Investigating Associations Between Family Background and Students’ Academic Outcomes: The Role of Parents’ Motivation

Family Background is a crucial factor for the development of students’ motivation and academic achievement (Coleman et al., 1966). Whereas former research mainly focused on structural family characteristics, such as the socioeconomic status (Sirin, 2005), recent research highlighted the importance of more process-related family characteristics for students’ academic outcomes (Eccles, 2007; Lazarides, Harackiewicz, Canning, Pesu, & Viljaranta, 2015). Of the various process-related family characteristics investigated, parents’ motivation seems to be especially important for the development of student motivation (Lazarides et al., 2015). However, a number of questions with regards to the importance multiple family characteristics still remained unanswered. The present dissertation consists of three empirical studies investigating the associations between structural and process-related family characteristics with students’ academic motivation and achievement. In addition, a specific focus is put on the mostly understudied motivational family characteristics (i.e., parents’ own motivation). Applying a multidimensional, process-related approach of family background, the dissertation focuses on three questions: (1) how the interplay of multiple process-related family characteristics are associated with students’ outcomes next to structural family characteristics; (2) how parent and student motivation are bidirectional related and how they affect students’ career paths, (3) how motivational gaps between students from families with more and less advantageous motivational family characteristics can be counteracted. Investigating the interplay of multiple process-related family characteristics and their associations with student motivation and achievement, Study 1 applied a personcentered approach. Using data of 1,571 ninth-grade students of 82 classrooms of 25 academic track schools and their parents, latent profile analyses considering parents’ motivation, child’s need for support, academic involvement, parent-child relationship, and parents’ time and energy, identified five profiles of family characteristics: indifferent, motivated and engaged, motivated and disengaged, involved, and average families. The results indicated that students from families classified as motivated and engaged and motivated and disengaged showed higher initial levels of motivation and achievement and higher achievement and grades over five months compared to students from average families. By contrast, students from involved families (characterized by medium motivation but high involvement), got worse grades than students from motivated and disengaged families. Due to the particular importance of parents’ motivation, Study 2 investigated interrelations between parents’ and students’ motivational beliefs (utility value and ability beliefs), and their associations with students’ courses taken, achievement, and career aspirations from middle school through college. The results of path analyses of 301 families indicated that mothers’ perceptions of students’ ability in 7 grade predicted students’ motivational beliefs, course-taking, and achievement in high school. Students’ achievement during 10 grade predicted mothers’ value beliefs in high school. Finally, mothers’ value beliefs even predicted students’ future motivation, course-taking, and career aspirations in college—over and above what was predicted by students’ motivational beliefs, course-taking, and achievement in high school. Based on the substantial associations of parents’ motivational beliefs with students’ academic outcomes, Study 3 examined whether motivational interventions can be used as a tool to counteract motivational gaps between students from distinct family backgrounds (socioeconomic status and motivational family characteristics). Eighty-two classrooms were randomly assigned to either one of two intervention conditions or a control group. Using data of 1,522 students and their parents, differential intervention effects depending on family background on students’ motivational beliefs six weeks and five months after the intervention were investigated. The intervention was especially effective in promoting students’ value beliefs for students whose parents reported lower levels of interest and intrinsic value five months after the intervention. No differential intervention effects were found for socioeconomic status. Then, the findings of the three empirical studies are summarized and discussed in relation to the broader current state of research. In the end, implications for future research and educational practice and policy are derived.