The purpose of the present study was to test the mediating effect of achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy which are psychological variables in the relationship between family structure(single parent family or both parents family) and high...
The purpose of the present study was to test the mediating effect of achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy which are psychological variables in the relationship between family structure(single parent family or both parents family) and high school students’ academic achievements. Furthermore, it was investigated whether student's optimism/pessimism, has a moderating effect in this mediating pass model. Data were collected from 981 high school students(476 males, 505 females; 888 both parents family, 93 single parent family) who completed Achievement Motivation Scale, Academic Self-efficacy Scale, Life Orientation Test. For analyses, the structural equation model for goodness of fit and multiple sample analysis, which allows testing whether a pattern of relationship is invariant across different samples, were used. The results follow. First, it was revealed that achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy completely mediate in the process which family structure influences academic achievement. This shows that family structure affects achievement motivation, achievement motivation affects academic self-efficacy, and finally academic self-efficacy affects academic achievement. Second, while optimism did not have any moderating effects, pessimism moderated only the pathway between achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy. These results suggest that for preventing the decline of students' academic achievements in one parent families, it is needed to enhance achievement motivation and academic self-efficacy and to reduce their pessimism as risk variable through educational counseling.