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Department

Psychology

Disciplines

Educational Psychology

Abstract

Empirical studies suggest a link between parental involvement and their child’s motivation in elementary, middle and high school. Considering the large body of research on this topic in younger age groups, my project focuses on whether parental factors still influence students’ academic motivation in college. Students from various majors, attending a university in the northwestern region of the United States, completed a questionnaire concerning their parents’ level of involvement during their middle and high school years, as well as during their college education. The questionnaire consisted of multiple scales focusing on the student’s perceptions of their academic competence and their perceptions of their autonomy within academia. Students were also asked about their perceptions of their parents’ attitudes toward their present and future educational achievements and reasoning for attending college. Contrary to other studies, intrinsic motivation was not related to encouragement however, was related to perception of intelligence. Surprisingly, both encouragement and perceptions of intelligence was related to extrinsic motivation. Both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation were related to high perceptions of autonomy and perceived competence

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Faculty Mentor

Dr. Jennifer Weaver