation and achievement among children over time (Gunderson et al. 2013, 2018). These findings, however, are limited by their reliance on daily checklists and behavioral observations, which, given their time-consuming nature, yield small and selective samples. Because children’s failure is infrequent, such methods also make it difficult to study whether parents’ responses to failure are important.

To address these issues, we created a self-report instrument for parents to report on their person and process responses to children’s performance in a math context, which tends to be viewed as relatively fixed (Leslie et al., 2015). We first examined whether a distinction can be made between person and process responses and whether the distinction cuts across success and failure. Second, we investigated if parents’ responses are embedded in a supporting belief system (e.g., person responses covary with a fixed mindset). Third, we evaluated the predictive significance of parents’ responses for children’s math adjustment.

Parents (N = 546; 63% European American) of young elementary school children (Mage = 7.48 years) reported twice over a year on their person and process responses (see Table 1) along with their math growth and failure mindsets (e.g., “No matter how good people are at math, it’s always possible to change their math ability quite a bit” and “The effects of failure in math are positive and should be utilized”). Children reported on their math growth mindsets (e.g., “Your smartness in math is something that stays pretty much the same”) and anxiety (e.g., “How do you feel when you have to sit down and start your math homework”). Children’s math challenge avoidance was assessed with a behavioral choice task; their math achievement was assessed with the Woodcock Johnson applied quantitative problems scale.

Exploratory factor analysis yielded four factors indicating a distinction between person and process responses as well as success and failure (see Table 1). Parents’ person responses were negatively correlated with growth, rs ≤ -.08, ps ≤.05, and failure, rs ≤ -.14, ps < .001, mindsets. Conversely, parents’ process responses were positively correlated with growth mindsets, rs > .10, ps <.05. Regression analyses predicting children’s math adjustment over time from parents’ responses, controlling for children’s earlier math adjustment as well as parents’ educational attainment and their gender, revealed that the more parents used person responses for both success and failure, the greater children’s math anxiety and challenge avoidance, and the lower their math achievement a year later. Parents’ process responses were not predictive of children’s math adjustment.

In sum, parents can distinguish between person and process responses to children’s math performance in their reports, which appear to be embedded in a consistent math belief system. Notably, parents’ reports of their person responses predict children’s math adjustment over time.

Authors

• Yu Xiong, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Michael Barger, University of Georgia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dajung Oh, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrei Cimpian, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eva Pomerantz, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author