Author: Tahany Alnafea
Alnafea, Tahany, 2017 The Role of Mothers’ Parenting Styles on Self-Regulated Academic Learning among Saudi Students in Primary Schools, Flinders University, School of Education
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Much of the research on self-regulation has investigated factors of school settings. However, fewer studies have concentrated on the home environment and its influence on student’s academic behaviour and achievement in school. The present research investigated the influence of mothers’ parenting styles on the extent of students’ use of self-regulation strategies in their learning and on student achievement. The research included 351 primary students (11 and 12 years-old) with their mothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This project based on testing the proposition that differences in parenting styles, specifically in whether parents adopt authoritarian, authoritative or permissive practices, influence the extent to which students spontaneously but differentially implement self-regulatory strategies (task value, self-efficacy, cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, metacognitive self-regulation, time and study management, help seeking). The research was conducted using a cross-sectional survey design in which mothers were asked to complete a parenting styles questionnaire (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, Hart, 1995) and their children complete a modified form of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The quantitative data was analysed using SPSS, and Independent Samples t-test, Regression Model, and ANOVA were performed to find relationships between the investigated variables. Results showed that the mothers tend to be authoritative and there was no significant difference found in parenting style by child gender.
Results also revealed that authoritative styles were significantly and positively related to students’ self-efficacy, cognitive and metacognitive strategy use, and study and time management, whereas permissive styles were significantly but negatively correlated to self-efficacy and metacognitive self-regulation. Authoritarian styles had no significant relationship with any of the self-regulated learning factors. Child gender in self-regulated learning was also tested and there were significant differences found as girls appeared to score themselves higher than boys in all components of self-regulated learning. Finally, the study showed that self-regulated learning significantly predicted students’ achievement, while parenting styles factors were found to be non-significant predictors. It also revealed that there was no significant difference between males and females in academic achievement. The thesis justifies the current research, summarises relevant literature, outlines the data collection and analysis methods, presents interpretation of the statistical data, discusses the results, and provides implications for policy and future research.
Keywords: parenting style, self-regulated learning, academic achievement, primary school, Saudi students
Subject: Education thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2017
School: School of Education
Supervisor: David Curtis