Student motivation is one of the affective factors in learning. It usually reflects student attitudes toward learning, and is a good indicator of students' academic achievement. There are many factors that influence student motivation to achieve posit...
Student motivation is one of the affective factors in learning. It usually reflects student attitudes toward learning, and is a good indicator of students' academic achievement. There are many factors that influence student motivation to achieve positive academic outcomes. In particular, parents involvement in their children's education has been widely recognized as one of the most influential factors on students' motivation to achieve positive academic outcomes. This parents' practices of involvement in education are also very closely related to their children's cognitive and affective development, and have significant impacts to improve their children's motivation in academic success (Epstein, 1991). Korean parents' zeal for the education of their children is very well known. Therefore, it is meaningful to take an investigation on this topic with the sample of Korean parents and students.
Considerable research has suggested that parent involvement in education tends to echo family backgrounds (Lareau, 1987; Keith et al., 1993). Parents of higher socioeconomic status (SES) are more involved in their children's education with enough human resources and economic resources comparing to those of lower SES. In other words, parents of low SES can't support their children's education as much as they want not because they are not interested in their children's education, but because they do not have enough resources to support it. This discrepancy of capable resources also influences individual's affective development.
The discrepancy of quality and quantity of educational resources affect students' affective development. Students tend to limit their educational goals according to the educational resources they can receive. Accordingly, those who do not have enough educational resources appear to be less motivated in academic achievement.
The previous study suggests that parents involvement in their children's education is strongly correlated with students' motivation in learning (Fan & Chen, 2001). However, it has been studied mainly with the sample of elementary school students, and parenting itself rather than various aspects of parents' involvement in education. Korean parents practices of involvement in their children's education usually aims successful academic outcomes of their children. In this sense, it is worth studying the relation between Korean parents involvement in their children's education and their motivation for academic achievement.
From this point of view, I propose in this paper to critically examine how family backgrounds - upper, middle, and lower socioeconomic status - influences parent involvement in education, how this involvement affects high school students' motivation in learning, and if there is any dynamic interplay of them.
The research questions are as followed: First, how socioeconomic status influences parent involvement in education. Second, how parent involvement in education affects high school students' motivation in learning. Third, if high school students' study motivation reflects their socioeconomic status. Lastly, if socioeconomic status makes discrepancy of high school students' study motivation, and if so, parent involvement in learning mediates the relations between those factors.
This paper analyzes survey data on the research questions of high school students enrolled in 5 general and 2 specialized high schools in Seoul. 1020 survey questionnaires were initially distributed, but 906 survey questionnaires of them were obtained in the analyses. T-test, F-test, One way analysis of variance, Scheffe, Nested Design, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used in data analyses.
Results indicate that first, socioeconomic status makes differences in parent involvement in their children's education. Parents from households upper in socioeconomic status appear to be most involved in their children's education, followed by parents of middle and lower socioeconomic status, respectively. This appears in various areas of involvement consisting of the emotional involvement, time-intelligence involvement and financial involvement.
Second, parent involvement in education has a significant impact on study motivation of high school students. All of parents emotional involvement, time-intelligence involvement and financial involvement show to affect study motivation. In particular, self efficacy which is one of the components of study motivation is most strongly influenced by parents involvement.
Third, socioeconomic status makes differences in study motivation. The students of high SES have the highest academic self-efficacy and achievement goal. These are followed by those of middle and low socioeconomic status, respectively. Interestingly enough, the differences between the middle and the low class are significant, and between the high and the low class, but the differences between the high and the middle class are not significant.
Fourth, some of the association between students' motivation for academic success and their socioeconomic status is probably attributable to different levels of parental involvement in education. The results show that there are differences in study motivation even in the same social class depending on the involvement of the parents. In the case of students of a high SES, the students with parents involvement show high study motivation, and those without parent involvement present low study motivation. In addition, students of a middle SES appear to have higher study motivation with parents involvement than those of a high SES without parent involvement.
Fifth, the student's father's educational background appears to be the most influential factors on student's educational self-efficacy. The student's academic self-efficacy turn out to be higher as their father has a higher educational backgrounds, and becomes more affectively involved with them. Also, academic purpose is impacted by the family incomes. As parents are more affectively involved with their children, and financially more supportive, the children tend to have high academic goals.
This study has provided evidence of the followings: First, according to the Nested Design, parent involvement is the most powerful factor that influences student's motivation for academic achievement. This results suggest that parent involvement in education of their own children can be independent of parents' socioeconomic resources such as financial status and their educational backgrounds. Therefore, educational policy and programs that make parents get involved in education of their children are in needs, and it would ultimately mitigate educational inequality.
Second, the results show that there is a discrepancy of students' motivation in learning depending on the socioeconomic status. However, according to the Nested Design, students of a low SES show high motivation in learning if their parents are actively involved in the children's education. If we do more research on this group of people, we can have more practically helpful guidance for those parents who have lack of educational resources to support their children.