Parental Involvement in Predicting School Motivation: Similar and Differential Effects Across Ethnic Groups

The authors investigated how different dimensions of parental involvement similarly or differentially linked to various constructs of school motivation (academic self-efficacy in mathematics and English, intrinsic motivation toward mathematics and English, and engagement) across ethnic groups of Caucasian, African American, Asian American, and Hispanic students. The structural equation modeling analyses revealed the existence of ethnic differences by providing evidence that (a) parental advising and parent–school communication concerning benign school issues were positively related to Hispanic students’ intrinsic motivation toward English and academic self-efficacy in English, but negatively related to Asian American students’ mathematics intrinsic motivation and/or mathematics self-efficacy; and (b) parental participation in school functions sporadically affected the school motivational constructs for only Caucasian and African American students. Despite the ethnic differences, similar findings across ethnic groups were also noted. Generally, results showed that parental aspiration for children's education positively related to student school motivational constructs, whereas school–parent communication regarding student school problems negatively predicted student school motivational constructs across ethnic groups.