Parental Role in Academic Achievement within a Specific Cultural Context

Abstract

Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory suggested that all human activities should be explored and understood within a socio-cultural context. Using a mixed approach, this study investigated parents' influence on students' cognitive ability and attributions which affected academic achievement within specific cultural contexts of Hong Kong. Parents and students (N = 215) from four primary schools in Hong Kong participated in this study. The schools provided students' school test results in two subjects, mathematics and language, which were taken as measures of the students' academic achievement. Students were administered two measures, one for cognitive ability, Swanson-Cognitive Processing Test (Swanson, 1996) and the other for causal attributions, Causal Attributions Scale Questionnaire (Chan & Moore, 1997). Parents completed a questionnaire, Parents' Attributions and Perception Questionnaire, which profiled their factors in relation to students' achievement. A sub-set of four students and their parents were interviewed using semi-structured method. Obtained data were Rasch analysed and Rasch estimates combined with categorical background data were used for ANOVA, regression analysis and structural equation models (SEM). Directed regression analysis was used to test the hypothesised relationships between parents' factors and students' factors affecting academic achievement in each school group. SEM was used to test the hypothesised relationships between parents' factors and students' factors affecting academic achievement for the whole sample. The comparative patterns of relationships found within and between cases in the interview data were triangulated with the quantitative results to present a holistic view of the context of achievement investigated in this study.